Up Coming Events, Books, Gift Certificates and stories of Old Toronto

Mary Pickford's Toronto: Tuesday August 3 at 10am, meet at St Lawrence Market at Front and Jarvis south side

Known to millions of film goers during the first half of the 20th century as 'America's Sweetheart' Mary Pickford was born in Toronto in 1892 then went on to become one of the most powerful people in motion pictures both as an actress and producer. Come explore the historic sites including her birthplace on University Ave and the site of the Princess Theatre where Mary as a 5 year old made her acting debut. Email or phone for reservations. $30 per person- 2.5 hrs

Books for sale and Gift Certificates

TORONTO: A Pictorial Celebration. Bruce Bell was personally chosen by Sterling Publishing of New York to write a book on Toronto for a world wide audience in his own unique style. With this new book Bruce together with renowned photographer Elan Penn who has taken some of the most breathtaking pictures of Toronto you’ll ever see provides a wonderful narrative of the city’s background from its development from a humble watering hole and hunting ground used by First Nations, to a place renowned for its stark modernity and rich multicultural diversity. From significant firsts, such as the original Parliament site, to tourist favorites like the Hockey Hall of Fame, from the famed CN Tower to over 80 historical sites offering something for history buffs, sports fans, culture seekers, nature lovers, and even shoppers. Follow the rise of an Imperial city; explore the great churches and government buildings; check into the luxurious modern hotels, and go through Toronto’s many universities, the biggest, tallest, and oldest attractions, all in one enjoyable visit. This brilliantly produced hardcover coffee table book with all colour plates is only $19.95.

My books 'Amazing Tales of St. Lawrence Neighbourhood' and 'Toronto A Pictorial Celebration' are both available at the Market Souvenir Shop in St. Lawrence Market just inside the main Front Street entrance. I will meet you there to sign a copy. Drop me a line to set up a time. Also available at the Market Souvenir Shop are my Gift Certificates. A terrific present that can be made out for any of my tours!

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4) The Toronto Book of Everything-Various Authors

The books have been the bestselling title in every market they¹ve entered. Eighty-five percent of the buyers are local. They are a tough audience, and we consider it our job to impress them. When you get locals buying a book about a community they¹ve lived in for generations, you know you¹ve done something right. When you get a call from the president of the Toronto Maple Leafs wanting to buy a copy of the book for every member of his staff, it gives you a feeling you came close to getting it right. From Bay Street slang and the Great Toronto Fire to immigrant city and Pride Toronto, it’s all here including Bruce Bell’s 5 top picks for favourite rooms in Toronto! If you love Toronto, you will love the Toronto Book of Everything. Available at most local book stores, Chapters, Indigo, Coles, McNally Robinson, amazon.ca

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Stories of Old Toronto by Bruce Bell

All pictures and photograghs courtesy of Toronto Public Library unless otherwise stated

bruce.bell2@sympatico.ca

St. Lawrence Hall

St. Lawrence Market

St. James' Catherdral

The Royal York Hotel

Number 10 Toronto Street

The Bank of Upper Canada

Royal Alexandra Theatre

Winter Garden Theatre

Lount and Matthews and the Rebellion of 1837

Maple Leaf Gardens

The Gooderham (Flatiron) Building

St Lawrence Hall by Bruce Bell

On the morning of April 7, 1849 Toronto awoke to a blaze that nearly destroyed the entire city. What once was an agriculturally based city of about 35,000 was quickly being consumed in a rage of fire. The center of town bounded by King, Adelaide, George and Church Streets was to change forever and along with it, the entire future of the City of Toronto. The fire started about one in the morning in a stable behind a then popular drinking establishment called Covey's Inn on the north side of King Street just east of Jarvis. It may have been a cow knocking over a lantern onto a pile of straw (like in the legend of the Chicago fire) or maybe a careless toss of a cigar or it could of been deliberate (half the fires in the 1800s' were set on purpose) no one knows for sure but it grew to become one hell of a fire storm.The flames leapt from floorboards to tin roofs to wooden sidewalks, gathering fuel along the way. Taverns, Inns, book stores, clothing outlets, homes, newspaper offices, hardware stores, dry-good emporiums, liquor shops and the Market which only a few short years before served as our first city hall all gone in one night of unbelievable terror. Toronto changed forever that night but in the aftermath of the destruction a new city was to be born and at its heart was to be built a magnificent and thankfully still standing structure. Architect William Thomas completed St. Lawrence Hall (originally named the St. Lawrence Buildings) in 1851. It had stores on the King Street level, offices on the second and third floors and a new market that stretched down to Front street replacing the previous one that was destroyed during the Great Fire. But something wondrous was added, a site that was to change forever the landscape of the bourgeoning entertainment industry in Toronto.On the top floor of the new hall was to sit a magnificent ballroom. For the first 25 years of its life the Grand Ballroom also known as the Great Hall was the pre-emanate concert hall in Toronto and ranked amongst the greatest performance venues in North America. To play the Hall was to say you have truly arrived. The most famous act to have preformed there was Jenny Lind who was born in Stockholm in 1821. Even to this day recreations of her famous October 1851 concert are being staged in the Great Hall as well as in other halls she visited throughout her enormously successful 1850-51 tour of North America. Her fame was unparalleled. At the height of Lindomania there were Jenny Lind tea towels, Jenny Lind Pianos, gloves, bonnets, chairs, sofas even a Jenny Lind locomotive. She was considered the first world wide super star thanks in part to the man who brought her to America circus impresario PT Barnum. Her legions of fans included Queen Victoria who wrote of her in her journal on April 22 1846, “The great event of the evening was Jenny Lind’s appearance and her complete triumph. She has a most exquisite powerful and really quite peculiar voice, so round, soft and flexible”. After her triumphant tour of North America Lind’s relationship with PT soured, she married conductor Otto Goldschmidt and moved to the UK where she devoted her life to philanthropy singing only occasionally and then only for charity. She died in 1887. But the Swedish nightingale wasn’t the only 19^th century celebrity whose voice filled the gilded gas lit room. The very first person to speak in the newly opened Great Hall on April 1^st 1851 was George Thompson an MP from England who spoke on the evils of slavery. But it would be the renowned abolitionist and author Frederick Douglass a freed American slave then living across Lake Ontario in Rochester NY who on the very next day would bring to the Great Hall a true taste of the prominence that was to follow. It was appropriate that this illustrious man who when a slave was beaten on a daily basis until as he would later say was broken in body, soul and spirit spoke at St. Lawrence Hall. Douglas besides being a author and public speaker was also the local superintendent of the legendary Underground Railroad, the secret route made of up of safe houses belonging to white abolitionists starting from the plantations of the deep south up through to New York State and across Lake Ontario to Canada where the route became known as the Freedom Trail. The abolitionist movement was very strong in Toronto and whenever they could they would invite speakers from the US, England and Canada to lecture on the evils of Slavery. Although their numbers were few the newly freed slaves who did risk their lives escaping from the then evil empire to the south of us would disembark from the City Wharf which at one time lay at the foot of Jarvis Street just below Front and made their way to the Hall where they would be met and cared for by local abolitionists. Douglass’s booming voice reverberated off the walls of the Great Hall with orations like “What to the American slave is the 4^th of July? I answer a day that reveals to him more than all the others of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.” Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1834 but we here (York) outlawed the buying and selling of slaves in 1793 although you could still own people until the outright ban. America followed our lead in 1865. A musical act to follow Douglass a few years later was the Christy Minstrels an extremely popular and world renowned black face mistral show. 19th century Toronto may have detested slavery but they loved white guys in black face. The star and founder of the show EP Christy first formed the troupe in Buffalo in 1842 and were most famous for their rendition of the Swanee River song. In 1862 EP Christy committed suicide by jumping out of a window. Another 19^th century icon to play the Hall was Jem Mace the boxing champion of the world who packed the Great Hall in 1871.

