Shell Oil Tower

According to the architect George Robb's website (www.gra.ca) the Shell Oil Tower was the result of a 1954 architectural competition for an observation tower at the Canadian National Exhibition. The Tower appeared as a beacon in the night, surrounded by urban floodlights and activity. The Tower glimmered from within, emphasizing it openness, freedom of movement, and purpose as a conspicuously important place in the city.

The Tower was completed in 1955 and served as a landmark for its citizens. It was torn down in 1986. Yet it still holds a place in the history of Toronto as a significant and visionary example of civic architecture. Here's a photograph of the tower at some point in the '60's. Looks better in the illustration on the postcard, dont you think?

Doom Products

Very nice juxtaposition of the beautiful and the ugly in this postcard! The advertisement is for a pesticide that kills Japanese beetles from the Fairfax Biological Laboratory's line of Doom products.

The back states that the brew contains "microbial spores of Milky Disease," which have "proved fatal to Japanese beetles in the grub stage, without affecting beneficial insects, humans, animals, or plants." Sounds to me like the first fifteen minutes of any good sci-fi horror movie, just before the characters realize that the stuff they spread over the roses is killing humans too!