The Greek Theatre at Guild Park & Gardens, built from remnants of the old Bank of Toronto Building, demolished in 1966

By the time I came to Toronto in 1968, there had already been a significant demolition of late-19^th and early-20^th century architecture, especially in the downtown area. From the late-1950s and into the 1960s, the inevitable growth of the city and the desire for new development which continues to this day, came at the cost of erasing much of Toronto’s first century as an incorporated city.

Although I was too late to see many of the grand buildings that once graced this city I call home, I can still visit remnants of Toronto’s old architecture scattered like puzzle pieces throughout the landscape of the Guild Park and Gardens, and imagine what it might have been like to walk the streets of Toronto when theses stones belonged to magnificent buildings.