before st clair, there was the yonge street "disaster"
Background: besides writing Past Pieces of Toronto for OpenFile, I tackled several other assignments for the site. One was this piece, originally published on March 22, 2012. Subway construction along Yonge Street, 1949. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 16, Series 574, File 2, Item 4992. Click on image for larger version. Throughout the debate on whether LRTs or subways should be built in Scarborough, the construction of the St. Clair streetcar right-of-way has been a persistent bogeyman. Vilified by ardent subway supporters such as Mayor Rob Ford as one of the biggest disasters in Toronto transit history , the work carried out on St. Clair has been criticized for its delays and impacts (real and imagined) on local business and traffic. Those who imagine fewer hardships building a subway than a surface line may want to examine the miseries that surrounded the construction of the original Yonge line , which was far more disruptive to the local landscape than what occurred on S...