Lost Toronto

Every city loses buildings. Toronto loses them recklessly. The list is long and painful: the original Union Station, Mechanics' Institute, block after block of Victorian storefronts on King and Queen and Yonge. Each one made sense to tear down at the time. Each one left something missing that people still reach for.

Dendy spent years documenting the losses, photographing what was left, researching what preceded it, and building a record of what Toronto chose not to keep. This book is more than architectural history. It's an argument about a city's relationship with its own story. Toronto spent most of the 20th century believing that new was always better than old and paid the price in identity. Lost Toronto is the receipt.