So much more space in the city back then. Look at the City Hall photo (at 4:50) - there's so much sky around it - and you don't need to look straight up to see it!! Great pics - thanks for the look back into those years... Maybe no time is purely magical, but those 70's years in Toronto came pretty close...
I remember Ton o' rot's Bay Street's endlessness in giant car parks yet a filmed coach ride up it sometime during the past nine months showed all if not most of those tracts as being developed yet still NO character whatsoever! .. queerly telling, Canadia/en/nes not minding cleptoparasitically corporate barons crookedly in their midsts...
@@adamcrawford3297 When I moved into a bachelor apartment at Yonge & Eglinton in 1976, I paid about $240 per month, including central heating in winter and air-conditioning in summer. When I left Canada in 1995, the rent had gone up to over $600. Recently, I checked the rent for a bachelor apartment at the same, renovated apartment block. I was SHOCKED to learn that the rent is now over $2000 - no extras included! How can anyone afford such outrageous rents unless they have a permanent, well-paying job?
Safe? A little boy (Emanuel Jaques) was unalived downtown on Yonge Street. Downtown Toronto used to be very unsafe and seedy back in the 70s. Lots of seedy, illegal activity there
Thanks to Premier Bill Davis and a PC party that actually governed for the benefit of everyone, instead of being just a collection of vindictive wingnuts in the pockets of wealthy developers.
Hmmm 🤔. Have you looked south of border in the United States lately .. A man called Trump threatens to take over DC. I have empathy for you north of the border with us.
I was 12 yrs old in 1978. I remember T.O. back then...a magical era for a kid to be there. As a young adult, in the mid to late 80's...every Friday night, go for dinner with my girlfriend (at the time...now my wife...34 years, today, as a matter of fact) Mr. Greenjeans at the Eaton's Center...then cruise up and down Yonge Street... Best time to be a kid, was back then. Thanks for sharing this great compilation of timeless photography!
Oh yeah baby! That was livin' large in the 80s. I did the very same thing with my (then) girlfriend, (now) my wife of 33 years. Life seemed more straight-forward then, with BS you could predict and eventually avoid. Mr. Greenjeans was an awesome place, and then the cruise up Yonge from Harbourfront to Steeles, that was magical. All the best my Homie.
Yeah me too . Born in ‘66. Went to school downtown for years, grades 3,4 and 5. Really learned my way around. Went into the Easton’s Centre first day it was opened after school, watched the hole in the ground for a few years getting off the subway at Dundas or queen.
@@davidmulhall2710 I was also born in 66, lived in Toronto for my 5th grade year (76/77) attending Brown Elementary on Avenue road, south of St. Clair. My teacher was Mr. Freestone. I was an American from Los Angeles, and it was great living in an eastern city with seasons, and an urban center that was clean and safe. I remember Brown Elementary had an 'unofficial' open campus, and a lunch period that was an hour and twenty minutes. I'd take the TTC anywhere in the city (usually down to the harbor and train yards). My Dad would take me to the Organ Grinder for pizza on special occasions. When I married my wife in 1999, Toronto was our honeymoon destination.
Toronto was the greatest big city in the world to live in at that time. We here in Hamilton wanted to be like Toronto back then . We don't want to be like Toronto anymore.
I grew up in Hamilton at the same time and no one ever wished we could be like Toronto. I’ve lived in Ottawa for the last 25 years and I wish it was more like Hamilton.
Same here! I lived at Yonge & Eglinton from the 1970s to 1995. I didn't know that they were "The Golden Years"! I wonder whether Frans Restaurant & Coffee Shop is still there. (I used to enjoy having breakfast there on Sunday morning.)
@@j.g.8494 I used to visit my Aunt, who was attending UofT in the late 70s, early 80s. I remember Frans Restaurant, we went there for breakfast as well. I lived in Toronto for about 15 years, I moved about nine years ago. I remember the (awesome) Famous Players theater on Young & Eglinton, it had only two theaters, one downstairs, one upstairs. I saw The Empire Strikes back there in 1980 and again in 1998 when the original Star Wars trilogy was re-released in theaters. It's gone, replaced by a new Famous Players multiplex. Maple Leaf Gardens, gone ... Sam the Record Man, gone ...
Good to hear from you. You've got me by 2 years. Golden years is damn straight. You may remember going to The Bandshell at the CNE and seeing incredible bands. For free. Carry on MacDuff. Even better --- The golden age of Ontario Place.
Great photos. Moved to Toronto in June 1979 at 18 years old and got my first apartment. It was a bachelor apartment and the rent was only $200 bucks a month. First full time job, had no car but life was great, on my own in the big city.
I lived in a bachelor apartment at Yonge & Eglinton from December 1976 to March 1995. When I moved in, in 1976, I was paying about $240 monthly, including water & electricity and heating in winter & air conditioning in summer. When I left, I was paying over $600. A few months ago, I checked the prices of the same kind of apartment in the renovated block where I used to live. Guess what the monthly rent is? $2,400! (extras NOT included). OUTRAGEOUS! Can someone living in Toronto in 2024 explain to me how a single person manages to pay such high rents and survive in Toronto?
Very similar experience. my first apartment was a bachelor apt. at Yonge * Eg. with no car and the subway close by. It was so much fun to be young and independent in the big city. I didn't have a lot but it was such a happy time in my life.
@@user-conservative-wasp So true the women were great , many white blondes , now too many brown ladies .Before the blacks came up from the Caribbean and turned Toronto into a killing patch .
Exactly this year I lived in Toronto for a year as a babysitter (1978 I was 18).... from Switzerland .. thank you I love these pictures, memories come up 😍🤩
The best decades of the second half of the 20th century were the Fabulous Fifties & the Swinging Sixties - a time of great prosperity & optimism about the future - not to mention the carefree times
I absolutely loved Toronto in the late 70s in 1980s, it was just a wonderful city to be in , and Canada could be so proud of it, I was back there for two weeks last year and walking around and I felt like I didn’t even belong there anymore , Just couldn’t relate to anybody on the streets or anything. It was just so bizarre, it was like I just don’t belong there. Oh well.