British born Jem known as the father of modern boxing had a career spanning 41 years which he toured the world teaching boxing and conducting tournaments. One of the most popular acts to play the hall was The Great Farini tight rope walker extraordinaire who performed unbelievable stunts on a taunt wire that stretched the length of the Great Hall high above the crowd. Guillermo Antonio Farini whose motto was The Great Farini will not be outdone was born William Hunt in Lockport NY in 1838 to Canadian parents but raised in Bowmanville and later Port Hope Ontario. His career began in 1859 when the illustrious French aerialist Monsieur Blondin tight roped across the Niagara river next to the falls and William who already was thrilling neighbours in his backyard in Port Hope not only copied the feat but jumped up and down on the wire as well as somersaulted across the gorge. After an amazing career he retired from performing in 1869 but went on to become an impresario where he discovered a 14 year old sensation named Zarel and invented the stunt of shooting her out of a cannon. He lived until the age of 90 and died at his home in Port Hope in 1929. During the later part of the 19th century the most celebrated soprano in the world was Adelina Patti. Jenny Lind said of her that there is only one Niagara and there is only one Patti. Born in 1843 she lived long enough to have her voice recorded (many of her contemporaries failed to do) and now after being digitally re- mastered are still selling. At the height of her career the Divine Patti was paid $5,000 in gold per performance. Her circle of friends included writers Oscar Wilde, Leo Tolstoy and Henry James and she sang before Queen Victoria, Napoleon III, and Alexander II of Russia. Mlle Patti made her debut at St. Lawrence Hall 1853 when she was only 10 years old and again in 1860 was she was 17. She returned to Toronto to sing at Massey Hall as part of her farewell tour in 1903. She died in 1919 in her home in Wales. General Tom Thumb born Charles Sherwood Stratton in Bridgeport Conn. in 1838 was possibly the most famous celebrity of his time. His performances at the Great Hall on October 21-24 1861 were enormous triumphs. At a time when so called freak-shows were, however repugnant, huge draws Tom Thumb through his humour, intelligence and character became extremely rich and highly respected. It was circus impresario PT Barnum who christened him General Tom Thumb in 1842 and some say exploited his stature. He was when they first met only 24” (61cm) and during his life never exceeded 33” (84cm). Tom’s marriage in 1863 to equally small in stature Lavina Warren was the society event of the year in NY. During his career he performed for Queen Victoria, President Lincoln and King Louis Philippe of France. He died at the age of 45 and Lavina decades later at the age of 77. Henriette Sontag was a famous and much idolized German Soprano born in 1806 and became a star after appearing in the premiere of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony in 1824. She was forced to give up her career when she married Count Rossi a Sardinian Diplomat but upon the abdication of the King of Sardinia she resumed her singing in 1849. After her sold out engagement at St. Lawrence Hall on January 2 1854 she went on to tour the United States and Mexico where she died cholera. What these performers all shared besides holding Queen Victoria spellbound was the fact they also held Toronto audiences captive in a stunning setting. The Great Hall was the social, political and entertainment hub of Toronto and it’s only one of a handful of great rooms left in Canada where most of the Fathers of Confederation spoke on the need to form a country. Sir John A, D’Arcy Magee and George Brown would feel right at home if they walked in there today. Our first Prime Minister would also sometimes without provocation show up and preach on behalf of the anti slavery movement. These were the hall’s golden years. But the end was it sight. In 1874 the Grand Opera House a brand spanking new state-of-the-art 1700 seat theater on Adelaide just west of Yonge opened and immediately stole the crown and the thunder from St. Lawrence Hall. A few years later the Hall started its decline into oblivion. For the next 50 years St. Lawrence Hall and its Grand Ballroom became everything from a men’s hostel to an army and navy surplus outlet. It soon began to deteriorate and its once gleaming white brick façade blackened with years of soot and grime. Worse was the fact that succeeding generations of Torontonians were becoming totally unaware not only of its presence but that too of its glorious past. In 1874 Toronto was putting the finishing touches on a grand opera house that was to stand for ‘ countless generations to come’ on the south side of Adelaide just west of Yonge street. Its opening spelt the end of St. Lawrence Hall as the premier concert hall in the city. The aptly named Grand Opera House a 1,750 seat palace to the arts which saw in its day the worlds greatest actors like Maurice Barrymore and Sarah Bernhardt to magnificent Italian baritones like Giuseppe Del Puente and Antonio Galassi was quite possibly the greatest theater Toronto ever knew. Unfortunately the gorgeous Grand with its then ultra modern and innovative electric on/off gaslight switches promising from light to dark in a matter of seconds had one thing going against it. It had the bad luck of being built in a city mad with demolition and therefore lasted just over 50 years and was ultimately torn down in 1927 after suffering neglect and numerous fires. The last mentions I could find for any noteworthy events happening in St. Lawrence’s Great Hall were a musical act entitled Skiff and Gaylord’s Albino Minstrel’s; a man named Whiston who was billed as a humourist and musical freak and finally a soiree and concert held for the L.O.L. Temperance Lodge on February 22 1872. After that the Great Hall which held Toronto audiences captivated with performances from Jenny Lind, Adeline Patti, The Great Farini, Henriette Sontag and Tom Thumb had its doors closed and the ever popular Dust n’ Time became its sole headliners. As the city expanded the Great Hall unused and unkempt for decades by the time the 1950’s rolled around was being used as a men’s Hostel run by the Salvation Army. In 1951 the National Ballet moved in and once again music filled the room.

Celia Franca the company’s founder says she remembers those early days, “In winter it was used as a hostel for indigent men. We would arrive for our summer tenure, to find the disassembled iron bunks of the winter tenants stacked at one end of the girls’ dressing room”. So without any major renovations the Hall continued throughout the 1950’s to be used by the Ballet Company. In 1960 a real estate firm wanted to buy up the land bounded by King, Jarvis, Market and Front Streets to build a modern high rise and a parking garage. This almost happened, remember no one lived around these parts to object, and except for a few lone voices of dissent including historian and architect Eric Arthur there was nothing to stop the developers who were already obliterating the downtown core. At a meeting involving various like minded historical preservation groups it was suggested that they urge the City to acquire St. Lawrence Hall immediately. The next year the exquisite Chorley Park in Rosedale once the official residence of our lieutenant Governors and rivaling any great home the British countryside had to offer was wiped off the map. Outraged at this never ending vandalism of our most treasured landmarks the newly formed Toronto Historical Board sent a paper to City Council strongly suggesting that the site of St. Lawrence Hall and its surrounding land be acquired entirely. It encouraged restoration of the exterior, the interior, the ground floor and the Great Hall. It recommended the establishment of a museum (still waiting on that one boys) on the second floor and the continued used of the building by the National Ballet. Coincidentally on September 29^th 1961 Royal Assent was given to the National Centennial Act which set out the organization and financial pattern for the great observance . George Bell, Toronto Parks Commissioner, recommended a park be built next to St. James and the renovation of St. Lawrence Hall as part of Toronto’s Official Centennial Project.

And so it began. Unlike the other 20,000 buildings that were destroyed during Urban Renewal St. Lawrence Hall was to be spared. In 1966 work began on removing the plaster from the walls and ceiling of the Great Hall. It was stripped bare down to the bricks and a new frame to hold the new plaster went up. When the Great Hall opened back in 1851 the ceiling was adorned with paintings of naked females. What shocked the Victorian public back then wasn’t the fact that naked bodies were floating above them but the fact that they were painted badly. After they faded from view they weren’t brought back. Only one structural change was made that being the removal of the stage that decades before saw the greats of the of the 19^th century showbiz world strutting their stuff. On the evening of December 28, Governor-General Roland Michener officially re-opened St. Lawrence Hall by igniting the gas fireplace along with architect Eric Arthur in the Great Hall in front of a glittering crowd made up from the construction industry, the arts, community organizations and City Hall. Canadian Soprano Elizabeth Benson Guy sang the same songs by Dvorak, Handel and Bizet that Jenny Lind had sung in the Hall in 1851. At the end of the evening Mayor Dennison announced that Northern Affairs Minister Arthur Laing had designated St. Lawrence Hall a National Historical site.

St Lawrence Hall as shown in 1861

St. Lawrence Market & the Story of Toronto’s Second City Hall by Bruce Bell

If you stand in front of the Liquor Store at Front and Market Sts and face St. Lawrence Market, look up into the huge half circle window just underneath the Market sign and you will see one of Toronto’s truly great art treasures. It’s not a painting or a statue or an antique vase. It’s a brick wall; more specifically it’s the western wall of the onetime center block of Toronto’s former 2^nd City Hall (1844) that is now completely encased within the massive shed that envelops the entire South St. Lawrence Market. That wall, which has been hidden from view on the western mezzanine (just above Paddington’s Pub), will soon be on full display when the mezzanine opens to the public as part of St Lawrence Market’s new kitchen and cooking demonstrating space sometime this spring. What really makes this immense 60ft high 40ft wide wall extraordinary is for what’s not there anymore. Bricked in doorways, windows, fireplaces, stairwells and the former doorway that a one time lead to the mayors office, the very power corridors of 19^th century Toronto all blocked up when the western wing of the City Hall was torn down to build the Market in 1900. At the southern end of this massive wall you can also make out the outline of the sloped roof of Toronto’s 2^nd City Hall’s western wing that had clung to this center block for over 50 years. That wall is a story board written in brick and mortar of Toronto’s long and rich history. In 1834 the colonial Town of York (then centering on King and Jarvis Sts) with a population of 9,000 became the City of Toronto. By 1844 the population grew to over 24,000 and with this new expansion came fresh cash and a decision to construct a brand new City Hall. Up until then, Toronto’s 1st City Hall and entire Council were crammed in above the entrance to the then Market (now the site of the present day St. Lawrence Hall on King E) in a small room that had also served as the former Town Chambers. That first City Hall like the old Market (1832-1849 known as the 2^nd market), was becoming overcrowded and highly unsanitary what with all the pig-slop and chickens running around underneath the mayor and councilmen’s feet. In 1844, on the edge of Lake Ontario (everything south of Front Street is now landfill) where the Home District Farmer’s Storehouse once stood, architect Henry Bowyer Joseph Lane began work on the new and desperately needed City Hall complete with a clock tower, police station, jail and newer market facilities for poultry and fish. Building it on the waterfront would also give the New City Hall an impressive appearance as ships rounded the bay as it stood out amongst the wharves and piers that lined The Esplanade. Of course being situated so close to the water would also produce one of our Toronto’s greatest urban legends, the horrors of the Dungeon. Where the now sparse main entrance to the Market is today, there was once an opulent walnut paneled foyer, spiral staircase and access to the Police Station. The staircase led up to the 2^nd floor where facing Front St. the Mayor had his office in aforementioned western wing and at the rear overlooking the harbour was the new Council Chamber. A third floor held the Public Gallery that looked down over the Chambers.

The basement was the domain of Police Station No. 1 with its infamous jails.

Before the days of prison reform and common sense justice, people were thrown into that jail, chained to the wall and later executed if so deemed, for as little as stealing a piece of bread. During a storm a nearby river (now underground) would rise as it made its way to Lake Ontario, flood the jail and the helpless people shackled to the wall would drown or at the very least, hang knee deep in all the contaminated debris washing up from the open sewer that was Lake Ontario. Next time you find yourself in the basement of St Lawrence Market take a peak around the corner from the colourful K. Chew mural in the tiny food court and checkout the old field stone wall of that ancient jail. With the wooden stakes still intact that at one time held the chains that held the men still in place it makes one think if those walls could talk, they’d scream. Someone back then either thinking this was barbaric or feeling sorry for the jail-guards who had to mop-up the gunk, decided to move the jail cells to the newly opened Court House (1851) on Adelaide St. where today, in the basement of the brilliantly renovated Court House Restaurant, they too can be seen. On April 7, 1849 a Great Fire ripped through the downtown core sparing the new City Hall but the old Market home to Toronto’s first City Hall across the street, went up in flames. After the fire Toronto had an unprecedented opportunity to rebuild a town that was once made of wood into a city made of stone. A new brick 3^rd market was built (1850-1899) and as its entrance was to be the newly opened St. Lawrence Hall on King Street with its opulent ballroom on the top floor (the onetime entrance to that 3^rd market was renovated in 1967 and is now the lobby to St Lawrence Hall itself). In 1850, it was noticed that the Front Street City Hall was sinking into the clay beneath its foundations. The city hired architects William Thomas (St. Lawrence Hall) John Howard (practically everything else) and to re-configure the plans and stabilize it. They also added some ornamentation to the façade, giving Lane’s original ho-hum building a splash of décor. So for the next 50 years you could enter St Lawrence Hall on King Street walk on through to the new Market, come out onto Front St, cross the road, set foot in the City Hall, descend to the lower level, pick out some fruits and vegetables from the shops that lined an open courtyard, continue to the back where for a time the Market Wharf once stood (today the site of Pontieri’s Auto Center) and buy your freshly caught fish and in the following years to come catch a train from the Northern Train Station that at one time stood behind the City Hall.

By the late 1890’s Toronto was booming, its population was almost 200,000 so it was time once again to build yet another City Hall (today known as Old City Hall with its 300ft clock tower on Bay and Queen). The question was what to do with the old one on Front Street? John Siddal the architect chosen to renovate the Front St. City Hall in 1899 decided to do away with the east and west wings and remove the clock tower but rather than tearing down the entire structure he instead created a treasure. If you stand facing St. Lawrence Market from across the street you can still see the yellow brick outline of the center block of that 2^nd City Hall.

You can get a better view from inside the Market where that center block, once the Council Chambers and now home to the splendid Market Gallery is a wonderment of reclamation. Siddall placed an enormous shed over the new building, built supporting trusses to hold it and raised the Council Chamber floor to allow more height over the main entrance. Unfortunately he and the city planners also decided to tear down the former 3^rd market on the north side of the street (a masterpiece of Victorian splendor) and constructed instead an exact copy of the new south St Lawrence Market complete with an enormous canopy (which lasted until 1954) spanning Front Street connecting the two. In 1901 the new St Lawrence Market, which took up almost 3 acres of floor space hosting 2 gigantic buildings and one enormous canopy making it one of the largest building projects in Canada at that time, opened its doors. That 1901 North Market (4^th) was demolished in 1967 and replaced with the present one better known today as the Farmers Market (the 5^th and easily the ugliest public building in Toronto today). In 1977 the present South St. Lawrence Market was renovated with a new roof, floor and reconfigured into the one we know and love today. Toronto’s City Halls, mayors, councilors and citizens have all come and gone but through it all the onetime center block of our city’s former 2^nd City Hall with its phantom like western wall survives to give testament to all that came before. A very, very rare sight in Toronto today.

Toronto's 2nd City Hall as shown in 1898

The Cathedral Church of St. James’ by Bruce Bell

In the often secular yet multicultural multi-faith world that Toronto is today it might be hard to conceive just how powerful the Cathedral Church of St. James and the man who helmed it during most of the 19^th century once were. Still very much a force to be reckoned with today St. James’ is a document carved in stone and etched in stained glass (including one inlaid with Tiffany glass) of the last 200 years of Toronto’s history.

This magnificent English Gothic-inspired cathedral is the fifth church to stand on the northeast corner of King and Church Streets. The first church building was a small, one-room, wooden structure begun in 1803 on land set aside in 1797 when soldiers from Fort York began to clear away some trees on what was then the outskirts of town. The first church didn’t open until 1807 at which time it was simply called the English church.

As the town grew, so did the church, and by 1818 the tiny building had expanded to almost twice its original size. In 1830, after the church had become the seat of the Anglican bishop and consecrated the Cathedral Church of St James’ it was rebuilt in stone. After another rebuilding due to fire in 1839, the church could now accommodate 2,000 worshipers and boasted a tall wooden spire containing the city’s public clock that dominated the city skyline. On the morning of April 7, 1849, a great fire tore through the downtown core of Toronto, destroying the fourth St. James’.

In the aftermath of the great fire the city we know today was born with the construction of St Lawrence Hall, the new courthouse on Adelaide, the 7^th Post Office on Toronto Street and the present Cathedral Church of St. James opening for service in 1853.

The yellow brick Cathedral was designed and built by the architectural firm of Cumberland and Storm however it would be almost another quarter of a century before architect Henry Langley gave it the tallest spire in Canada in 1875.

For most of the nineteenth century, St. James’ remained under the influence of its first bishop, John Strachan, one of the most powerful and influential men who ever lived in Toronto. Strachan arrived in York in 1812 to be the rector of the church and teacher to the son’s of the so-called Family Compact that highly prominent, powerful and rich group of non-reformist families which Strachan was to become the undisputed leader.

However it was what he did the following year that made him a hero and eventually a man do no wrong in the eyes of his congregation. If you were Loyalist arriving from the States, you were here because you didn't want to live in a Democracy; you liked the King of England and his way of Governing. None of this 'by the people for the people' stuff for you. Now that the War of 1812 was underway the Americans were going to take that away and make you pledge allegiance to their flag and to President Madison who was elected by the people for pity's sakes and not anointed by the Grace of God as George III had been back in England. Such was the feeling of many who lived in York; to remain British and never surrender to the Republic that wanted Britain out of the New World forever. This mighty ideal of God and King above all else held true to John Strachan and he would follow this belief his entire life.

On the morning of April 27, 1813 the tall ships of the American Fleet could be seen entering the harbour and within a few days the Yanks would be ransacking the little town of York. As the legend goes, American soldiers thought they would loot the little church but John Strachan said 'Enough!' Dressed head to toe in black, the Reverend of St. James astride his horse on the steps of his church demanded that the American forces get out of town and pay pound for pound the damage they had inflicted.

Amazingly the American General Dearborn, exhausted from vomiting all week due to seasickness, agreed helplessly in front of this imposing figure, the American army withdrew from York, and the legend of John Strachan was created.

York was saved from the tyranny of American Democracy and the British way of life was spared! Like many other Toronto Protestants of his day, Strachan held steadfast to the belief that God anointed a Monarch to reign over the people—not a Pope. The Anglican bishop was fiercely anti-Catholic and stood at the helm of the anti-Catholic Orange Order that dominated city politics well into the 1950s.

Probably no other symbol in Toronto today reiterates this point home more than the George V stain glass window in St. Georges Chapel just to the right as you enter the Cathedral itself. This window, beautifully inlaid was given to the church by the Cawthra family in 1935 on the 25 anniversary of George V accession to the throne. At the very top of window just under the symbol of a dove and starburst representing God is George V (our present Queen’s grandfather) and below him are the various the people of the then Empire. Canada, the country that not only paid for but also houses the window is symbolized by a lumberjack. To many people today both here and abroad that lumberjack (with all due respect to hardworking lumberjacks) wearing his toque and plaid jacket is how we Canadians are still perceived. Mind you the window also has Hong Kong represented by a ‘coolie’, Australia by what looks like Crocodile Dundee’s granddad and Ireland by a peasant woman. This window dramatically states that the once mighty British Empire was where everybody knew his or her place and God forbid you saw yourself as anything but what you were born to be. Within the church spire are the new bells placed there in 1997 on the 200^th anniversary of the founding of the church. These change ringing bells officially known as the 12 bronze Bells of Old York (each bell is named after one of the parish churches in the Deanery of St. James' which approximates the area of the old town of York) were dedicated in a weekend ceremony and christened at a service of evensong on Friday, June 27, 1997 with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh attending that Sunday’s service. These unique bells suspended high above the tower are hand rung by members of the St. James' Cathedral Guild of Change Ringers.

