Back in 2018, Google’s “Sidewalk Labs” was trying to romance Toronto into creating a dystopian surveillance neighbourhood because progress.
As part of their charm offensive, they created “oldto.sidewalklabs.com”. It was a kind of Google Streetview with back-in-time photos of different locations in Toronto. The photos were sourced from the City of Toronto’s Archives and the Toronto Public Library.
After the pandemic, the site disappeared – but the team that built it had open-sourced it. I’ve wanted to revive the site for about 5 years.
And it’s finally revived!
> Check it out at raccoonix.jacobfilipp.com <
It turns out that the site was already revived at oldto.org, by the fantastic Back Lane Studios team. They put on various events that have to do with documenting Toronto’s history.
As of today (March 2, 2026) my site includes Toronto Public Library images that oldto.org does not – but I will be sharing them with the BLS team.
Future work:
Next, I will attempt to find updated links to each photo on the City of Toronto Archives – all their item links are broken.
I would like to also fill in the picture gaps for the fascinating Leaside neighbourhood – home to an aerodrome and other aviation enterprises.
There is also a booklet of clippings related to the Aerodrome at the Toronto Public Library that I could examine: https://tpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S234C1555791