If I may ask, where do you live? Can't blame you for not wanting to come back to Toronto. I myself prefer to drive most places by car because it just doesn't feel safe anymore.
I lived part-time downtown in the late 70s as a kid. Time with mom who lived on St. Joseph St and time with dad who lived uptown. I can assure you that Yonge St from Queen to Bloor was a shithole. There was rampant drug use, dealing, violent crime, perverts, and hookers. And remember the sex-murder of Emanuel Jaques? The 70s were anything but good around there. The city is MUCH bigger now and we have a leftist mayor who won’t fix anything that the previous so-called conservative mayor effed up. But Bloor to Queen’s Yonge St’s biggest fault today is that it’s just dull and kind of dumpy. Other parts of the city have more to offer-Greektown, The Beach, The Annex, Queen West, the list goes on. It’s laughable to pine for the 70s. Though I get most people recall the good times no matter what.
Thanks for the memories MM. A better time in Toronto history to be sure. Just make your videos much longer, I am waiting for your next series of videos from '79 to '83.
In the fall of 1978, about 60 high school seniors ( including myself) boarded 2 buses from the finger lakes area of NYS and headed to Toronto. I will never forget my senior trip. No one needed a passport, we did have to have a birth certificate, but no one's was ever even looked at. 3 nights of just an amazing time to be a kid from a small town. Only had to be 18 to drink, we were able to pretty much do almost anything we wanted. What a blast it was. I can remember we all went to Ed's for dinner one night
@Logan-py8we If I gave you an acronym from a place in my country, I highly doubt you would get it. I never heard NYS and it didn't register. Nobody says CS meaning California State, or TS meaning Texas State, etc., hence my confusion. Some people have tunnel vision and think everyone in the world must know everything about America - geez
Nobody loves Toronto anymore. The city we knew is gone and will never be the same again. Everything that was enjoyable was taken away from us. Including the best restaurants and movie theatres. We had live entertainment on the streets that were fun to watch and now its just borining.
@@jenniferdarline It was politics. They changed the laws for street ventors. Street ventors needed a permit to sell on the street and it was un affordable for them so they have to give that up. As for the street entertainment, im not sure what happened with that. The restaurants are now catered to the immigrants and to the rich. For the regular folks, like me, there are the fast food and franchise restaurants which after a while get boring since its the same menue everywhere now. The politicians wanted Toronto to be rich and glamorous so they got rid of the old and put in the new (buildings) again, for the rich. Toronto was for everyone of all cultures and ages. Now its for the rich/immigrants. This is why they keep coming. Mind you, the immigrants come here have been lied to. Canada isnt what was sold to them. I know this because the immigrants have told me and some want to leave. I wont go to Toronto anymore. My entire family, aunts, uncles, cousins, my mother and all my children (adults) have left and won't return. In the 1980's there were dancing clubs, amazing restaurants, lots to choose from, all non franchised, personally owned, fun, romantic, any mood you were in, had great food. Canada is no longer Canada. Toronto is not Toronto.
@@jenniferdarlineI was born in Toronto in the 40’s. It was the most wonderful city, so safe and clean. A lot of farm land still close to the city, with orchards and wild flowers growing abundantly. It’s been a gradual decline but what we’re seeing now, is a total rejection of our Christian values, which this country was founded on, to pagan values, i.e., do your own thing, don’t be responsible. It’s a plan by psychotic, control freaks to destroy us from within and take over the world. The One World Government is “The Beast” that is mentioned in the Bible. Without the base of Christianity to hold us to account, we will fall. People who scorn Christianity, have benefited greatly from that very benevolent system, and while certainly not perfect, it is unlike any other. That’s the real reason they’re burning churches. I was so lucky to live in Canada during those years, and I’m sorry for the children of today.
Good old days. Skipping off school and going to the arcades on Younge and Dundas. Miss the old Pinball machines The song Eddie Money~I wanna go back popped into my head watching this video.
i grew up 1955-1960 Larkfield Dr in Leaside, then the George S Henry farmhouse 1960-65 Sheppard Ave/Don Mills Rd just before Henry Farms became a subdivision, Mason Blvd 1966-72, Milton Ontario 1972-75 (pop 4500), Edmonton 1975-77, climbing the Hollywood Sign in California in 1978, Utah 1978-80, Young/Eglinton Toronto1980-1991, Utah 1993-2003, Clinton Ontario 2007-2023. This brings back great memories.
Wow, so many memories as a teenager in 1978. Too young for the nightlife, but the Ex, Ontario Place, Edward's Gardens, walking through Yorkville and Yonge/Dundas, taking the ferry to Toronto Island, Organ Grinder restaurant, Ed's restaurant after going to one of the plays or shows at a Mirvish Theatre was exciting. Toronto has changed so much, and not for the better.
Back during a time that if you were new to Canada, you could get a job anywhere doing pretty much anything and be able to afford a place to live, have a car, have a family and a decent life. Crazy how you can't do that no more...
Toronto was just right in 1978 and it didn’t need anymore major new construction. From that point on the economic development focus should have been on improving existing buildings and infrastructure and only adding new when necessary. After the Eaton Centre and the Cadillac Fairview Tower were completed that should have been it for major new development and a historic preservation process should have been implemented so Toronto could retain its soul and its uniqueness. Sadly today it is like any major global city, overwhelming, expensive, and increasingly unfriendly. The city has become too corporate for its own good.
In June 1975, a few months after I had arrived in Toronto, Time magazine had a cover story entitled The Greening of Toronto". "Toronto is the first major North American city to say no to the building boom, and to reject what Marshal McLuhan called "the cult of moreness"!
I miss those days they were the best, as child. Now Toronto has become a mass thiings were simpler then when we had more freedom as torontonians and canadians.
"All gone now." Is it really? I lived in Toronto in the 1970s to 1995. When I watch videos of Toronto in 2024 on TH-cam, it looks more modern and beautiful than ever! What's wrong with Toronto now?
