By Lisa Terech, Community Engagement
A lot has changed in Oshawa in two decades. This is highlighted in a collection of photographs from the former downtown Oshawa BIA. These images were donated in the early 2010s. Registrar Kes started the cataloguing process, and co-op student Zara (shout out Zara!) has been working to scan all 373 images in the collection. She’ll have the collection scanned before her co-op ends in June. While Kes added very simple descriptions, I have been adding and enhancing the descriptions where possible, attempting to make this collection as searchable and (hopefully) useful for future researchers.
Sometimes, this process is easy. Certain storefronts and streetscapes look very similar to how they did in the late 1990s. Growing up in Oshawa and being familiar with photos from the past helps with this as well. I can pinpoint the Four Corners just as good (if not better) than the next person! However, there are a few times that I have been stumped while looking at these images, and the satisfaction from accurately locating the image is great.
For example, this photo had me stumped:
It is a municipal parking lot. You can see the ‘Pay Here’ sign. Beyond that, there is little by way of identification. There are no street signs, no street numbers, just a few houses and a red brick building in the background. I used Google Streetview in helping to locate a number of photos, and I spent some time looking around different municipal lots I knew before giving up, simply noting in the description that the exact location is unknown.
A while later, while looking on Streetview to ID the location for another photo, I noticed the former Queen’s Market Square. Today this is where the Holiday Inn is located, but for a while in the late 1990s and into the 2000s, this was an outdoor gathering space, with a parking lot adjacent to it. Seeing that parking lot as it was documented in 2009 by Google, and it was a ‘lighbulb moment!’ Everything in the background matched the photo.
Other times, there are clues to help locate an image. There might be a number on a door, a street number. I can search around Streetview, looking for similar exteriors. The businesses and signage might have changed, but often, the architecture is the same. I have even used the reflection in windows to help locate a photo, like this one: the Wilson and Lee sign really helped place this image.
With this image, the sign to the left has a partial address ‘T East,’ and above the doorway, there is the number 16.
This helped to place this store at 16 King East.
There were two images that stumped me, but looking at them side by side, and you cannot help but notice that the exterior of both are similar – note the stucco, the teal paint around the windows, and that they each have a teal painted pole beside the window.
Now, take a look at this image, showing a Fiesta Queen turning from King onto Centre. Do you notice the building at the northwest corner (the Oshawa House):
I then looked at the Oshawa House on Google Streetview, and even though the facade has changed, there are still the poles on either side of windows. I’m fairly confident in saying this is the location for Millennium Books and the Great Little Bread Co.
The tricks I was using to locate these images are the same that you could use with your own photos. Take a good look for any clues you can find. Can you see addresses? Can you see any familiar landmarks? Can you find something similar in another image? Take a high quality scan and zoom in to see what you can to help date or place an image.
While the late 1990s were not that distantly past, this collection from the BIA highlights many different storefronts, events, and murals around downtown Oshawa. While somethings haven’t changed, 25 years past does leave some changes. This collection is a wonderful addition to the archival collection in documenting our community.
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