# @toronto_archives on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DHvnNZOs8nM
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/34000076-toronto-archives-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/c19359d4d7.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-03-28T13:01:41.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** City of Toronto Archives (@toronto_archives) — https://gondola.cc/toronto_archives

## Caption

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 Ascension. 

To narrow the date down further, we took a look at annual volumes of the Toronto city directories for the late 1920s and early '30s. These books showed us that the Toronto Brake Service occupied the front of the church building between 1931 and 1933. Since the street directories often published information that had been collected the previous year, we can conservatively date this photo to 1930-1933.

Images:

1. Fonds 1257, Series 1057, Item 552.

2. Detail of the previous photograph, showing the Bank of Commerce building.

3. Detail of Goad's Atlas of Toronto for 1924, Plate 12, showing the corner of Queen Street West and York Street.

4. Detail of Goad's Atlas of Toronto for 1924, Plate 9, showing the corner of Richmond Street West and York Street.

5. Detail of Might's Greater Toronto City Directory for 1930, showing the Toronto Brake Service at 137 Richmond Street West.

#TOHistory #TorontoHistory #TOArchitecture #TorontoArchives

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## Tags

toarchitecture, torontoarchives, torontohistory, tohistory

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