"Roncy? That has to be the stupidest sounding neighbourhood nickname you use on blogTO." So went a conversation I had the other day with my partner (who evidently isn't always a fan of our titling practices). I don't mind Roncy myself — if indeed that is the diminutive for Roncesvalles (some would have it as Ronces or even Roncies) — but the discussion did get me thinking of other neighbourhood nicknames that I'm not much a fan of.

Queen West seems a natural street to knock off as I continue to fill in some of the more obvious gaps in our collection of historical photo posts. Although Yonge Street is typically considered the most important street in Toronto (and for good reason), it wouldn't be difficult to make the argument that, at least historically speaking, Queen Street deserves consideration for that title.

Part of the reason for this, as is explained in the Queen Street West Heritage Conservation District Plan, is that Queen (then known as Lot Street) "was the baseline established by the Royal Engineers, when they laid out the town of York (now Toronto) in 1793." At the behest of Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe, much of York was divided into 41 lots, the boundary lines of which define our current streetscape.

A new 36,000 square foot arts hub is coming to the area dubbed the West Queen West Triangle — and longstanding community group Active 18 has their fingerprints all over the project. To be built at the bottom of the still-under-construction Edge condo at Queen and Lisgar, future tenants of the space already include Gallery TPW, the Toronto Media Arts Cluster (TMAC), Interaccess, Le Labo, the Canadian Film Distribution Centre, Charles Street Video, the Toronto Animated Images Society, and the Images Festival.

For every Wild Wing there's a promising new ramen joint? If only the world was so kind. But at least that's the case for Baldwin Village, where the owners of Guu Izakaya and Guu SakaBar have decided to open up their third Toronto location, Kinton Ramen, just down the street from where the corporate wing palace is also ready to set up shop.

It's time to head a little north for a dose of Toronto history. Given the manner in which the city developed up from Lake Ontario, it's understandable that there aren't as many historical photos of areas above Bloor Street, but that's not to say that they escape documentation altogether. A place like Yonge and Eglinton, for example, is actually quite well represented in our municipal archive.

Most of the photos below date back to the middle of the 20th century or later, but the few that I've been able to rustle up that pre-date the 1950s paint a picture of sleepy intersection with a small core of comercial properties. Even when the subway arrives in 1954, there's yet to be much in the way of density. Fast forward to the mid-1960s and the character of the intersection and surrounding area has, however, changed dramatically.

The exhibition space at this Liberty Village print shop might not serve as the operation's modus operandi — that would be, you know, the whole printing thing — but for up and coming photographers looking to get their images on display, it'd be tough to find a better place in Toronto.

Read my profile of 44 Wide in the galleries section.