Fabulous. Thank You. I was there then. SAM The Record Man at D&B was my favourite place. Age 20. I was there at The Gardens for Max Webster and RUSH. Max Webster blew Rush off the stage as the first act. Good to see my Toronto.
I used to love Toronto...but in the last 20 years I don't even recognize it. Ford and his developer buddies continue to wreck it with condos and sprawl and they continue to pack more and more into it...bloody shame, no longer "People City" or "Toronto, the city that works"...those sayings died in 2000. You can vote for whoever you want, but the developers and banks run the show here.
No , condos keep people working at good paying trades , from the cement that is mixed and delivered , to the steel and all of the people that put these buildings together .When they are finished , people are needed to work in the condos . Good for Ford and John Tory .
@@Jay-vr9ir Well it's fairly obvious that any idiot can create jobs in Ontario by allowing unbridled expansion...it's doing it in a way that keeps our communities "liveable" and with community consultation that takes creativity and brains, two things Ford lacks.
I moved to Toronto in '78 then away in 2000. I keep thinking that I'd like to move back but hear that it's changed for the worse. Still...Toronto's got things!
@@hardyboy1959 Yes ,I being from out of town never found Toronto , to have any warmth , I have been treated better in New York City . Things are bad , way too much violence and a lazy police dept that doesn't care .
I lived in Toronto for 2 years (1979-80). My apartment was a studio in Parkdale with a view of the lake. I went to George Brown College Kensington Campus. Thanks for sharing the memories
Thank you. I was in grade 9 at a Toronto school. Grew up in Troronto and all the pics in this video I remember. I worked at Mother's Sandwich Shop at Eglinton & Yonge St, at Duplex also went to Northern Secondary School. SCTV was a big thing back then. John Candy was a regular customer and he'd always come in at just before 2AM when we were just about to close up. Meatball sub, double meat with fries and a chocolate milk shake. He would usually leave me a nice size tip. Once he gave me a $100.00 bill. I asked him to autograph the bill which he did. I still have it in and made a plaque with a pic of John and me. Kodak Insta camera. Bro this was a special video / pics for Mr. Brings back so many memories. Thanks again!
What a find! I came to Toronto in 1980 and it looked so beautiful ! I remember the beach was beautiful as Miami beach before the condo's started to go up.
The crazy thing when I see videos like this. I was a teenager in the 70's and everything seemed so advanced and modern! How times a change. Unfortunately, social media has destroyed the good in so many things. Granted social media does have some pluses! Great video down memory lane!
I used to love Toronto and lived there for 25 years. I moved out in 2018. It doesn't even resemble the Canada that I grew up in now. Way too many foreigners now and unfortunately not the best ones .
I have no problem with foreigners from anywhere in the world, but when they insist on bringing their cultural baggage to Canada and ghettoizing neighbourhoods, that I don't appreciate.
Miss those days, lived on queen and differin area. 😢. My father was a construction worker who built the highways, and my mom worked at the Toronto Dominion Tower's, bringing back beautiful memories.
I was about 12 or 13 in 1978. My first trip to Toronto was in 1987. I went again in the summer of 1990, and 2004. Winter of 2012. I hope to go again next summer for the CNE Canadian National Exhibition.
I miss those times. It was the exact year that I lived there as an exchange student. My favourite spot at Younge St was the A&A record shop. I bought many records there. Went to the Queen concert at Maple Leaf Gardens on Dec 3. A great year.
…lived and worked and played music in and out of Toronto during much of 1971-1979…stayed at the Warwick Hotel one night as i waited to go home for Christmas, had my guitars, watched John Denver special, lol…even so, the best of, the peak of, the most soulful musical decade Toronto ever had…
I was born in Toronto in 1978, nice to see, my parents are gone way too early and I know how much they loved the city. I get emotional seeing this and imagining them, getting ready for my to be born. I left in 2005, buying my first home outside the GTA and never going back. No one there now😢so these videos really hit home.
Thanks - I was born in Toronto in 1975 but didn't have the pleasiure of growing up there. Lovely to see what it would have been like! Thanks so much! X
Hey Mike , this is awesome. Love looking back and ya there was so much space compared to now. With all these condo's popping up downtown, it doesn't even look like Toronto anymore. Great stuff.
Wow those were the good old days of Toronto, life in Toronto, was simple and easy. Great memories too. Thank Mike, for the great video. I hope you have more pictures of Toronto if any.
I also miss the old Toronto of the 70s and 80s, when I go back now I just don’t feel like I even belong, but we have to be honest here, life was different back than around the whole world, it doesn’t matter where you go , many other things that bother us are the same everywhere, you also have to remember big time, there was no Internet and social media That has changed our world enormously for the good and terribly bad. It has changed our lifestyles, made us a much smaller world, made us more confrontational with each other, and created a lot of ugliness, on top of giving us things like warp speed, financial access, unbelievable access to any information we want and host of other things, definitely bittersweet, I still think I’d rather be able to go back in time but that of course is impossible, it’s called change . people screamed equally loud about the industrial revolution when it happened decades and decades ago and either you went with it or you just basically fell behind.
Thanks for the great memories. I used to work right across the street from AA Records and Thrifty..crazy times back then during my youth. Wish I can go back to visit during those simple times. Thanks
Towards the end of video they accidentally showed a photo with an S.S. KRESGE Store in it. I re-watched it and discovered it was a shot of Kresge on the left...Le Terraces in the middle...and EATON on the right of the photo on Rue St. Catherine in Montreal Centre-Ville. I went to McGill University for four years in the mid to late eighties and worked in the Downtown Montreal EATON Department Store at 677 Rue St.Catherine. That photo brought back many happy memories for me. Both the Kresge Co. 5 & 10 and Les Terraces are long demolished. The beautiful nine floor Art Deco EATON building still stands and is a mixture of both retail and office space. The lower two floors and underground are part of Le Centre EATON Montreal.