Also in the tower is the great 4 sided clock with its own ten automated carillon style chime bells that are used to both chime the clock every quarter of an hour and ring for services and such when the change ringing bells are not used. The clock which was illuminated for the first time on December 24, 1875 was a gift to the city of Toronto from its citizens. The whirling gears to this marvelous Victorian contraption are encased under glass and have a brass plate stating JW BENSON WATCH AND CLOCK MAKER- BY APPOINTMENT TO HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES. Next to the church is St. James’ Park a onetime cemetery of early York but even though those bodies were moved in 1850 the park is still home to the great Cholera pits of 19^th century Toronto where it’s estimated more than 5,000 bodies are still buried beneath the grassy slopes at its northern end. At the centre of the park is a statue of Robert Fleming Gourlay, an early political reformer who came to York from Scotland in 1817 and believed in open protest and petitioning as legal constitutional means of achieving reform. He was banished from York in 1819 after he stood up in Parliament and said (I paraphrase) “Gentlemen I ask you, before you pass this particular bill ask yourselves is it good for the people?” to which Parliament replied “What the hell do the people have to do with it?” He was rescinded in 1839, returned to Toronto in 1856 but after failing to be elected to Parliament in 1858, he went back to Scotland. His statue erected in the summer of 2004 stands purposefully facing St James’ the burial place of his non-reformist enemy, John Strachan who after his death in 1867 was interned underneath the cathedral.

St James' as shown early 1900's

The Royal York Hotel by Bruce Bell

I arrived in Toronto at the age of 18 (with the intent of becoming a famous movie star of course) in January 1973. Like thousands of people who came before me I hurried out of the cavernous Union Station onto Front Street with the taxi cabs lined up, the people hurrying to catch the 5:15, the vendors, the pigeons, the noise, the rush, the smells and the realization that I wasn’t in Sudbury anymore. As I stood on the plaza waiting for a cab I also thought about where I should start looking for a job (to kill time while hundreds of movie directors sought me out) when I found myself staring up at the massive Royal York Hotel rising up from across the street like a Himalayan mountain and thought why not try and get a job there? The next day after settling in at a friends place I headed on down to the hotel, went to the personal office and applied.

There was one job available that I felt I was pretty much suited for, busboy in the famed Imperial Room. As fate would have it the CP Transcontinental train that took me to Toronto named its dinning car The Imperial Room after the Royal York’s. I took it as sign. I was hired on the spot with the next thing I knew I was in full dress uniform being introduced to my new boss the formidable Louis Jannetta the Imperial Room’s renowned maître d'. During its heyday the Imperial Room saw many stars come and go but none of them could match the longevity of Mr. Jannetta himself a former busboy of the great room who moved up the ranks to become the figurehead of an entire way of dining the likes this city will never see again. During my year spent bussing tables in the opulent dinning room I also happened to ingratiate myself with some of the biggest stars in showbizness as they passed through on the lucrative supper club circuit. I stood in awe (hidden behind the curtains because busboys weren’t allowed in the room during showtime) as Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennet, Duke Ellington, The Mills Bros, Peggy Lee, Cyd Charise, Count Bassie and the mesmerizing Marlene Dietrich performed in the vastness of the Imperial Room. Some of these legendary names were just started their careers when the Royal York Hotel opened its doors for the first time on June 11, 1929. There have been various hotels on the site of Royal York ever since 1856 when a row of town houses first built for a Captain Dick operator of a Greats Lakes passenger and freight steam ship company in 1842. Those first houses were built by John George Howard whose own home Colborne Lodge still stands in High Park once his entire estate and left to the city as his gift. For a time Captain Dick’s Georgian style homes were used as the Knox Presbyterian training college. When the school moved out Dick partnered with Patrick Sword and the houses were then converted into Sword’s Hotel.

Because the new hotel was within walking distance to the then Parliament Buildings (just north of the CBC headquarters at Front and Simcoe) most of the cliental were Parliamentarians and when Quebec City became the capital in 1857 the men followed and Sword’s Hotel quickly emptied. Sword sold his hotel to BJB Riley who re-named the place Revere House. In 1862 Captain Dick- a born hotelier -took over the Revere House and renamed it The Queen’s and a legend was born. The Queen’s was the most fashionable hotel in Toronto for almost sixty years and was even though it was anything but modern by the time the King Edward Hotel opened in 1903, the Queen’s managed to retained its crown as Toronto’s foremost luxury hotel. The Queen’s guest list encompassed the movers and shakers of world history during the late 19^th century. Most notably were Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States and his arch enemy General Sherman, and commander of the Union Forces during the American Civil War. The four story hotel had one of the finest dinning rooms in the city, 210 guest rooms or boudoirs as the staff like to refer to them, seventeen private parlours for gentlemen and ladies to entertain at their leisure, a garden and an observation tower in the cupola that was the Queen’s signature architectural feature. The hotel had been the first in Canada to use hot air furnaces for heating and to have running water in all the guests’ rooms and the first hotel in Toronto to use passenger elevators. It was gracious, restful, dripping with old world charm and like most other hotels in Toronto of the time extremely restrictive. With its umpteenth course dinners served at a red velvet pace the hotel became the preferred rendezvous juncture for traveling European royalty, actors, statesmen and the favorite hotel of our first Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald.

