The Toronto Public Library has a huge collection of historical Toronto documents—maps, land surveys, city directories, business ephemera, etc. It's easy to spend hours leafing through their document drawers and shelves of directories, learning about Ye Olde York. Someone at BuzzBuzzHome had a slick idea; why not give those old documents some modern-day context? They merged the images and addresses found in the Library's collection with Google Maps, to create a clickable map of Toronto's bygone downtown east side businesses.
Maybe the next step should be to merge it with scanned historic photos from the City Archives, drop the whole thing into Street View (which only goes back as far as 2007) and voila: virtual bonnet-shopping from the comfort of your home.
· Google Street View goes back in time [Toronto Star]
· Mapping Toronto's businesses in days of yore [BuzzBuzzHome]