I was 15 in 1978, in 1979 my mom took me to Steves Music and bought me a guitar for my 16th Birthday, I still remember going there and at 61 I still have the guitar and still lay it. I miss you old Toronto! Yes the politicians have destroyed is through greed and growth.
Used to love going to Toronto in the 70s and early 80s I know this old lady named Kay whose brother played for the Maple leafs. Love going to Little Italy Chinatown just a great City.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I grew up in Toronto during the 70's and 80's and remember these images like it was all yesterday walking down Yonge St. as a teenager, hanging out at the pinball arcades and record shops. I now live in Paris and it is interesting how in Europe, most cities don't change as radically as they do in North America. When I go back to visit Toronto, I see almost nothing that resembles the images that you have so carefully put together whereas one can go to Paris or London in 100 yrs and they will still more or less look the same as today. I believe it's important to balance progress with maintaining the soul of a place.
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Street Scenes in Toronto] (1935)](/img/n.gif)
So much more space in the city back then. Look at the City Hall photo (at 4:50) - there's so much sky around it - and you don't need to look straight up to see it!!
Great pics - thanks for the look back into those years... Maybe no time is purely magical, but those 70's years in Toronto came pretty close...
I remember Ton o' rot's Bay Street's endlessness in giant car parks yet a filmed coach ride up it sometime during the past nine months showed all if not most of those tracts as being developed yet still NO character whatsoever! .. queerly telling, Canadia/en/nes not minding cleptoparasitically corporate barons crookedly in their midsts...
Sadly, the homeless are growing in numbers due to high rents and the cost of housing all across Canada. 🇨🇦
Damn right. It was a magical time. I miss the good attitudes.
@@adamcrawford3297 When I moved into a bachelor apartment at Yonge & Eglinton in 1976, I paid about $240 per month, including central heating in winter and air-conditioning in summer. When I left Canada in 1995, the rent had gone up to over $600. Recently, I checked the rent for a bachelor apartment at the same, renovated apartment block. I was SHOCKED to learn that the rent is now over $2000 - no extras included! How can anyone afford such outrageous rents unless they have a permanent, well-paying job?
Toronto life before gentrification
What a great safe city to grow up in in the 60s and 70s
Safe? A little boy (Emanuel Jaques) was unalived downtown on Yonge Street. Downtown Toronto used to be very unsafe and seedy back in the 70s.
Safe? A little boy (Emanuel Jaques) was unalived downtown on Yonge Street. Downtown Toronto used to be very unsafe and seedy back in the 70s. Lots of seedy, illegal activity there
@@TabbyAngel2 yeah OK you heard about things like that. Once in a while now you hear about it every damn day.
@@TabbyAngel2 hahahahaah what , who did this crime a cop? our crack smoking mayor?
@@AlanKelly-nm9lx
Liar…shoeshine killing it was called.
Young boy was raped and then drowned in a sink.
Wtf do you online troll tards spew bs?
Ontario was truly an awesome province to live in the 70s....
Thanks to Premier Bill Davis and a PC party that actually governed for the benefit of everyone, instead of being just a collection of vindictive wingnuts in the pockets of wealthy developers.
@@OofusTwillip "Collection of vindictive wingnuts" 😂😂
On-tar-i-ar-i-o.
@@brettfavreify Yours to re-cover
@@deanl0 and rcmp drugs to discover!
Beautiful upload, born in 76, i miss Toronto of the 80s and 90s
One thing is true? Politicians have ruined everything.......
globalists, the politicians are their puppets
Someone voted for those politicians.
We helped by electing them!!!
What? Three times Canadians elected Trudeau. Will probably do it again.
Canadians deserve it!
Hmmm 🤔. Have you looked south of border in the United States lately .. A man called Trump threatens to take over DC. I have empathy for you north of the border with us.
What's the alternative?
Oh man this makes my heart ache .
Yes JJ me as well
@@realmikemartins I was 22 or23 then.A totally different time.
It does. 😢
I miss what Toronto was, not over crowded could be boring at times, but so much space to breathe.
💔
I would argue it's boring now. Everything is unaffordable, can't really do much but walk around.
It's still boring.
A lot of people, but boring.
I was 12 yrs old in 1978. I remember T.O. back then...a magical era for a kid to be there. As a young adult, in the mid to late 80's...every Friday night, go for dinner with my girlfriend (at the time...now my wife...34 years, today, as a matter of fact) Mr. Greenjeans at the Eaton's Center...then cruise up and down Yonge Street...
Best time to be a kid, was back then.
Thanks for sharing this great compilation of timeless photography!
Oh yeah baby! That was livin' large in the 80s. I did the very same thing with my (then) girlfriend, (now) my wife of 33 years. Life seemed more straight-forward then, with BS you could predict and eventually avoid. Mr. Greenjeans was an awesome place, and then the cruise up Yonge from Harbourfront to Steeles, that was magical. All the best my Homie.
FAR OUT. !
Yeah me too . Born in ‘66. Went to school downtown for years, grades 3,4 and 5. Really learned my way around. Went into the Easton’s Centre first day it was opened after school, watched the hole in the ground for a few years getting off the subway at Dundas or queen.
@@davidmulhall2710 I was also born in 66, lived in Toronto for my 5th grade year (76/77) attending Brown Elementary on Avenue road, south of St. Clair. My teacher was Mr. Freestone. I was an American from Los Angeles, and it was great living in an eastern city with seasons, and an urban center that was clean and safe. I remember Brown Elementary had an 'unofficial' open campus, and a lunch period that was an hour and twenty minutes. I'd take the TTC anywhere in the city (usually down to the harbor and train yards). My Dad would take me to the Organ Grinder for pizza on special occasions. When I married my wife in 1999, Toronto was our honeymoon destination.
Happy 35th anniversary
Toronto was the greatest big city in the world to live in at that time. We here in Hamilton wanted to be like Toronto back then . We don't want to be like Toronto anymore.
Its ok. No ones ever said “i want to be like Hamilton”
@Logan-py8we cheap housing
I grew up in Hamilton at the same time and no one ever wished we could be like Toronto. I’ve lived in Ottawa for the last 25 years and I wish it was more like Hamilton.
