Downsview in the late 50s and early 60s

Some pictures from the good old days in Downsview when I was growing up there in the late 50s and early 60s. This page started as mostly an exercise in nostalgia. I have tried to find pictures from the 1960s, that great formative era when us baby-boomers entered our teens. Downsview developed quickly as I was growing up. I have no idea what is happening there now. I moved to Ottawa in 1976 and haven't really kept up with the place.

I would welcome emails giving precise identifications or interesting information about the places shown in the pictures.
Even send gossipy details from back in the sixties if it might add interest to the pictures here.
I hope these pictures bring back good memories for you.

Michael Davidson - sleepless3@gmail.com

• Keele_and_Wilson.html
  
• Wilson_and_Dufferin.html
  
• Jane_and_Wilson.html Crang Plaza.
  
• Train_tracks_crossing_Wilson.html
  
• Downsview_Parks.html
  
• Winston_Park_Plaza.html
  
• Stores on Wilson, west of Dufferin
  
• Downsview_Schools.html
  
• deHavilland_and_CFB_Downsview.html
  
• Yorkdale.html
  
• Other_photos_North_York.html
  
• Growing_up_in_Downsview_60s.html
  
• Minor Downsview photos from the 1950s Buses and fields from the 1950s.
• Miscellaneous Unsorted Some interesting early views of Dufferin and Jane streets.

Useful Downsview Links

• Downsview Lands Community Excellent historical notes.
• History of Downsview - http://www.torontoneighbourhoods.net/
• Rogers Structures - Downsview (Vimeo) An excellent video.
• Download the full 2010 edition of North York’s Modernist Architecture Revisited by E. R. A. Architects in PDF format.
  A hard-copy of this booklet was made available at the November 9th, 2010 North York Modernist Architecture Forum.

• Aerial photographs in the Archives of Toronto A great resource. I got many of the photographs here from that site. Look around for their scanned-in photographs.

• Early Downsview Personalities from the North York Historical Society.

• Keele_and_Wilson.html
  

• Wilson_and_Dufferin.html
  
  

• Jane_and_Wilson.html
  
  

• Train_tracks_crossing_Wilson.html
  
  

• Downsview_Parks.html
  

• Winston_Park_Plaza.html
  

• Downsview_Schools.html
  

• deHavilland_and_CFB_Downsview.html
  

• Yorkdale.html
  

• Other_photos_North_York.html
  

• Growing_up_in_Downsview_60s.html
  An article I wrote once about growing up in Downsview during the 1960s.

• Minor Downsview photos from the 1950s
  Buses and fields from the 1950s. These didn't fit into my other pages.

Some songs I was humming to myself when making these web pages.

Well I'm not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don't last
Well it's just now and then my line gets cast into these
Time passages
There's something back there that you left behind
Oh time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Al Stewart - Time Passages

And their memory's like a train
You can see them getting
Smaller as they pull away
Oh and the things you can't remember
Tell the things you can't forget
That history puts a saint
In every dream

And it's time time time
And it's time time that you love

Tom Waits - Time

Now the years are rolling by me
They are rocking easily.
I am older than I once was
And younger than I will be
But that’s not unusual.
But ain't it strange,
How after changes upon changes
We are more or less the same.
After changes we are
More or less the same.

Paul Simon -- The Boxer (Live at Central Park)