Today’s Vintage Photo Tuesday is focusing on Toronto Life in the 1940’s & 1950’s, specifically the meetings, committees and clubs that gathered there.
Let’s begin!
Vintage Photos of Toronto Meetings, Committees & Clubs
1940s & 1950s
Tall men in front of the bar, short men behind it. 1956 National Cash Register Rod & Gun tour of O’Keefe’s Pub, Toronto.
Russell Spanner (centre) & Friends at Club Norman around 1951. Russell was a 1950’s Space Age Furniture designer in Toronto. Stay tuned on a future post all about his designs.
Toronto Symphony Women’s Committee ca 1945.
Walsh Advertising-1950’s Creative Art Meeting for what appears to be for a car.
Vickers & Benson Advertising conducting a meeting at the Club One Two in the 1950’s (maybe about their competition above??).
Another advertising meeting but this time at the famous O’Keefe’s Pub (this pub was clearly popular in the 1950’s with the working set). What do you think is happening in this photo? Did Esther’s work get chosen?
1956- a reception for the Canadian Olympic Team and members of the Canadian Olympic Association in the office of City of Toronto Mayor Nathan Phillips.
Go Meteor Now! 1956 Meeting at the Historical Royal York Hotel for Ford’s the “Meteor” automobile.
Shell sales meeting at the King Edward Hotel-1950’s. Complete with a showgirl handing out gifts and drunken sing-a-longs.
Hope you enjoyed this week’s Vintage Photo Tuesday! Share your favourite photo in the comments section below.
“Yes, we’re gonna have a subway in Toronto; we’ve got to get the working man home pronto…”
“Canada’s First Subway” was completed in Toronto in 1954, after 4 long years of construction. The cost for that groundbreaking transit system was around $60 million (source).
It was an immediate hit with the people; 250,000 rode it on the first day. Its opening established it as an icon for the booming economy that lay ahead for post-war Toronto (source).
Now if you have been following my blog for some time you know that I have a thing for fun history and sometimes history that is a bit kitschy and there is nothing more kitschy then a song written about the making of the Toronto Subway.
**Originally recorded in 1950, the Toronto Subway Song was written by Mel Hamill. Betty Carr and Charles Baldour performed the vocals, backed by the Ozzie Williams Band (Source).
**When the Toronto Subway Song‘s singers mention “bearing the noise” and the inconvenience caused by construction, they weren’t exaggerating. As crews were excavating one downtown section, for instance, they ran into solid rock that stretched from Front Street to Queen Street. This meant that for much of the excavation period, workers had to use dynamite twice each day — at noon and at 4:30 p.m. — which caused quite a noise disturbance for the city (Source).
Can’t hear the song? Here are the words:
Now have you heard what’s going on in Toronto? They’re digging deeper, deeper, deeper every day. Though proprietors are raving while they’re tearing up the paving, The racket is nerve-wracking, so they say. And though the noise may be distressing, so construction is progressing, And we can’t afford a further delay So with the help of you and me and the blessed T.T.C. We’ll soon have a real subway.
CHORUS: Yes, we’re gonna have a subway in Toronto. We gotta get the working man home pronto. So bear the noise with a smile and in a little while We’ll be riding in a new subway.
Now it’s generally conceded that a subway here is needed For the people have to get to work each day. We have men in Deseronto, girls who live in North Toronto And to all of them we have just this to say: Modern history’s in the making with this hallowed undertaking And Rome wasn’t built in a day. You may find it’s aggravating, but be sure it’s worth the waiting For we’ll soon have a real subway.
Now with modern engineering dear old Yonge Street’s disappearing By the truckload they are hauling it away (INTERJECTION: Stay away!) Excavation so extensive will doubtless be expensive But who cares about expenses anyway? (INTERJECTION: anyway) Though we may have open Sundays there are plenty of blue Mondays When the pile drivers start every day The workmen do the swearing while the public do the staring And we’ll soon have a real subway. (INTERJECTION: Yes, sir!)
Repeat CHORUS, then: Don’t take the streetcar, Riding in a new subway!
To end this post I will leave you with a poem which was written about the bystanders who watched this historic subway being built.