Skip to main content
NewslettersWatchlist
Before and after: See how the Gardiner – and downtown Toronto – has changed
Cliff Lee and Fred Lum

This article was published more than 9 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.

THE FINAL STRETCH

Next month, city council is set to decide how the future of the eastern Gardiner – and Toronto’s waterfront – will look. This is a series examining the city's most contentious highway. Find more stories, videos and photos, past and present, all series long here or at tgam.ca/thegardiner.

>>Alex Bozikovic on why the Gardiner must come down.

>>Marcus Gee on the optimistic early history of the Gardiner and its namesake: Frederick “Big Daddy” Gardiner

>>Elizabeth Church on how the Gardiner was the artery that connected her family.

>>Oliver Moore looks abroad to see how others have handled life with an elevated expressway.

>>Before and after: An interactive look at the Gardiner's past and present

>>Photos: See the visual history of the Gardiner through The Globe and Mail archives, beginning with its construction.

>>Video: The Gardiner in motion.

Gardiner at Spadina

BEFORE: Motorists thread their way through a maze of ramps on and off the Gardiner Expressway at the foot of Spadina Avenue, Oct. 23, 1963. (Boris Spremo/The Globe and Mail)

before
after

At Lake Shore Boulevard East

BEFORE: With streaming manes of reinforcing steel, partially demolished concrete highway supports resemble a line of wild horses in this photo taken March 12, 2001. The demolition is part of the ongoing removal of the Gardiner Expressway between Leslie Street and the Don Valley Parkway. (Randall Moore/The Globe and Mail)

before
after

The Spadina off-ramp

BEFORE: Crews are busy on July 30, 1962, finishing up work on pavement markings on the new section of the Gardiner Expressway at Spadina Avenue, the only exit from the highway at this point. (John Boyd/The Globe and Mail)

before
after

INTERACTIVE: CLIFF LEE/THE GLOBE AND MAIL; MODERN-DAY PHOTOS: FRED LUM/THE GLOBE AND MAIL