@@HAMMER8181 cheap housing in Hamilton? Are you insane?
@@BenjaminBox in comparison to Toronto.
i was 24 in 1978, living at yonge and eglinton...and yes those the golden years...
I live at Yonge/Eglinton. It's not what it was when I moved here in 1998. Looks like a war zone with all the construction and subways to nowhere.
Same here! I lived at Yonge & Eglinton from the 1970s to 1995. I didn't know that they were "The Golden Years"! I wonder whether Frans Restaurant & Coffee Shop is still there. (I used to enjoy having breakfast there on Sunday morning.)
@@j.g.8494 I used to visit my Aunt, who was attending UofT in the late 70s, early 80s. I remember Frans Restaurant, we went there for breakfast as well. I lived in Toronto for about 15 years, I moved about nine years ago. I remember the (awesome) Famous Players theater on Young & Eglinton, it had only two theaters, one downstairs, one upstairs. I saw The Empire Strikes back there in 1980 and again in 1998 when the original Star Wars trilogy was re-released in theaters. It's gone, replaced by a new Famous Players multiplex. Maple Leaf Gardens, gone ... Sam the Record Man, gone ...
Good to hear from you. You've got me by 2 years. Golden years is damn straight. You may remember going to The Bandshell at the CNE and seeing incredible bands. For free. Carry on MacDuff. Even better --- The golden age of Ontario Place.
Going to the Unicorn or Rose and Crown for a drink, eh?
I so love this!! 1978.....I was fifteeeeeen and downtown was just the best ever!! Thank you so much for this sweetness in time♥️
Downtown did feel much safer back then.
@@cinthia9602if you look at the crime rate its not the case. you just have coloured lenses.
@@lennywatchesstuff Unreported crime is still crime, people don't bother reporting "minor" crimes anymore because the cops just don't give a shit.
Great photos. Moved to Toronto in June 1979 at 18 years old and got my first apartment. It was a bachelor apartment and the rent was only $200 bucks a month. First full time job, had no car but life was great, on my own in the big city.
I lived in a bachelor apartment at Yonge & Eglinton from December 1976 to March 1995. When I moved in, in 1976, I was paying about $240 monthly, including water & electricity and heating in winter & air conditioning in summer. When I left, I was paying over $600. A few months ago, I checked the prices of the same kind of apartment in the renovated block where I used to live. Guess what the monthly rent is? $2,400! (extras NOT included). OUTRAGEOUS! Can someone living in Toronto in 2024 explain to me how a single person manages to pay such high rents and survive in Toronto?
@@j.g.8494you can thank all the useless politicans along with parasites like real estate brokers
dito!!!
Very similar experience. my first apartment was a bachelor apt. at Yonge * Eg. with no car and the subway close by. It was so much fun to be young and independent in the big city. I didn't have a lot but it was such a happy time in my life.
200$wtfff im about to be 18 and rent here is now like 2500$+ and it’s shyt!!
We had the cleanest subway in the world and there were no shootings and the streets were spotless and no tents !
we also enjoyed years of economic boom. no shit if everyone is making money, they wont do crime!
That's the problem. Benefits from the vast increase in productivity always go to the morbidly wealthy. @@lennywatchesstuff
yeah .. urrr ... rose coloured glasses. There was plenty of crime in the 80s we just weren't inundated with 24/7 news cycles.
@@yesyesnonono True, but the 1970's were, without a doubt, a nicer time to be alive in Toronto.
@@user-conservative-wasp So true the women were great , many white blondes , now too many brown ladies .Before the blacks came up from the Caribbean and turned Toronto into a killing patch .
Real Canada and its lovely city which is gone sadly .
Canada fell once everyone was allow in. Multiculturalism has destroyed the western world.
Why because brown people living there and people of colour all Toronto was a few building
@@prospects0007 I am from Iran and I came to Toronto back in 1978 as a student and frankly you do not know what you are talking about!
My parents and relatives always talk about these times
And America.
It’s obvious to me what the differences are.
Exactly this year I lived in Toronto for a year as a babysitter (1978 I was 18).... from Switzerland .. thank you I love these pictures, memories come up 😍🤩
No worries 👍 have a great weekend
I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, which in my opinion was the Greatest Generation. (Sorry, Tom Brokaw).
The best decades of the second half of the 20th century were the Fabulous Fifties & the Swinging Sixties - a time of great prosperity & optimism about the future - not to mention the carefree times
I absolutely loved Toronto in the late 70s in 1980s, it was just a wonderful city to be in , and Canada could be so proud of it, I was back there for two weeks last year and walking around and I felt like I didn’t even belong there anymore , Just couldn’t relate to anybody on the streets or anything. It was just so bizarre, it was like I just don’t belong there. Oh well.
Couldn't agree more!
I'm in T.O. right now. Lived here all my life and loved it. It's just getting too crowded and intense now. I'll retire up north like most folks.
No you're a recent immigrant from the eastern bloc. What would you know about Toronto? Answer: Nothing.
No homeless no graffiti no cig butts no druggies! I miss it!
What a beautiful time. When Canada belonged to Canadians.
Put your hood back on.
Canada is Canada because of all of our different nationalities. Move on.
Canada is only 150 years old. Everyone is an immigrant.
@@sandihunter1260meaningless statement.
I use to love going to Toronto, now I will not go there. I want to go back to the 70s.
If I may ask, where do you live? Can't blame you for not wanting to come back to Toronto. I myself prefer to drive most places by car because it just doesn't feel safe anymore.
@cinthia9602 oh please. The city is safe by most measures for a big city. Always weird out of towners who buy into the fear mongering.
@@cinthia9602 the city is totally safer than it's ever been, plz
I lived part-time downtown in the late 70s as a kid. Time with mom who lived on St. Joseph St and time with dad who lived uptown. I can assure you that Yonge St from Queen to Bloor was a shithole. There was rampant drug use, dealing, violent crime, perverts, and hookers. And remember the sex-murder of Emanuel Jaques?
