As talk of the 2015 Pan-Am games circulates within the news, I thought I might take a look at the area which will house its Thunder Dome (or Athletes’ Village, as THEY like to call it), located in the former southern reaches of Corktown. This area is slated for redevelopment as the “West Don Lands”.

Once brimming with factories, furnaces, and pump houses, southern Corktown also housed a large community of workers. Long forgotten are the cottages, shacks, and general slum conditions of the area during the early half of the century. Looking at these images, one can imagine the poorly insulated houses, wood burning stoves, large families, and the overall cramped conditions which prevailed in the neighbourhood.

During the deindustrialization of the 1960’s and 70’s, entire blocks were wiped out and streets such as Olive, Vine, Water, and Cypress disappeared forever. The area until recently has been mostly abandoned and dilapidated, despite schemes in the late 80’s towards re-development. The only clue remaining of the former neighbourhood is the Palace Street School building (1859), which later housed the now-famous “Canary” restaurant, at the corner of Front and Cherry streets.

Thankfully, the area will experience regeneration with its temporary transformation into an arena of death… or “Athletes’ Village”, and in future as a residential/condo neighbourhood.  Those interested should probably begin the purchasing of babies and strollers.

With photos from the Toronto Archives.

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So, I’ve just returned from being chased through a suburban mall parking lot by some angry people in a Westphalia van (armed with an RPG), craving the plutonium in my possession. That may actually be the plot to Back to the Future, and has absolutely nothing to do with old movie theatres in Toronto.

Or maybe it does? Having spent some time living in Etobicoke in high school, the only place to watch a movie was at the mall’s “Multiplex/Cineplex” etc… which over the years, seemed to gradually expand in proportion, lighting, and noise (though sadly, not in Deloreans).

*The Wurlitzer formerly belonging to Shea’s Hippodrome (Bay and Teraulay Streets) now resides at Casa Loma, and is still used for silent film screenings.

The experience leaves me overwhelmed now (perhaps due to my advanced age). The whole ordeal is a mess of fast food, coffee, cocktails, games, lights, teenage antics and SUPER AVX (cue head explosions). Being the “luddite” that I am, I yearn for simpler times; The Humber, The Westwood, and the Revue Cinema. During the silent era (and long after), the city boasted a plethora of inner city theatres.

Many of those grand theatres have been torn down, converted, and some even still reside underneath parking lots (Shea’s Victoria Theatre, Victoria and Richmond Streets). So feast your eyes on Toronto’s forgotten cinematic past: when the movies were silent and the Wurlitzer organ was king*.

See more photos of old movie theatres in the Toronto Archives.

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It’s not that often that you get to glimpse history at night. Surely, if we’ve learned anything from history textbooks, it’s that the world existed in black and white (or occasionally sepia) and in perpetual daylight, until roughly about the mid 1950’s.

This would make perfect sense…if you were an imbecile.

But you aren’t, so to the past we travel once more. To take a look at nightlife in old Toronto and its amusement parks, theatres, baseball stadiums, and scenes of revelry. This was the era when billboards were alight with incandescent bulbs, everybody wore wool, and smoking calmed the nerves (though it allegedly “stunted” your growth as well, go fig).

We were still a long way off from house-dwarfing LED television screens; able to blind a man at 1000 paces. Crosswalks, well… didn’t exist, let alone beep and click, and birds weren’t being killed by an ever menacing city loom. The city had not yet become one giant TV commercial and things were good (with the exception of those two world wars and the depression, of naturally).

One could find entertainment on the islands at Hanlan’s Point Amusement Park and its eponymous baseball stadium. Another stadium appeared in 1908 at the foot of Bathurst and Lakeshore, which of course was only a stones throw* from the midway at the CNE.

Having returned from the islands, one could catch the Yonge street car up to Queen and catch a Vaudeville act at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre (later to become Loews Theatre), or a moving picture at the Comique, at Yonge and Dundas. If you happened to live on Wilton Avenue (now Dundas East), you might also stroll over to see a Leafs game at the Mutual Street Arena, their home prior to The Gardens.

Sunnyside to the west, as mentioned before, was another popular attraction; especially while illuminated at night. Looking out towards the lake, one could catch a glimpse of people like the Eaton family, yachting in the moonlight.

*not to be taken literally.

With pictures from the Toronto Archives.

