What Toronto used to look like really, really recently

Throughout 2009, Google sent its fleet of horrifying panopticon machines sedans all around this city to assemble the imagery that’d make up Google Street View. Two years later, though, some of what was shot has already changed dramatically.

Here’s The Big Bop at Queen and Bathurst, before scaffolding scarfed it up:

Here’s Queen West and Dufferin, before the Dufferin Underpass was completed:

Here’s 335 Yonge—formerly, the Empress Hotel—which burned down in January and hasn’t seen much action since then:

Here’s the stretch of Queen West that burned down, before the few new buildings that are there now started coming back up:

Here’s Bay and Bloor before it got its scramble intersection:

Here’s Musa, and its patio, before the building was demolished, and its oak tree was cut down:

And, just up the street from 335 Yonge, here’s the stretch of Gould Street that’s now pedestrian-only, on Ryerson campus: