Here's an example of the detective work we sometimes do to improve the descriptions of photos in our database.
When we looked at this image last week, something about it seemed wrong. It comes from a series of photos donated by the former Alexandra Studio. Our database's description offers a tentative date the 1920s, and the location is given as Queen Street West near York Street.
However, if you look more closely at the photo, you can see the tower of the Canadian Bank of Commerce (now known as Commerce Court North), which is on King Street between Bay and Yonge. This tower was constructed between 1929 and 1931, and the top of the tower is fully constructed in this image, so the photo probably dates from after 1929.
The garage in the photo also looks like a repurposed church, but the Toronto fire insurance map from 1924 shows no churches on Queen Street West near York Street. We found the actual location a block south, at 137 Richmond Street West, in the former Church of the Ascens...
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