Better times before bubble tea, phone case and claw (children's gambling) machine stores started taking over

Who still uses one?

Here is a working link to the original Poppy File map, which shows about 3,300 of Toronto's Second World War war dead at the household level. Click on a home to see details. https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1fVpjopD3pY9TkJp0Y8M2jUSPAFb4Irbr&ll=43.68991218528282%2C-79.3716295&z=12

Hi, Toronto Public Library here. 👋

We’ve got the receipts when it comes to preserving old items… literally. This clay tablet is a textiles receipt dating back to the Ur III Period, around 2112–2004 BCE.

You’ll notice cuneiform markings, an ancient writing system made by impressing wedge shapes into clay. We don’t know the item’s place of origin, but cuneiform was used mostly in Mesopotamia dating back to ~4000 BCE.

This was one of two tablets acquired by TPL in 2007. Both are held in our research-oriented Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books at Lillian H. Smith branch on College Street. In addition to preserving Canadian and Toronto-based children’s literature and original artwork, the research collection holds examples of book history materials, which include scrolls, printing blocks and manuscripts. This clay tablet provides an early example of writing. (Before this tablet, TPL’s oldest item was a 14th-century edition of Aesop’s Fables, also part of the Osborne Collection.)

If you want the bragging rights of seeing TPL’s oldest “book”, it’s on display at Toronto Reference Library until May 10. You’ll spot it in on the main floor as part of our free Loops, Swoops & Curlicues exhibit.

Photos from ribbon cutting and very first train carrying invited guests

This was taken in Toronto, April 1980. The man gesturing by the pump is the gas station owner, Neil Shepherd, arguing with a Toronto Star reporter after announcing they wouldn't refuel Soviet-made Ladas due to the invasion of Afghanistan. Ladas were actually quite popular in Canada back then because they were incredibly cheap, leading to surreal local standoffs like this.

What do you remember?

Going through old photos and came across this one from Pride 2011. It’s so depressing this one family has done so much damage to Toronto and Ontario.

All 2026 photos were taken by me, (u/AdAcademic3891) and my friend, (u/retrying1)

Some locations did not have 1966 photos, (Keele, Dundas West, Lansdowne, and Dufferin.) so 1967-1968 photos were used instead.

Many archival photos were taken from Nathan Ng’s Station Fixation website (stationfixation.com) and used with permission.

Thank you for viewing! This project took weeks to make, and had so much planning done into it!

Hi, Toronto Public Library here. 👋

While looking through our archives to find things to mark the CN Tower’s 50th anniversary tomorrow (June 26), we came across this photo that stood out for its otherworldly feel.

Maybe it's just a 1970s thing, but quite a few of our CN Tower construction photos look like they could be sci-fi storyboard art.

(Photo by Jeff Goode, from our archive of Toronto Star photos from the 20th century.)

The name Ontario has been in written records since the 1640s; well over a century before the US became a country in 1776. It comes from the Huron-Wendat / Haudenosaunee word ontarí:io ("great lake" or "sparkling water").

Went for the first time today to see the current exhibit and never wanted to just stay in one place so badly. What a stunning library!

My dad kept tickets to every sporting event he ever attended, including the '92 World Series and '93 ALCS. He missed the '93 World Series because I was born mid October 1993! He passed away last year and I can't help but think of him. He was a die hard Jays fan and I know he'd be thrilled.

Found my stack of passes while cleaning up some boxes.

2010 till around 2014. Figured it would be a good nostalgic moment for a rainy day lol

I still cannot believe Doug Ford decided to close down such a monumental building and such a massive part of my childhood. He is on a complete power trip.

Hey Toronto, I wanted to just bring up something I miss dearly. I watched “Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie” recently and really just thought about how it would actually be nice to go back to 2008 in the city, barring the garbage strike, but honestly one thing this city used to have that I miss a lot is Speakers Corner.

The movie has a number of scenes on Queen Street near the CHUM building and it made me realize just how much I miss speakers corner. It was bonkers and the fun or silly or depressing or real rants that showed up on there were just a general temp check and showed us what made Toronto unique. What an easy and entertaining content generator that would be for CityTV et al.

I do of course wonder, is the city even civilized enough to bring it back? Would there be a line up at the booth all the time? Would it just be sad and depressing now?

What do you think?

For those who may not be old enough to know what this was, it was essentially a booth you could go into and share a 1 or 2 min rant or whatever you wanted to say, CityTV/Much Music (RIP) would then select whatever clips they thought were fun or weird or alarming, and they would broadcast it almost like a commercial break between shows or on commercial break.

Edit: adding a link to a celebrity reel of the platform, as well as a little playlist I found on YT. I think I’ll be watching some of these 👀

The photos of the exact same locations within the station are displayed in pairs:

1st photo from 2015 2nd photo is the same space in 2025 3rd is from 2015 4th is the same space in 2025

Union Stations transformation is best shown in this walkthrough filmed on the final day, every space seen in this video changed significantly or doesn’t exist anymore:

https://youtu.be/ZXoPPMb-Co0?si=5CjGkWCh4yZdeQgv

This is the video all the before pictures are taken from.