The 70s were anything but good around there.
The city is MUCH bigger now and we have a leftist mayor who won’t fix anything that the previous so-called conservative mayor effed up.
But Bloor to Queen’s Yonge St’s biggest fault today is that it’s just dull and kind of dumpy.
Other parts of the city have more to offer-Greektown, The Beach, The Annex, Queen West, the list goes on.
It’s laughable to pine for the 70s. Though I get most people recall the good times no matter what.
One of the safest in NA. @@blackbeltjones2903
I love and miss this Toronto with all my heart, that I despise and loathe the current one.
Thanks for the memories MM. A better time in Toronto history to be sure. Just make your videos much longer, I am waiting for your next series of videos from '79 to '83.
Check ✔️ my yearbook Playlist on the channel. I may have covered those years ?
Wasnt hero in big then too
In the fall of 1978, about 60 high school seniors ( including myself) boarded 2 buses from the finger lakes area of NYS and headed to Toronto. I will never forget my senior trip. No one needed a passport, we did have to have a birth certificate, but no one's was ever even looked at. 3 nights of just an amazing time to be a kid from a small town. Only had to be 18 to drink, we were able to pretty much do almost anything we wanted. What a blast it was. I can remember we all went to Ed's for dinner one night
love that story !
Where is NYS? ( obviously not New York Sity)
Finger lakes area @@pargolf3158
@Logan-py8we If I gave you an acronym from a place in my country, I highly doubt you would get it. I never heard NYS and it didn't register. Nobody says CS meaning California State, or TS meaning Texas State, etc., hence my confusion. Some people have tunnel vision and think everyone in the world must know everything about America - geez
@@pargolf3158 I agree., Pargolf!
Take me back when Canada was Canadian.
Nobody loves Toronto anymore. The city we knew is gone and will never be the same again. Everything that was enjoyable was taken away from us. Including the best restaurants and movie theatres. We had live entertainment on the streets that were fun to watch and now its just borining.
True.
Crime and politics.
@@jenniferdarline The new law in 65 and what Trudeau Sr. did thereafter
@@jenniferdarline It was politics. They changed the laws for street ventors. Street ventors needed a permit to sell on the street and it was un affordable for them so they have to give that up. As for the street entertainment, im not sure what happened with that. The restaurants are now catered to the immigrants and to the rich. For the regular folks, like me, there are the fast food and franchise restaurants which after a while get boring since its the same menue everywhere now.
The politicians wanted Toronto to be rich and glamorous so they got rid of the old and put in the new (buildings) again, for the rich. Toronto was for everyone of all cultures and ages. Now its for the rich/immigrants. This is why they keep coming. Mind you, the immigrants come here have been lied to. Canada isnt what was sold to them.
I know this because the immigrants have told me and some want to leave.
I wont go to Toronto anymore. My entire family, aunts, uncles, cousins, my mother and all my children (adults) have left and won't return.
In the 1980's there were dancing clubs, amazing restaurants, lots to choose from, all non franchised, personally owned, fun, romantic, any mood you were in, had great food.
Canada is no longer Canada. Toronto is not Toronto.
@@jenniferdarlineI was born in Toronto in the 40’s. It was the most wonderful city, so safe and clean. A lot of farm land still close to the city, with orchards and wild flowers growing abundantly. It’s been a gradual decline but what we’re seeing now, is a total rejection of our Christian values, which this country was founded on, to pagan values, i.e., do your own thing, don’t be responsible. It’s a plan by psychotic, control freaks to destroy us from within and take over the world. The One World Government is “The Beast” that is mentioned in the Bible. Without the base of Christianity to hold us to account, we will fall. People who scorn Christianity, have benefited greatly from that very benevolent system, and while certainly not perfect, it is unlike any other. That’s the real reason they’re burning churches. I was so lucky to live in Canada during those years, and I’m sorry for the children of today.
When Toronto was Canadian.
Good old days. Skipping off school and going to the arcades on Younge and Dundas. Miss the old Pinball machines
The song Eddie Money~I wanna go back popped into my head watching this video.
Ya frank . I really miss them days 😪 and dressing up like Miami Vice lolol
i grew up 1955-1960 Larkfield Dr in Leaside, then the George S Henry farmhouse 1960-65 Sheppard Ave/Don Mills Rd just before Henry Farms became a subdivision, Mason Blvd 1966-72, Milton Ontario 1972-75 (pop 4500), Edmonton 1975-77, climbing the Hollywood Sign in California in 1978, Utah 1978-80, Young/Eglinton Toronto1980-1991, Utah 1993-2003, Clinton Ontario 2007-2023. This brings back great memories.
In 1978 I lived on St. Joesph street & Younge Street in the heart of Toronto. The best times, but that era is gone, sadly.
Wow, so many memories as a teenager in 1978. Too young for the nightlife, but the Ex, Ontario Place, Edward's Gardens, walking through Yorkville and Yonge/Dundas, taking the ferry to Toronto Island, Organ Grinder restaurant, Ed's restaurant after going to one of the plays or shows at a Mirvish Theatre was exciting. Toronto has changed so much, and not for the better.
the world had gone to shit since! Toronto now is somewhere I want to get out of!
Brings back memories. Thank you!
Thanks for sharing these images. Gives a glimpse into the good days gone by.
Fabulous. Now? The city that can't have fun because someone would be offended. Dead city...
Watching in 2024 - born in 1980, I want the good old days back…😢
I loved this! Definitely a walk down memory lane! I remember so many of those places as a kid. Great video!
70s 80s and even the 90s was the time to live for sure. miss my 90s :(
I miss that Canada so much!!!!
....So does everyone from Canada, except Commie Castro of the WEF (from Cuba)
@@bry4162 Yawn....
@@seanmolloy9297
Sorry you lost, better luck next time.
Back during a time that if you were new to Canada, you could get a job anywhere doing pretty much anything and be able to afford a place to live, have a car, have a family and a decent life. Crazy how you can't do that no more...
Soooo True !!!!...
