JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

This installment of my "Ghost City" column for The Grid was originally published on January 8, 2013. Toronto Star , March 22, 1981. When East York rejected physician Charles Trow’s offer to sell his 25-acre wooded property south of Leaside to the municipality for use as parkland circa 1950, little did political officials realize the headaches that would ensue over the next half-century. Instead, the property—which offered a beautiful view of the Don Valley—was sold by Trow’s widow in 1953 to developers Hampton Park Company Ltd. Legal problems arose almost immediately as Hampton Park proprietors Harry Freedman and Harry Frimerman beat a foreclosure attempt when they were slow to pay the mortgage. The site was approved for apartment development in East York’s first official plan in 1957, but the document was scrapped when the township planner was fired for consulting with tower builders on the side.

( click here for full-size version ) A few months ago, we posted a lengthy advertorial from man-about-town Brett Halliday that lavished praise upon a new hotel. Further journeys through the back pages of the Toronto Sun have been rewarded with many more examples of his purple prose that inspire me to go the extra mile in my writing (within reason or for ultimate comedic effect). Whenever I read old Halliday pieces, I marvel at what unfolds before my eyes. Before jumping into the "review" of today's restaurant, Halliday ponders a deep question about life that he had recently been asked: When asked recently if I had my life to live over again, would I like to observe any changes, my answer was an emphatic no! I have not lived through a war, experience depression, yet I have had my fair share of growing, struggling, and reaching a stage in life that has emcompassed a span of exciting events. I have watched man stamp out disease, fly faster than the speed of sou...

I guess I should have waited a little longer to post the last installment of my stroll along Broadway Avenue . Almost two weeks ago, I noticed that the lot of Brennan Pontiac Buick GMC was emptier than usual. Upon closer inspection, office equipment was piled up in the showroom. Sell-off sale announcements were posted on all of the windows. In short: sixty years of car dealerships at the corner of Bayview and Broadway have drawn to a close.

Hopefully the rage that is fueling some citizens our fair city during the current garbage strike does not manifest itself in a remake of this classic scene from Silent Night Deadly Night 2 . Once the strike ends, I'll be curious to see how many heart attacks, brain aneurysms or other fatal maladies will be caused by the stress of writing vitriolic comments on websites. For cooler-headed views of the strike, check out columns by Rosie DiManno and Joe Fiorito in today's Star . Despite hotheads on both sides, life rolls along and the sky hasn't fallen...yet. *** While strolling around the neighbourhood last night, I checked out the state of the garbage cans two days into the strike. During day one, most were wrapped with Saran Wrap to prevent their usage during the walkout. How successful was this tactic? Not very. Either the wrapper had poor aim, or someone found it easy to slip the plastic sheets down this new school garbage can. Pedestrians ignored the sign...

Clearing out some of the old scanned material before moving on to a fresh batch of recent finds. Let's just say I recently came into the possession of a stack of 70s goodness... We're setting the wayback machine to 1961 for today's presentation, discovered in the back of one of my father's high school yearbooks. For those of you new to these woods, Simpson's was a Canadian department store chain whose flagship store was located at Queen and Yonge, later used as the setting for Today's Special . They were partners in bringing Sears to Canada in the 1950s (the Canadian branch was known as Simpsons-Sears for years, a tag which remained on many Sears doors for years after the partnership ended). Hudson's Bay Company acquired Simpson's in 1978, gradually converting stores to The Bay moniker until the name was retired in 1991. Wikipedia lists where stores were located - I remember being excited when the basement of the Windsor store would convert enti...