For decades Toronto historian Mike Filey has regaled readers with stories of the city’s past through its landmarks, neighbourhoods, streetscapes, social customs, pleasure palaces, politics, sporting events, celebrities, and defining moments. Now, in one lavishly illustrated volume, he serves up the best of his meditations on everything from the Royal York Hotel, the Flatiron Building, and the Necropolis to Massey Hall, the Palais Royale, and the Canadian National Exhibition, with streetcar jaunts through Cabbagetown, the Annex, Rosedale, and Little Italy and trips down memory lane with Mary Pickford, Glenn Miller, Bob Hope, and Ed Mirvish.

Filey recounts in vivid detail the devastation of city disasters such as Hurricane Hazel and the Great Fire of 1904 and spins yarns about doughnut shops old and new, milk deliveries by horse, swimming at Lake Ontario’s beaches, Sunday blue laws, and how both World Wars affected Torontonians.