When the Great Fire of 1904 swept through the downtown core decimating much of lower Bay and Front Streets the Queen’s was spared partly due to the soaking wet bed sheets hung out the windows by guests to stop the fire from consuming the hotel. But its days were numbered all the same. As Toronto grew rapidly during the first part of the 20^th century the Canadian Pacific Railroad was planning on building a massive castle-like hotel in Toronto to compliment the others already or in the process of constructing. These beaux faux château’s including the Banff Springs, the Empress in Victoria, and Ottawa’s Château Laurier have all become a part of our country’s architectural landscape and now it was to be Toronto’s turn. Not only were we to have the biggest in the country but we were to have the largest hotel in the entire British Empire. The site chosen was obvious, across the street from the busiest train station in Canada Toronto’s new Union Station opened in 1927 by Edward the Prince of Wales (although the station was complete it still would be years before the tracks were in place and passengers still had to use the platforms at the old Union station on the other side of York Street). The Queen’s was purchased by the CPR and unceremoniously torn down. As work began on the new hotel it soon became apparent just how massive this behemoth was to be. It rose above the existing skyline eclipsing everything in sight and for the next 30 years the hotel and the CIBC building (still standing on King E) dominated our city’s skyline. Everything about the new hotel was going to be colossal. A thousand guest rooms, a lobby and mezzanine bigger than the previous Queen’s Hotel itself, a concert Hall second only to Massey Hall, a supper club for 500 and to top the whole experience off the most luxurious roof top ballroom in all of North America, The Roof Garden with its hand painted ivy clinging its way across the ceiling and walls. Like a great pyramid rising out of the desert the Royal York Hotel opened June 11, 1929 and Torontonians gasped. There was a time in my life when the Royal York Hotel seemed like a second home to me. Arriving from Sudbury and barely knowing a soul I got a job as a busboy in the hotel’s famed Imperial Room where for the next year the colossal hotel and its staff become my surrogate family. Like a scene out of some old Hollywood movie I now find myself sipping a vodka martini in one the hotel’s great suites peering out the window down at Union Station where 32 years ago I arrived as a wide eyed teenager full hope and promise. Little ‘ol me from the outskirts of a Northern Ontario mining town, all grown up, tall, lean, muscular, incredibly good-looking (hey its my movie) a one time busboy now sitting on top of the world (compliments of my former employer thank you very much) caught up in the reverie of the moment remembering an exciting time of my life long, long ago. The Royal York when I worked there back in the early 1970’s was experiencing a reawaking after the doldrums of a bleak and sterile Toronto of the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. After a massive renovation the hotel was determined to bring back the opulence and glamour it first envisioned when it opened in 1929. The Great Depression of the 1930’s put an end to its ambition of being a haunt for the very rich with hotel employees instead going out onto the street in search of potential guests. A brief return to the limelight occurred when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) arrived for a stay during their now legendary cross country trip in 1938.

During the Second World War the hotel came into its own as the hot spot playing host to the great big bands with couples dancing the night away high above the city in the famed Roof Garden Ballroom to the sounds of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller’s Orchestra. On September 16, 1949 Toronto was to experience its greatest loss of life when the cruise ship The Noronic caught fire in the harbour killing 118 people. Just like the great ocean liners did during WWII the Royal York too was pressed into service with its lobby transforming itself into a field hospital with many of the guests and staff tending to the hundreds of injured.

The early 1950’s saw Canadians once again hitting the road with Toronto (thanks in part to the CNE) becoming a major tourist destination. In 1956 our largest hotel was getting cramped so a 164 room addition was added to the back. During Urban Renewal with the vast destruction of the downtown core there was talk of knocking down the Royal York and replacing it with a sleeker, more modern hotel. In 1959 a more ambitious renovation was called for, one that would once again make the Canadian Pacific’s Royal York the largest hotel in the British Commonwealth, (a claim that was given up to the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal) with a new 400 room, 17 story addition which increased the Royal York’s capacity to 1600 rooms. While working there I was never intimated at the hotel’s size because at its heart the Royal York is run like a small town where every one knew everybody else and it was this village like atmosphere that Arthur Hailey’s captured so brilliantly when he used the Royal York as the inspiration for his best selling book Hotel. I used to love wandering around the enormous hotel sneaking into rooms that either were closed to the public or completely off limits to everyone including the absolutely forbidden Royal Suite (especially to busboys) home away from home to HM The Queen when visiting Toronto. While not as ostentatious as some of the other great hotel suites in this city (including the Royal York’s own Governor General Suite) this pleasing two bedroom suite has the look and feel of any upscale yet un-pretentious Rosedale apartment. I also used to wander up to the Roof Garden Ballroom on the 19th floor once the most luxurious rooftop space in the city.

By the time I arrived on the scene the ballroom was un-used and empty, its hand painted ivy fading as the sun streamed endlessly through its massive 20 foot windows overlooking the lake. Closed due to shifting tastes and fire regulations the Roof Garden Ballroom was destroyed and carved up into office and private function space in the early 1980’s. However one treasure the Royal York did manage to save and refurbish was its Imperial Lobby adjacent to the Imperial Room. This beautifully restored ante room hidden for years under a false ceiling and carpeting with its recessed archways, travertine pillars and marble flooring was recently restored back to its 1929 splendor. The Royal York Hotel has survived 75 years of Depression, Recession, good times, bad times, Urban Renewal, an almost name changed, sleeker discount hotel chains and me. Even though I was hired to clean away dirty dishes and change tablecloths this brash kid from Sudbury couldn’t seem to do enough for the greatest entertainers of the 2oth century who happened to be performing on the Imperial Room stage. I helped set up Duke Ellington’s music stands, I would place Tony Bennett’s glass of champagne on the piano for his opening number (To the Good Life) and with my first tip I bought jazz great Ella Fitzgerald a rose.

