Toronto in the second half of the 20th century was a pretty conservative place...but just the right level of conservatism to create a big counter culture. The Bay St. establishment, the North Toronto WASPs, and most of the suburban denizens would have made for a pretty uptight, stifling ambiance - but that left the emptying inner city for all the eccentrics & freaky people. It's sort of the same dynamic of a little island of freedom in a sea of (palpable-but-not-quite-overbearing) conservatism that fosters big counter cultural or subcultural movements today in places like Tokyo and Istanbul.
From the beginnings of rock n' roll in the 50s to the hippies & bohemians of the 60s and 70s, punks & gays in the 80s, to ravers of the 90s - they've always had a huge - and contentious - presence in Toronto, which, fueled by immigrant, became one that got bigger and bigger as the millennium approached. I would say it was really in the first decade of the 2000s where that once counter cultural side became the dominant culture (though the flip side of that is that now we're still left with some remnants of that stodgy Protestant past as a persisting sort of subculture).
Yep, Toronto's Yorkville village was one of North America's three main urban hippie enclaves in the mid to late 60s along with Haight-Ashbury and Greenwich Village. The music scene centred in the village and in the bars along Yonge street was huge and thriving.
__________________
Public transit is the lifeblood of every healthy city.
I know some pictures have been posted so pardon in advance.
A few pictures from Montreal at its peak in the 1960's and early 70's. The whole Montreal area had a population of 1.7M in 1956. By 1971, it had grown to 2.7M. The growth rate in the 60's was 47.3% which for a city of close to 2 million is almost absurd.
People only look at the negatives without taking into account the positives... Montreal wouldn't be the city it is today without him. At the end of the day, no one made the city grow THAT much in such small period of time.
Churchill Park, which MUN says pre-empted a lot of the design elements usually credited to Don Mills in ON, under construction. Cabot Tower in back left.
And coverage from the mainland!
__________________ Note to self: "The plural of anecdote is not evidence."
Prev
Linear Mode
