JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

This post offers supplementary material for an article I wrote for Torontoist , which you should read before diving into this piece. Source: Toronto Star , November 1, 1978. On my computer reside plenty of files I'm stumbled upon in the midst of research which I figure may be useful someday, no matter how absurd they are. Prime example: Art Eggleton dressed as a pickle. Based on the highlighting on the PDF copy of the original page, I discovered this gem while working on a Hallowe'en post. The original caption read as follows: No sourpuss : Dressed as a pickle, but all smiles, Toronto Alderman Art Eggleton hands out a balloon to Diana Russo, 2, of Grace Street, at campaign headquarters last night. Supporter Robert Long offers Hallowe'en treat. 

Historicist won a National Magazine Award ! A revised version of an  old post on my days at CFRU .

During some recent research, I stumbled upon a book review longtime Globe and Mail writer William French penned over 40 years ago for George Glazebrook's The Story of Toronto . French's introduction sums up the stereotypical view of Toronto history, and the battle I and my fellow historians face daily to present the city's past in fresh, engaging ways. Anyone writing a history of Toronto faces an awkward problem: the story, on the whole, is dull. It lacks drama and dash, and our heroes are in a minor mode. Without exceptional effort on the part of the author, his book will also be dull. Apart from the clash of arms in 1813 and the rattle of muskets in 1837—both encounters were marked by an almost comical incompetence—Toronto’s story is one of slow, plodding growth over the years. The major element in that story is a rather dull and narrow bourgeoisie, preoccupied with matters of property, finance, and morals. Until recently, anyway: the city is now undergoing a fund...

Conservation lab at the Archives of Ontario . Photo taken during a Doors Open tour in 2010. Plug in the laptop. Attach the cooling pad to ensure the computer resists self-immolation. Wait for research materials to arrive, or start in on an order placed ahead of time. If waiting, sign on to the internet, work on other projects, or grab a pencil (no pens allowed!) and scribble random thoughts on scrap paper or in a notebook. When the boxes and file folders arrive, dive headfirst into the past. Yep, just another day researching in an archive. *** I love working in archives. Flipping through holdings brings forward the same feelings of discovery I had as a student while working with my father’s archival-sized collection of newspaper clippings. In both cases, beyond gathering the information required for the project at hand, I enjoy stumbling upon odd, unrelated tidbits. These side findings are good for a laugh, for shock value, and for inspiring future articles. Any...

Photo taken on Gordon Street, Toronto, December 3, 2009. From November 2011 through July 2012 I wrote the "Past Pieces of Toronto" column for OpenFile , which explored elements of the city which no longer exist. This is the final installment to be reprinted, one appropriate for today as it was originally posted on April 1, 2012.  That date is key, for the following is an April Fools joke, one I learned several lessons from. Prepare yourself for another lengthy preamble.

This post has moved to Tales of Toronto . 

Sifting through files on one of my 7,853 USB keys, I found a folder of material I'd copied from City Lights , a short-lived (1934-35) Toronto magazine from the mid-1930s. Its content fell somewhere between the New Yorker and a Depression-era Toronto Life . City Lights is also one of those subjects that is perennially on my Historicist back burner - someday a profile will see the light of day, once I can find any information about its brief existence.

Last night I went to Second City for the first time in ages. Little did I know the comedy wouldn't stop when I got home. The interwebs were abuzz with news of  2010 Toronto mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson jumping into this year's race. Said candidate decided to launch their campaign with a lengthy poem which provoked waves of derision, because that's what you automatically do when you have a platform which allows only 140 characters at a time (though in this case, it is a train wreck of verse). In my fatigued state, the following thought sprang into my head: The only offhand example I thought of was a piece of doggerel I encountered while researching the incorporation of Toronto in 1834 . Technically, William Lyon Mackenzie wasn't running for mayor when the following piece was written - the position didn't exist yet - but he'd be named our city's first chief exec soon enough. Context: Mackenzie, along with some other Reformers, opposed Upper Can...

Source: the Toronto Star , April 13, 1964. To mark Oscar night, we're heading back 50 years to check the reaction from Toronto's TV critics regarding the 36th annual Academy Awards ceremony on April 13, 1964. Among the milestones that night were the first black performer to win Best Actor (Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field ) and the first film to place three nominees in the Best Supporting Actress category (Diane Cilento, Edith Evans, and Joyce Redman in Tom Jones, all of whom lost to Margaret Rutherford from The V.I.P.s ).

