Adam Bunch

My view for the afternoon

I’ll be at the clubhouse in Riverdale Park until 4pm!

Three big clumps of manure sit on green and yellow grass.

Today is Simcoe Day in Toronto — so this week's newsletter is all about how the founder of Toronto was challenged to a duel over some manure: torontohistory.substack.com/p/simcoe-nap...

I'll be at Riverdale Park tomorrow, chatting & signing books as part of this!

View from SkyDome

CN Tower lit up in red and green for Emancipation Day

Looking to learn more about #EmancipationDay?

Check out Emancipation Day: Celebrating Freedom in Canada by @nhenrydixon.bsky.social

Order here: buff.ly/LCQWGcb

53 years ago today: Toronto skyline from Hanlan's Point - July 31, 1972.

📸: Harvey R. Naylor
City of Toronto Archives

#OnThisDay #OTD #1970s #skyline #architecture #harbour #waterfront #torontoislands #history #torontohistory #toronto #canada

One of the Gloucester, England-built cars for the new TTC subway is unloaded from a ship at Montreal Harbour in July 1953. City of Toronto Archives photo.

Jul 30, 1953: the TTC's first two subway cars arrive in Toronto after overseas shipment from Gloucester, England. The cars had arrived by ship in Montreal the day before and were loaded onto railway flat cars for transport to Toronto. 1/2

The classic PCC streetcar pictured on Dundas Street in 1980 in the evening.

Join us on Tuesday August 5 at 7:00 pm to learn more about Toronto's iconic streetcars. Pictured here is the classic PCC streetcar that was retired in 1995. The Toronto History Lecture is free for all but you must pre-register.
torontofamilyhistory.org/event/the-to...

Illustration of Old City Hall

Old City Hall is open again! Visit this summer for a tour, exhibitions, or bring in your old treasures to be evaluated! Will you be going?

bit.ly/46uZFye

📷 : Toronto Archives

A bit wet, but a lot of fun!

Skyline of Toronto at sunset, 67 years ago today - July 27, 1958.

📸: Harvey R. Naylor, with slight digital cleanup by me.
Original image: City of Toronto Archives

#OnThisDay #OTD #skylineoftoronto #sunsetphotography #sunset #city #1950s #history #torontohistory #toronto #canada #jeremyhopkin

I’ve been advocating for a long time to create a Museum of Toronto at Old City Hall, and to open this beautiful and historic building’s doors back to the public. Under the leadership of our museums’ director, Karen Carter, we’re taking steps to turn this dream into reality.

Happy anniversary

I've been seeing this "Daniel 5:5" graffiti around and wondered if it was some kind of evangelical thing. But when I looked it up, it is in fact a Biblical passage about ... graffiti! Divine #graffiti. A mysterious hand writing on a wall. This is kind of meta-graffiti - graffiti about graffiti. 🧵

Late night Palmerston

Late night Kensington

Worm picking helped Portuguese immigrants purchase houses in Toronto.

Today!

Thanks! Fingers crossed!

We'll end in Kensington Market about 1.5–2hrs later (and I'm thinking of grabbing some patios drink after for anyone who'd like to stick around and chat).

Saturday! A new walking tour filled with strange stories that illuminate the roots of multiculturalism in Toronto — featuring everything from a baby-making competition to spilled bananas and a dead elephant.

Just meet at 7pm by the Toronto sign in Nathan Phillips Square!

There's a place called Little Canada in Toronto where you can go on a tour of a miniature Canada, and the picture on the jumbotron of Rogers Centre is Cole Hamels after Bautista's bat flip 🤣

1960 proposal for a monorail connecting Union Station and the Toronto Islands for $8.6M for the initial system.

Also analyzed: lines from Union to CNE and Union to Malton Airport.

Canada Awards $169 Million Deal To U.S. Company Sued Over Iraqi Abuse CACI is one of the latest American companies to win a major Canadian military contract.

NEW: The Canadian military is awarding 2 contracts worth a total of $169 million to an American company whose subsidiary a federal jury found legally responsible for the abuse of three Iraqi men at Abu Ghraib prison. www.readthemaple.com/canada-award...

Lallemand said he borrowed his friend’s boat and was fishing near Venise-en-Québec, which is roughly 15 kilometres north of the U.S. border at the northern tip of Lake Champlain. He says he has been fishing for decades and is adamant that he was in Canadian waters when the Coast Guard showed up and told him to turn off his engine, to which he complied. The three officers told him he was in U.S. territory. “I said, ‘No, I’m very sorry, I’m in Canada.’ And I said I’m polite enough to talk to you guys but you cannot arrest me. ‘You can’t come across the border and pick me up’ but they did,” he recalled. Lallemand started his engine and said he wanted to talk with the officers by the shore, but the Coast Guard followed and tried to push him into the U.S., which is what caused him to go overboard. “They’re tying my boat to their boat. They’re not even taking care of me. The third time I went down, coming out with water in my mouth, spitting it out, I said throw me a buoy,” he said. Once on their vessel, he said he was aggressively put in handcuffs. “I never saw somebody so angry,” he said. He was then handed over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, who fingerprinted him, put him in a jail cell with his clothes soaking wet, and gave him a “dirty” blanket.

A Quebec fisherman who was fishing 15 kilometers north of the US border was essentially kidnapped by US Border Patrol, who capsized his boat and dragged him to an American prison cell.

In any normal time this'd be quite the international incident, y'know?

www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/art...

The 2015 Jays won 43 of their last 62 games — from the Tulo trade to the end of the regular season.

The 2025 Jays have won 41 of their last 62 games.

So this ragtag crew has only been 2 games off the pace set by that stacked roster during the most exciting couple of months we've had in 30 years.

The 2015 Jays won 43 of their last 62 games — from the Tulo trade to the end of the regular season.

The 2025 Jays have won 41 of their last 62 games.

So this ragtag crew has only been 2 games off the pace set by that stacked roster during the most exciting couple of months we've had in 30 years.

Perfect!

They are! torontofirehistory.square.site/product/circ...