[Jaybird]

I was looking through my old scrapbooks of pictures I had, and I happened to have a few old ones of London and these were taken 13 1/2 years ago if you can believe it. My parents took these for me, because London, back in my young years, was my BIG city back then, times have changed, and so has London. I even have a couple of postcards as well. I scanned all of these.

The City Centre (notice different logos on the towers)

The Hilton was a RADISSON back in tha day. This hotel changed names four times, I think in the course of 25-30 years.

The Delta London Armouries was the Sheraton Armouries back then...

and folks, you're gonna get to see what One London Place looked like when it was under construction then!...

Talbot Centre

Looking from Dufferin Corporate Centre, when it was just built! You can see the dirt

Xerox Building on Richmond Street...

and this was London's OLD Via Rail Station/CN Depot Building, man was it HIDEOUS! Since then, it has been demolished and replaced with its current VIA station

and here's a couple of postcards for ya!

This one is from c. 1995, this is a brilliant shot of London's skyline from the east

and I like this one, Wellington/King near Galleria looking up at the City Centre in the early evening

man, a lot has changed since then, I'm almost glad I didn't take any pictures of how bad downtown London might have been back then, if it was bad.

 

[Blitz]

Cool, thanks for sharing. Neat to see OLP under construction like that.

 

[ssiguy2]

Thanks for the pics....that looks like London when I lived there last, about 1989.

 

[*Jarrod]

awesome! i love seeing places that i've never been to before. keep the pictures coming

 

[worldwide]

when did the sign change from northern life to canada trust in the first picture

 

[Jaybird]

I believe it was in the mid-1980s when the signs on the City Centre building changed from Northern Life to Canada Trust, because the earliest I saw the Canada Trust was, I believe, in 1987.

 

[Lucky 24]

Wow, awesome pictures Jaybird...the skyline looked so different with the different signage...and the Delta Armouries looks like a completely different building before the renovations. And the picture of OLP rising and without its glass is so very very cool. If you have any more old pics, please post them.

 

[Westcoast604]

Ahh London...I lived there in 2000/2001 & 2002/2003 school years and I miss it! Such a good young and energetic atmosphere there. Gotta make it back one of these days for a visit.

 

[ssiguy2]

Neat to see how the city has changed.
I've asked this question before but maybe someone has an answer..........are they ever going to do something with the huge lot on Richomd bewtween Queen & Dundas? Prime location it would be great to see something in there. Its like a gaping hole.

 

[Ashok]

cool pics man, its nice to see that building u/c

 

[Jaybird]

Neat to see how the city has changed.
I've asked this question before but maybe someone has an answer..........are they ever going to do something with the huge lot on Richomd bewtween Queen & Dundas? Prime location it would be great to see something in there. Its like a gaping hole.

It's just a parking lot with a Sammy's Souvlaki stand there right now. I haven't heard anything about it, but I use that parking lot all the time when I go to Laser Quest, downtown, Knights games, or anything like that for fun times there.

 

[BuffCity]

jaybird, whats the pop of the city and the metro?

reminds me of ol' Rochester NY in a way.

 

[ssiguy2]

Thanks Jaybird

I find it so odd that such a prime peice of real-estate at basically Rich/Dun is still empty. I think it would be ideal for an office tower or even retail/restaurants.

 

[DrJoe]

jaybird, whats the pop of the city and the metro?

reminds me of ol' Rochester NY in a way.

The metro is like 460,000, not sure about the city though.

 

[ssiguy2]

The city is 355,000 I think.

 

[worldwide]

whats going on with that lot where the ridout was, its a wery good location for an apartment building. knowing london it wont be condos

 

[Lucky 24]

Actually, that's the exact reason why the ridout was torn down...new Condos are going up on that site.

 

[Jaybird]

ssiguy2 nailed the city population right on the head, it's 355,000, BuffCity,

and 450,000 in the metro area, which includes Strathroy to the west and St. Thomas to the south. BTW, you're not the only one who compares London to Rochester, NY, btw. I did a vs. thread in the city vs. city which is probably long gone now, and both cities do have similarities, with the only difference being Rochester's metro has more than double London's population. Both have rivers running through their downtowns, have considerably modern-looking skylines, both have good hockey teams this year (in AHL and OHL), both have similar sized arenas, and there are plenty of fun things to do in both cities. Both cities also have good universities, (don't know about Rochester, but London does), and both are in prime locations.

 

[worldwide]

lucky, i know there was talk of future development, but has anything been proposed?

 

[aplz]

Very nice. Compared to this city, it was even bigger back then.