Source: the Telegram , April 7, 1911. Two adjacent sketches make up today's post. Did the artist try to suggest bags under each crook's eyes to illustrate their depravity in holding up one of the city's most prominent jewelers? Or did John Lester naturally look that weary? Also, were they trying to pass along their stolen diamonds to unsuspecting tourists in Niagara Falls? A possible sales pitch under that scenario: WILLIAMS (since he shows promise as the smooth talker of the pair): Hello there young lovers. Are you here to celebrate your honeymoon? GROOM : We are. Just arrived on the train. Been looking forward to this for three years. Do you know if anyone's going over the falls in a barrel today? WILLIAMS : Wouldn't know. Not as common as you'd think. By the way, I notice your rings are not diamonds. BRIDE : He couldn't afford them on his clerk's salary. But our love is priceless. WILLIAMS : That may be true, but it would be nice to hav...

Source: the Toronto World , April 9, 1911. Click on image for larger version. First thing about this ad which caught my eye: the funky typeface used by the Grand Opera House, which it used for all its showcase ads during this period. Second thing about this ad which caught my eye: "Lucy Daly and her Pony Ballet." Did Ms. Daly bring ponies on stage to performance classical ballet? Did she do an interpretative dance routine to salute ponies? While I'm unable to confirm either theory, it appears Daly was a singer/dancer who had toured with headiners Hap Ward and Harry Vokes for several years. The New York Dramatic Mirror noted that during a production of A Pair of Pinks in Montreal in 1905, Daly "was as bright and vivacious as ever and danced beautifully." I also wonder if she was related to another frequent performer in Ward and Vokes productions, Vokes's wife Margaret Daly-Vokes. Third thing about this ad which caught my eye: "The Famous Fu...

This post offers supplementary material for an article I wrote for Torontoist , which you should read before diving into this piece. In an opinion piece published on November 30, 1833 complaining about the rejection of his expense claims in covering the provincial assembly, Gurnett described his editorial policy for the Courier of Upper Canada . He avoids mentioning that the “the true interests of this province” he believed in tended to coincide with Tory/Family Compact policies: In the management of our journal, we have never courted, or deferred to, what is usually called public opinion; neither have we courted the approbation of persons in authority, or in fact of any individuals whatever. Our sole object has been to promote to the utmost extent of our ability and our means, the true interests of this province; and in the pursuit of that object; we have advocated those principles which we believed to be most conducive thereto; those principles we declared clearly and ...

Source: the Mail and Empire , March 11, 1922. Click on image for larger version. An odd one-shot cartoon found on the crime and southwestern Ontario news page of the Mail and Empire . It appeared above the daily rundown of the previous day's proceedings at Osgoode Hall, none of which involved hold-ups. The only story with a vague connection to this illustration concerned two mail robberies in Essex County. In the first case, five men pleaded guilty to charges of "conspiring to rob Herbert Jacobs of Government mail at Tecumseh on February 15th." Severn Laforet, a bank teller, confessed to plotting the dastardly deed in order to cover a $2,000 shortfall in his accounts. One of those involved in the heist was also charged with two other men in an attempted hold-up of a mail car in Amherstburg. The oddest story from the Mail and Empire 's crime blotter came from the Chatham area, under the headline " INJURED BY VICIOUS SOW ." Roy Beamish, a farm hand e...

I should be used to waking up to the radio blaring our glorious mayor's latest blunder . Should be, but it's still aggravating, maddening, and saddening all at once. That there are people who actually still admire the oaf is among the things that makes me fret about the future of humanity. It appears our best mayor ever may have been ticketed for jaywalking last night. Which got me to thinking, especially after reading a story on the early history of jaywalking , when did the term first appear in Toronto newspapers? Cue a quick trip to the online archives of the Globe and Mail and the Star ... The answer appears to be two stories published a century ago. First, an item from the May 18, 1914 edition of the Star , which compares jaywalkers to another emerging menace of the automotive age, the joyrider. Source: the Toronto Star , May 18, 1914. The next day, the Globe published the following piece - less body, more headline: Source: the Globe , May 19, 1914.