Toronto was just right in 1978 and it didn’t need anymore major new construction. From that point on the economic development focus should have been on improving existing buildings and infrastructure and only adding new when necessary. After the Eaton Centre and the Cadillac Fairview Tower were completed that should have been it for major new development and a historic preservation process should have been implemented so Toronto could retain its soul and its uniqueness. Sadly today it is like any major global city, overwhelming, expensive, and increasingly unfriendly. The city has become too corporate for its own good.
In June 1975, a few months after I had arrived in Toronto, Time magazine had a cover story entitled The Greening of Toronto". "Toronto is the first major North American city to say no to the building boom, and to reject what Marshal McLuhan called "the cult of moreness"!
Remember going to the head shops on Young st back in the 70s and 80s
Yep the good ole days 😪
O man you said it,,great times
Still a few of them down here (Yonge & Gloucester).
Yes, I remember those!
I bought a huge Judas Priest and Iron Maiden flags to put in my wall from the head that was in the basement at Yonge and Gould.
It was a fantastic city back then.
I miss those days they were the best, as child. Now Toronto has become a mass thiings were simpler then when we had more freedom as torontonians and canadians.
A great retrospective. Thanks very much for posting this!
No problem JC
All gone now... RIP Toronto
"All gone now." Is it really? I lived in Toronto in the 1970s to 1995. When I watch videos of Toronto in 2024 on TH-cam, it looks more modern and beautiful than ever! What's wrong with Toronto now?
@@j.g.8494 If you have to ask...you never lived there in the 70's or 80's.
@@InsignificantSpeckOfDust Oh yes, I DID live in Toronto from 1975 to 1995, at Orchard View Boulevard, one block north of Yonge & Eglinton!
@@j.g.8494 Welll...you must be a lot more tolerant than I am...I could never go back.
Ahhh back when Toronto was Toronto the good
Back then you could talk to your neighbors now they don't even speak English 😊
Fabulous. Thank You. I was there then. SAM The Record Man at D&B was my favourite place. Age 20. I was there at The Gardens for Max Webster and RUSH. Max Webster blew Rush off the stage as the first act. Good to see my Toronto.
I'm glad you liked it ✨️
I used to love Toronto...but in the last 20 years I don't even recognize it. Ford and his developer buddies continue to wreck it with condos and sprawl and they continue to pack more and more into it...bloody shame, no longer "People City" or "Toronto, the city that works"...those sayings died in 2000. You can vote for whoever you want, but the developers and banks run the show here.
No , condos keep people working at good paying trades , from the cement that is mixed and delivered , to the steel and all of the people that put these buildings together .When they are finished , people are needed to work in the condos . Good for Ford and John Tory .
@@Jay-vr9ir Well it's fairly obvious that any idiot can create jobs in Ontario by allowing unbridled expansion...it's doing it in a way that keeps our communities "liveable" and with community consultation that takes creativity and brains, two things Ford lacks.
I moved to Toronto in '78 then away in 2000. I keep thinking that I'd like to move back but hear that it's changed for the worse. Still...Toronto's got things!
@@jamesweekes6726 Any idiot ? That would have been Kathleen , before Ford , yes she was the perfect example of an idiot.
@@hardyboy1959 Yes ,I being from out of town never found Toronto , to have any warmth , I have been treated better in New York City . Things are bad , way too much violence and a lazy police dept that doesn't care .
Those were the days
I lived in Toronto for 2 years (1979-80). My apartment was a studio in Parkdale with a view of the lake. I went to George Brown College Kensington Campus. Thanks for sharing the memories
Thank you.
I was in grade 9 at a Toronto school. Grew up in Troronto and all the pics in this video I remember.
I worked at Mother's Sandwich Shop at Eglinton & Yonge St, at Duplex also went to Northern Secondary School.
SCTV was a big thing back then. John Candy was a regular customer and he'd always come in at just before 2AM when we were just about to close up.
Meatball sub, double meat with fries and a chocolate milk shake.
He would usually leave me a nice size tip. Once he gave me a $100.00 bill. I asked him to autograph the bill which he did.
I still have it in and made a plaque with a pic of John and me. Kodak Insta camera.
Bro this was a special video / pics for Mr.
Brings back so many memories.
Thanks again!
😢 what happened 🇨🇦👈 must hold every politicians accountable for what they done to our once great country 😑
Exactly
@@realmikemartinsAlso greedy people with money and no soul
Wow, I lived in Toronto in 1978. I was 11. A lot of these photos bring back vivid memories of those days.
Glad you enjoyed it
What a find! I came to Toronto in 1980 and it looked so beautiful !
I remember the beach was beautiful as Miami beach before the condo's started to go up.
Yes tell me about it ! I think we lived during the best time
@@realmikemartins The 80's and 90's were the last great decades.
Good stuff I was born on July 15 1972 at Toronto general hospital
Oh god what i would do ,,just to be in that time again,,awsum memories
Everyone more or less got along plus there was enough freedom to enjoy yourself
Especially when Younge St. was blocked from Queen up to Bloor and no cars were allowed one summer. The whole street was a walking paradise :)
Thanks for sharing your pictures.Nostalgic for what was.
The crazy thing when I see videos like this. I was a teenager in the 70's and everything seemed so advanced and modern! How times a change. Unfortunately, social media has destroyed the good in so many things. Granted social media does have some pluses! Great video down memory lane!
I really enjoyed this piece of the past! Thank you
Glad you liked it
@@realmikemartinsAbsolutely!
Such a great city to grow up in. I was just turning 20 in '78. Great photos! I remember it all like it was yesterday.
I used to love Toronto and lived there for 25 years. I moved out in 2018. It doesn't even resemble the Canada that I grew up in now. Way too many foreigners now and unfortunately not the best ones .
Most of Canada doesn't resemble the country we grew up in. Very sad...
I have no problem with foreigners from anywhere in the world, but when they insist on bringing their cultural baggage to Canada and ghettoizing neighbourhoods, that I don't appreciate.
Where are your grandparents from? UK immigrants count as foreigners too. Unless you're native, saying shit like this just makes you racist.
