This photograph depicts old Union Station in Toronto, as seen from Toronto Bay. The original Union Station on this site was opened by the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) in 1858, with the Great Western Railway and the Northern Railway joining as tenants. In 1871, the GTR opted to demolish the original Union Station to open its own station on this site. Designed in the Italianate/Second Empire styles by Thomas Seaton Scott, and completed by the GTR in 1873, the Union Station shown here demonstrates the architectural opulence of 19th-century rail stations. This station was demolished after the opening of the current Union Station in 1927.
This photograph also reveals the results of a project, begun in the mid-1800s, to infill Toronto Bay to accommodate the city’s roads and rail routes.
This lantern slide is from the Archives of Ontario’s William H. Hammond fonds (F 4436), and was used by Hammond in 1951 to deliver a presentation to the Toronto Camera Club. The development of photographic slides in the mid-1800s created entirely new uses for optical lanterns, from academic lectures to family photograph shows. Many of the techniques used to project lantern slides were later adopted for early motion pictures.