The Great Canadian Toronto or Queens Quiz

[lio45]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

Just look at the cars. Americans drive bigger and older cars (less rust.) And the architecture overall is much nicer in America.

Actually, for pic #1, I wasn't sure but I almost said Toronto on the basis of the vehicles visible (two Civics, an Ingersoll-built Tracker) but the correct answer was Queens.

Now if we were talking about sprawl in Dallas vs similar sprawl in Laval, and trying to look for clues, then yes, you'd see a statistical difference and cars (or, rather, pickups) can actually be one of the best clues. But NYC is a tight environment, I don't think cars there are significantly larger than in Toronto.

[Dwils01]

The traffic lights for me was the easiest clue of which ones were Toronto and which ones were Queens.

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by lio45

That's one of my blind spots due to a Francosphere education. The name rang a bell as some British guy and if I know his name then he probably did important stuff; the places on this continent the most likely to have a street named after Random Famous Historic British Guy are in Upper Canada (or Loyalist pockets of the Maritimes).

I had the opposite reaction to yours only based on misinformation / incomplete information. You had the correct conclusion

Those Cromwell Crescent houses are more Queens than Toronto to me, that's what I would have gone with, had I not had a street name.

How generous of you to think Ontario education would have covered Cromwell

Nope, that's just straight nerdiness on my part, although the fact that I went on a Wiki-deep-dive on British history rather than French is sign of the same cultural split.

[shappy]

I don't know, I'm not really convinced. The residential ones are difficult to distinguish but I think that type of vernacular can be found in many cities in USNY or around the great lakes and probably beyond. The commercial streets are similar with that lived-in character but again not very unique in appearance given the greater context of the region.

The commercial streets for Toronto are in Scarborough, York and about 500m from the Etobicoke border. Those streets were built in the early 20th and will have a more generic US Midwest or Eastern look anyway.

My sense is most cities in NA have a relatively strong unique vernacular if built before 1880 - 1890.

[isaidso]

I've always thought that Queens and Toronto looked alike but these photos suggest it's even a closer resemblance than I imagined. There are subtle cues as I've perused 1000s of Toronto photos over the years but it's still tricky. I suspect you could trip up quite a few people. I probably got 1-2 wrong but not sure.

1. Queens
2. Toronto
3. Queens
4. Toronto
5. Toronto
6. Queens
7. Queens
8. Toronto
9. Queens
10. Toronto

[kool maudit]

2 is Queens, 3 is Toronto, 4 is Queens, 8 is Queens