Memorable Weather

Listen to stories of heatwaves and snowstorms, with archival images and video from Toronto’s past.

“There had been so much snow you could walk up the side of it to the garage roof!” - Paul Hersenhoren

St. Clair Clips

“For us, growing up with what we considered stale and boring British extraction, to go to an Italian meal, I mean, we didn’t eat like that.” - Linda MacDonald

Children at Play

“There were a ton of kids. The street was our playground.” - Lois Adler 

“We knew every nook and cranny and everywhere to hide and run and play... We were up in the morning and not home until the light came on.” - Craig Werden

Kresge’s

“We’d all sit at the old-style soda fountain counter and get cheap drinks and toast and stuff ‘coz you couldn’t afford much more.” - Peter Mohan

The Working Barns

“Things were really quiet between midnight and four in the morning, and at four in the morning that place jumped.” - Colin Brown

Saving the Barns

“As people started to get a tour of the barns in their dilapidated form, people started to think, “Hmm, that light looks really great. And if we clean this place up, maybe there’s some possibilities… they were as industrially ugly and beautiful as you can imagine." - Joe Mihevc

The Ice Rink at the Barns

“By putting the rink there in the winter, people were won over... and everybody would pick up a shovel and take a turn shovelling. And everybody understood that this was a little bit naughty.” - Cookie Roscoe

The Farmer’s Market

“Why, it’s the chandelier of the neighbourhood!” - Cookie Roscoe

Transit

“And there was actually a pot-bellied stove in it that kept you warm in the wintertime. They burned charcoal in the pot-bellied stove.” - Robert Wright

Wartime

“We all had to get under the staircase and make sure not a flicker of light showed because of the possibility of bombing. We just took that for granted.” - Dorothy Bader

Delivery People

“The Milkman delivered with the cream on the top of the bottle... the Breadman came with his horse and wagon. The Iceman came with his block of ice.” - Robert Wright