Ghost signs paint Toronto's hidden history on brick
Hand-painted advertisements weathered decades on walls across the city. Heritage Toronto unpacks the stories in these relics of old Toronto.
The day's top stories, food & events — every morning at 7. Unsubscribe anytime.
Walk through Toronto's neighbourhoods and you might spot them: hand-painted advertisements that have survived for decades on brick walls. Ghost signs, as they're known, are relics of early-20th-century commercial life — faded testaments to businesses, products, and the city's evolution.
a reporter recently joined Stephen Petar of Heritage Toronto to uncover the stories hidden in plain sight across the city. These painted advertisements represent a layer of Toronto's past that most people walk past without noticing.
Ghost signs offer a window into how the city advertised, what products dominated local commerce, and how neighbourhoods functioned generations ago. Each one carries the mark of the hand that painted it — a craft that predates neon signs and digital displays.
For heritage advocates like Petar, documenting and preserving these signs is a way of keeping Toronto's commercial and cultural history visible. The signs remind residents that beneath the modern city lies decades of stories, one advertisement at a time.