Toronto the good I remember so well. Sadly it is not the same! Moved away over 40 years ago and don't want to go back!
Miss those days, lived on queen and differin area. 😢. My father was a construction worker who built the highways, and my mom worked at the Toronto Dominion Tower's, bringing back beautiful memories.
I was at that Oct 1978 Bob Dylan concert at the Gardens....I was 13
We had all the diversity we needed. It was safer and cleaner
Exactly 💯
I was about 12 or 13 in 1978. My first trip to Toronto was in 1987. I went again in the summer of 1990, and 2004. Winter of 2012. I hope to go again next summer for the CNE Canadian National Exhibition.
I miss those times. It was the exact year that I lived there as an exchange student. My favourite spot at Younge St was the A&A record shop. I bought many records there. Went to the Queen concert at Maple Leaf Gardens on Dec 3. A great year.
…lived and worked and played music in and out of Toronto during much of 1971-1979…stayed at the Warwick Hotel one night as i waited to go home for Christmas, had my guitars, watched John Denver special, lol…even so, the best of, the peak of, the most soulful musical decade Toronto ever had…
Thanks for sharing
I was born in Toronto in 1978, nice to see, my parents are gone way too early and I know how much they loved the city. I get emotional seeing this and imagining them, getting ready for my to be born. I left in 2005, buying my first home outside the GTA and never going back. No one there now😢so these videos really hit home.
It was a pleasure to live in Toronto in the 70s and 80s, not ANYMORE
My heart is oozing off Nostalgia of this vid ... thank you good sir! 🤩🥰
Best time ever to be a Canadian. The world loved us, no woke nonsense, safe, prosperous and clean, built by the Scots, Germans, English and Italians!
Thanks - I was born in Toronto in 1975 but didn't have the pleasiure of growing up there. Lovely to see what it would have been like! Thanks so much! X
O-M-G! Look at this lack of diversity!
I would go back to that time Now.
60s and 70s toronto def was the best era for the city it seems
Hey Mike , this is awesome. Love looking back and ya there was so much space compared to now. With all these condo's popping up downtown, it doesn't even look like Toronto anymore. Great stuff.
Thanks Jeff have a great long weekend
Just remember diversity is our strength lol.
THIS WAS GOD DESIGNED AWESOME AND AMAZING!!!! LOVED IT WAS MUCH!
I was born in 1954 in Toronto. Great time to be a kid....us boomers really had (have) it good.
Love these pictures!!! Please post more of you have:)
Wow those were the good old days of Toronto, life in Toronto, was simple and easy. Great memories too. Thank Mike, for the great video. I hope you have more pictures of Toronto if any.
So very sad how Toronto has turned out!
I also miss the old Toronto of the 70s and 80s, when I go back now I just don’t feel like I even belong, but we have to be honest here, life was different back than around the whole world, it doesn’t matter where you go , many other things that bother us are the same everywhere, you also have to remember big time, there was no Internet and social media That has changed our world enormously for the good and terribly bad. It has changed our lifestyles, made us a much smaller world, made us more confrontational with each other, and created a lot of ugliness, on top of giving us things like warp speed, financial access, unbelievable access to any information we want and host of other things, definitely bittersweet, I still think I’d rather be able to go back in time but that of course is impossible, it’s called change . people screamed equally loud about the industrial revolution when it happened decades and decades ago and either you went with it or you just basically fell behind.
I loved growing up in Toronto through the 70’s and 80’s. Was such a fun time. ❤️🇨🇦
Thanks for the great memories. I used to work right across the street from AA Records and Thrifty..crazy times back then during my youth. Wish I can go back to visit during those simple times. Thanks
I'm happy you enjoyed the video . I grew up around Duffrin and St Claire
Towards the end of video they accidentally showed a photo with an S.S. KRESGE Store in it. I re-watched it and discovered it was a shot of Kresge on the left...Le Terraces in the middle...and EATON on the right of the photo on Rue St. Catherine in Montreal Centre-Ville. I went to McGill University for four years in the mid to late eighties and worked in the Downtown Montreal EATON Department Store at 677 Rue St.Catherine. That photo brought back many happy memories for me. Both the Kresge Co. 5 & 10 and Les Terraces are long demolished. The beautiful nine floor Art Deco EATON building still stands and is a mixture of both retail and office space. The lower two floors and underground are part of Le Centre EATON Montreal.
As with most cities across the west - this is before death by diversity happened.
Toronto became a third world city
Toronto topped out then. Pierre Trudeau changed the demographics.
Is diversity really our strength?
Read The Vertical Mosaic, John Porter.
@@MarHar-k1d Could you tell us what the book is about?
Nope
No
Idiots
thanks Mike
I was 15 in 1978, in 1979 my mom took me to Steves Music and bought me a guitar for my 16th Birthday, I still remember going there and at 61 I still have the guitar and still lay it. I miss you old Toronto! Yes the politicians have destroyed is through greed and growth.
Before it became the shithole it is now....
As a kid i loved going to Toronto, it had everything....
Love the video, I wish I had a copy of those photo's, I could use them in my throwback video's.
Used to love going to Toronto in the 70s and early 80s I know this old lady named Kay whose brother played for the Maple leafs. Love going to Little Italy Chinatown just a great City.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I grew up in Toronto during the 70's and 80's and remember these images like it was all yesterday walking down Yonge St. as a teenager, hanging out at the pinball arcades and record shops. I now live in Paris and it is interesting how in Europe, most cities don't change as radically as they do in North America. When I go back to visit Toronto, I see almost nothing that resembles the images that you have so carefully put together whereas one can go to Paris or London in 100 yrs and they will still more or less look the same as today. I believe it's important to balance progress with maintaining the soul of a place.
Almost brings tears to your eyes to remember what Toronto was like back then and to see the dump it has become
I used to live on duffrin and st clair
@@realmikemartins I grew up Jane and Wilson , was a great neighborhood back then , gang and drug infested today
Very very sad.We all loved life.I miss those days so much.