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This is the first time in two years that I haven’t ridden a motorcycle and it’s absolutely depressing. I’ve always loved most anything with an engine and wheels (up to and including vintage tractors), but motorcycling puts a mile-wide grin on my face.

It also left me with several patches of missing skin and a banged up leg. But who can resist the allure of the wide open road; wind and bugs in the face, the stink of gasoline, exhaust burnt shoes, and oil stained pants? Surely nobody sane.

What’s more is that I suffer from an unhealthy interest in old motorcycles – the older, the better. Even when my 40 year old bike broke down in the pouring rain and I was soaked to the bone, I still enjoyed the experience because it made me appreciate what it was like to ride a motorbike in the “early days”.

Somebody who lived through those “early days” would probably slap me for saying that.

Perhaps I’m a masochist, but there are many more out there like me. While initially rage-filling, roadside breakdowns became fun experiences; especially in the rain. Every challenge providing an opportunity to learn something new about my middle aged bike. It also made me wonder what riding in the early half of the last century was like.

So, having somehow made the past relevant in that last sentence, I bring you once again to old Toronto – where herds of early motorcycles grazed and ran free of automotive adversaries…err, or something like that.

As depicted below, motorcycles were a cheaper alternative for transportation and often used for utility purposes (even by the TTC). There were no water-cooled, inline fours, winding to ludicrous revolutions and breaking 300 km/h. These bikes were often 10hp, single cylinder, intake over exhaust setups with either smaller chain or belt drives. Their frames were not much more than stretched and reinforced bicycle frames; with the addition of either rudimentary coil springs, or leaf springs for front suspension. Braking equipment consisted of rear brake only (coaster or early drum), and carbide (later electric) headlamps were an option.

Combining all those factors with the deplorable road surfaces and skinny “clincher” tires of the day made riding a daunting task.

Long-extinct marques, sporting those features, such as Excelsior, Iver-Johnson (they also made guns), Scott, and Monarch would have graced the streets of Toronto; jockeying for positions against automobiles and streetcars (sound familiar?). While other brands such as Harley Davidson and Indian proved more popular; a short-lived Indian factory being located in Toronto for a few years before WW1. However, it was dirt track racing at the CNE, ice racing in the harbour, and hill climbing in the Rosedale Valley and High Park that really put these machines through their “recreational paces”.

With photos from the the Toronto Archives.

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As I sit here sipping a beer and listening to another story involving the words “bath salts” and “ate”, my mind begins to drift off and wonder about slightly more historic things. The first thing that comes to mind is Toronto’s infamous history of leveling entire blocks of interesting and historic (though occasionally neglected) buildings. Yes, it’s completely unrelated to and slightly less interesting than a drug-fueled zombie apocalypse of mass face-eating…but indulge me here.

South Parkdale existed in the area now populated entirely by traffic jams, mid-sized sedans, and high-speed trains: immediately west of Dufferin Street, between Springhurst Avenue and Lakeshore Boulevard – smack-dab in the middle of the Gardiner Expressway.

At the turn of the century, the only thing separating this part of Parkdale from it’s northern neighbour was the Grand Truck Railway, running East-West parallel to Springhurst Avenue with the South Parkdale Railway station situated at Jameson Avenue (later moved to Dufferin).

In 1910, work began on grading to lower the tracks, and bridges were constructed across it. Already situated next to the CNE, the area also enjoyed attractions such as the Boulevard Club, The Palais Royale, and the Sunnyside Amusement Park (1922-1955).

The entire area was wiped off the map with the building of the Gardiner Expressway in 1955-56, demolishing about 170 homes and the Sunnyside Amusement Park (the only survivors being the Palais Royale, Sunnyside Bathing Pavillion, and The Boulevard Club). The section immediately north of the tracks would suffer a similar fate; its large Victorian homes swept aside for high-rises.

There are few traces of the southern neighbourhood today.  The stairs down to the defunct South Parkdale rail station stand quietly crumbling, the bridges over the grading are rusting, and the concrete encased fresh-water well still stands at the side of the Gardiner, which once marked the intersection of Spencer Avenue and Empress Crescent. Sadly, to my knowledge there are no “South Parkdale” shirts and merch for sale (though you would have to be an octogenarian or quite dead to rep them).

With photos from the Toronto Archives

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