Steinberg's site then and then

Steinberg's site in 1962 - I've marked Steinberg's in the red box

Soon after the bicycle another new modern means of Transportation came to Scarborough, the electric railway. In 1898 the Toronto Railway Company laid its rails along the Kingston Road from Blantyre Avenue to the Hunt Club, and in 1901 the service was extended to the Halfway House. Then in 1904, work was begun on an extension of the line to West Hill, and was completed the following year by the successor of the Toronto Railway Company, The Toronto and York Radial Company; and more and more people of southern Scarborough began to travel to and from the city on the trolley cars.

Future site of Steinberg's circa1954

The above quote is from Robert R. Bonis' 1965 book, A History of Scarborough. Vince and I were chatting about old trolley routes in Scarborough, and I was interested to see if there was anything in that book about them. It turns out the book had a surprise: aerial photos of the Steinberg's site in 1962 and 1954. In both pictures the 'vertical' road to the right is Lawrence Avenue, and the 'horizontal' road along the bottom is Markham Road. In both images I only snipped the area around Steinberg's and Cedarbrae Plaza. In 1954 the area was rural farmland as far as the eye could see, but by 1962, just 8 years later, it was a vast suburb with more-or-less no remaining traces of its rural roots. The speed of development was amazing. And those trolleys? Long gone before either of those photos were taken.