A sentimental Reddit thread is remembering a Toronto that no longer exists
Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. (Okay, we’re crying anyway)
Amid the commotion of the Hudson’s Bay Company closing its stores earlier this year—the skyrocketing debt, the $5.9-million art auction, the billionaire families coming together to purchase the Royal Charter, another billionaire’s attempted takeover—there’s something that didn’t hit us until now: we’ll never have another Bay holiday window display. (And Mariah Carey will never be paid another reported $1 million to sing two songs in front of it.)
We were reminded of the Bay’s festive aura by a Reddit user, who called it “magical” on a thread that asked, “What do you miss the most about Toronto that no longer exists in 2025?”
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The answers are a sentimental stroll down memory lane, and we are basically the Face Holding Back Tears Emoji as we read them.
Honest Ed’s and Sam the Record Man made appearances, as did the Big Bop and even the music listings in Now magazine.
Someone else went further back, mentioning the department stores Eaton’s and Simpsons at Christmas time.
One particularly touching entry recalled a user’s parent bringing them book shopping. “My favourite childhood memory was my dad taking us to the World’s Biggest Bookstore,” they said. “He would say, ‘meet at the cash registers in two hours and you’d better have a pile of books.’ It was always fun to just hunt through every single category and find books.”
Preloved, Mr. Green Jeans, 24/7 lesbian bars. We used to be a proper city.
What Toronto gems will be added to the list several years from now? We don’t want to think about it—we’re already too sad about Coco’s and the Imperial.
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
