Mark Byrnes' recent Atlantic Cities piece Buffalo, Ten and Now (1902-2011) gloomily compares a 1902 Library of Congress map of the City of Light with modern aerial photography to perfectly illustrate the dangers of giving cars too much space. Miles of surface parking and elevated highways now blight the core of what was once vibrant transportation hub. In some cases entire streets have given way to, well, nothing.

Thanks to the availability of several historic maps it's possible to make similar comparisons between the past and present of our own city. In most cases, the visible changes involve development rather than sheer destruction (i.e. tearing down without replacing), though many important heritage structures were also lost along the way. One thing that has remained mostly the same in Toronto, despite some name changes, is our street pattern, which, as far as downtown goes, was determined over 140 years ago.

Name: Aidan
Occupation: Student
Favourite Item: Hat
My Style: "Oshawa"

Name: Alyssa
Occupation: Actress
My Style: Punk-Fairy-Hippie
Favourite Item: Peace Sign Hat

Searching through the Toronto Archives while writing about Harry Piper's Front St. zoo I noticed an unusually shaped building lurking in the background of many pictures taken near Union Station. Several stories tall, almost circular, and windowless, the Cyclorama Building stuck out like a sore thumb at its location on Front Street between York and Simcoe streets.

With a name like that you'd be forgiven for thinking the place had something to do with bikes — an old-time velodrome perhaps — but in reality the building had more in common with an art gallery than anything with two wheels.

City Hall took the first (small) steps toward licensing cyclists Wednesday as the public works committee asked staff and Toronto Police to find ways of better enforcing cycling by-laws, with an apparent focus on cracking down on riders using the sidewalk (though it's quite possible there's an ideological bent to this request). The idea of licensing cyclists isn't a new one in this town — according to a 2005 City briefing note, between 1935 and 1956 it was mandatory for all bicycles to display a license plate. Since then, the City council has rejected proposals for bike licenses on three separate occasions — in 1984, 1992 and 1996. Here's why the scheme didn't work in the past, and why it won't work now.

Of all the vessels seen throughout the port of Toronto's history, the title of most bizarre would have to go to Frederick Augustus Knapp's "roller boat." 110 feet long, 22 feet tall and shaped like a cigar, the craft emerged during a late nineteenth century craze for vessels that could cruise on the surface of the ocean. Unlike conventional ships, roller boat designs employed large floating paddles to glide the vessel over waves. Although several ships were conceived, only two were ever built; the Ernest-Bazin, named for its French designer, and Knapp's vessel.

Born in 1854 in Prescott, Ontario and educated at McGill, Knapp was a lawyer with a passion for inventions. Designed and financed in part by the daredevil William Leonard Hunt, a.k.a. The Great Farini, Knapp's vessel was basically a giant paddle passengers could ride inside. A rotating outer cylinder moved around a stationary inner cabin or cargo area, propelling the craft forward. The unique design differed greatly from others of the era and raised many eyebrows in engineering circles, especially when Knapp estimated his craft could potentially reach 200 miles per hour. The vessel became known as "Knapp's Folly" among less supportive folk who believed there was insufficient passenger and cargo space to make the boat viable.

It's the first day of 2012 and as has been tradition for us it's time to look back at the last twelve months and revisit some of the most viewed posts on the site. In sum, the site received just shy of 35 million page views last year and reached more than 6.2 million unique visitors. The topics that resonated the most are a lot of the usual suspects like sex, nudity, the TTC, Toronto history, the weather, drugs and fattening food (not necessarily in that order). Measured by page views, these are the top 20 posts from 2011.