Source: the Globe and Mail , March 19, 1976. Click on image for larger version. "A master plan for Aquatic Park in Lake Ontario calls for expenditures of $26 million for a 5,000 seat ampitheatre, campsites, a wildlife area, fishing piers, and accomodation for 1,500 power and sail craft," opened a 1976 Globe and Mail article on future plans for the Leslie Street Spit . The plan also provided for the private sector to build attractions like hostels, hotels, and a "20-acre marineland park." A Metro Toronto and Region Conservation Authority official noted that over 150 potential uses for the site were studied so that the proposed park would complement, not compete, with existing recreational facilities along the waterfront. Under the plan, the public would enjoy unrestricted access to 70 percent of the park's shoreline. The article doesn't address the pressing concern of what to do with the quonset hut in the middle of the spit , whose naming rights wer...

When reading Toronto's early newspapers, you have to remember that half of what you're reading is either partisan sniping or satirical attacks. That little context is provided for most of these attacks can drive a researcher mad, unless you're already deeply immersed in the subject. Reading these stories at random can be a head-scratcher - you know it's supposed to be funny, but you're not sure why. And then there are times when a great headline lures you into an attack piece. Take the case of the following headline I stumbled upon in the January 12, 1849 edition of the Toronto Mirror : Death from Intense Cold Naively, I thought Toronto might have endured a cold snap 165 Januarys ago similar to the new ice age we've enjoyed this month. Maybe this headline topped a tragic tale of a victim of deep freeze. Nope. Instead, the story "mourns" a rival newspaper, the original incarnation of the Toronto Standard (whose modern-day namesake has endur...

Source: The Telegram , October 14, 1961. Click on image for larger version. An amazing fact: if this was the first accident on the DVP, it occurred a month-and-a-half after its first section (Bayview/Bloor to Eglinton Avenue) opened. Were drivers that much more careful in 1961, or was it plain old luck that nobody else had spun out or suffered a fender bender? If you're wondering when the DVP experienced its first traffic jam, the answer is: August 31, 1961, the day it opened. Star reporter Fred Hollett was brave enough to experience the DVP's first evening rush hour. I rode the new five-mile section of parkway yesterday during its first evening rush-hour. And it was a five-minute trip from Dreamsville to Nightmare junction. Dreamsville was the Danforth Ave. entrance to the parkway, where I had all three lanes to myself for nearly a mile. Nightmare Junction was the Eglinton Ave. exit where hundreds of motorists celebrated the parkway's official opening with one o...

While doing some research for the next installment of Torontoist 's "Meet a Mayor" series at the city archives this week, I found a photocopy of the following letter to the editor, submitted to the Toronto Star in late 1972. Seems this correspondent was no fan of our first "rebel mayor," William Lyon Mackenzie. Source: Toronto Star , December 5, 1972. Click on image for larger version. The writer was wrong to state that Mackenzie's writings had never been republished; Oxford University Press published a curated selection of our fiery first mayor's opinions in 1960 ( The Selected Writings of William Lyon Mackenzie ).  The letter writer's tone echoes sentiments felt by the Family Compact and their Tory allies during the 1820s and 1830s, who were as guilty of "yellow journalism" as Mackenzie. *** Speaking of former mayors, here are the questions to round two of our Jeopardy-style quiz: 1) Who was Robert John Fleming ? The street...

Before we go into round two, here are the questions to yesterday's answers (from top to bottom): 1) Who are the Howlands? (William Holmes Howland 1886 to 1887, Oliver Aiken Howland 1901 to 1902). Some may try to claim Rob and Doug Ford, given the latter's penchant for assisting his brother. 2) Who is Fred Beavis?  I wrote about the hat draw for The Grid . 3) Who is  Henry Sherwood ? Mayor from 1842 to 1844, Sherwood expired while traveling through Bavaria in 1855. ending a career which also included an eight-week stint as the attorney-general of Canada West. 4) Who is John Shaw? Here's a fuller excerpt of Shaw's remarks on the opening of (Old) City Hall in September 1899 (Shaw served as mayor from 1897 to 1899): Why people will spend large sums of money on great buildings opens up a wider field of thought. It may, however, be roughly answered that great buildings symbolize a people's deeds and aspirations...It is now the most attractive place in Toronto, ...

This week was yet another goldmine for people to make fun of our fine city's mayor. Even Jeopardy got into the act . Which got me to thinking...what if there was a category on everyone's favourite quiz show dedicated to Toronto's mayors? Thanks to a clue screen generator , we have made this possible. Over the next two posts, test your knowledge of our city's past chief executives! Here's the first quintet of questions. Place your answers in the comments section. Enjoy...and no cheating! Answers will be posted with round #2 tomorrow!