Bussing tables isn’t the most thrilling of jobs but to say I made the most of a situation was an understatement. I once found myself being summoned to clear some dishes away from legendary screen siren turned chanteuse Marlene Dietrich’s dressing room. All of a sudden there I was face to (incredible) face with one of filmdom’s great beauties and within moments of shoving plates and glasses into a bus-pan I was knocking back vodka tonics with her. She was as down to earth as my next door neighbour but as soon as that skintight dress went on the myth was created. Wherever she walked from her hotel suite down the service elevator through the enormous kitchens and throughout the backstage hundreds of Dietrich posters were put up, not so the staff would know we were in the presence of a great star but for Dietrich herself to prepare for that nights show. The hotel became a legendary landmark the day it opened on June 11, 1929 the same year Dietrich hit the big screen in The Blue Angel. What a woman and what a hotel. They were made for each other. When Canadian Pacific Hotels & Resorts acquired the Fairmont Hotel chain in 1999 controversy arose when it was declared that the Toronto landmark would now be known simply as The Fairmont. Local newspapers, TV news and even City Hall got into the debate that the name at the very least should retain the Royal York name. We weren’t alone as all the 40plus Fairmount/CP hotels were to have their names changed (Fairmont Château Frontenac, Fairmont Lake Louise ect) with one notable exception The Plaza in New York City. In the end the great red neon sign that for the last 70 plus years has blazed across our skyline was reconfigured to read Fairmount Royal York. So I’m back where I started all those years ago this time walking around with my friend Craig in the vast emptiness of the greatest supper club of them all, The Imperial Room. We went backstage where I told him my Dietrich story and as we stared at the faded star on the dressing room door I remarked that not much has changed except for the fact vodka tonics are 10x what they were when I used to knock them back with my ‘ol bud Marlene. The Imperial Room (now use for private functions) where every morning I had to polish the brass rail surrounding the dance floor and sweep rose petals off the stage from the previous nights show served its last 6 course dinner in 1984 was completely renovated in 2002 bringing back its 1920’s elegance. As colossal as the Royal York Hotel is (its height comes within a few meters of the great Pyramid at Giza) it still manages to have an intimate and friendly atmosphere. I personally want to thank the staff of the Fairmont Royal York for their generosity in making this retuning prodigal son feel more than welcome allowing me to remember a joyful time of my life long, long ago in real style.

A real class act.

Royal York as shown in 1929

Number 10 Toronto Street by Bruce Bell

Toronto once thought of as a far flung and windswept outpost of the mighty British Empire, was by 1909 basking in the opulence that was the Edwardian Era. We were now considered to be one of the jewels of the crown with sumptuous architectural gems like the 7th Post Office on Toronto Street to show off to visitors. But while some were driving around in fancy new motor cars to take in the sights a young barber named Benny Hollinger heeds the advice of one of his customers and buys a stake in a gold claim in the middle of nowhere 600 miles north of Toronto near present day Timmins. So Benny along with fellow prospector Alec Gillies join hundreds of other people heading north to the Porcupine region following on the on the heels of the famed Wilson expedition who had just discovered the vast Dome gold mine site. When Gillies and Hollinger arrived at the site they are told that all the good stakes were taken, unfazed they go a few miles further west until they come upon an abandoned excavation already picked through, surrounded by the tools of the previous and disappointed prospectors. Undaunted Benny and Alec began to dig beneath a pile of moss and the rest is history. What those two hapless friends found was a massive yet overlooked gold vein that was to become the richest gold producer in the Western Hemisphere. Sadly however Benny Hollinger, after selling his share to Noah Timmins (founder of Shania’s hometown) dies a few short years later of a massive heart attack. Nevertheless his name lives on in Hollinger Inc the company once headed by the infamous yet charismatic Conrad Black whose headquarters at Number 10 Toronto Street, the former 7^th Post Office, is still very much a jewel in our crown. In the mid 19^th century with Toronto growing rapidly a new more modern post office was needed as the 6^th Post Office (1845-1852) on Wellington just west of Leader Lane was getting overcrowded with its distribution centre being located in a small room in a damp dark basement with a low ceiling. The site chosen for the new post office on Toronto Street, was across the street from where supporters of Mackenzie's ill-fated 1837 Rebellion, including Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews met their deaths on the gallows that at one time stood there. The 7^th Post Office b uilt by architect Frederick Cumberland and opened in 1853 was seen by some as quite revolutionary and a departure from the usual and unadorned Georgian style. With its massive Ionic columns and stone carved Coat of Arms high above the entrance the 7^th Post Office was to lead the way in an explosion of monumental structures built in Toronto over the next 50 years in the classical Roman and Greek inspired style. Others found the structure to be ‘plain but commanding’ and could have been made larger, more in keeping with Toronto’s new sense of destiny. When it first opened there were two front doors as opposed to the one it has today with an entrance for gentlemen and one for ladies as to ‘preserve a woman's modesty in the chaos of commerce’ as was the Victorian custom. The main public hall contained the rented mailboxes (pigeon-holes) finished in polished brass covered with plate glass behind which the postmaster and sorting room could be seen bathed in light streaming in from a skylight cupola. By 1872 an even larger 8^th Post Office was built just up the street and the 7^th became an office for the Internal Revenue department placing just the one door in the centre (women could mail letters but there was no need for them to go any further thank-you-very-much). In 1937 No. 10 Toronto Street becomes a branch of the Bank of Canada and remained so for the next 22 years. In 1959 with Toronto in the throws of urban renewal there was talk of demolishing No 10 in a sometimes misguided effort to modernize the downtown core.

As hundreds of architectural treasures were being destroyed, Edward Plunket Taylor (EP) acquires No. 10 in a somewhat benevolent yet heritage minded move to be the headquarters for his colossal holding company, the Argus Corporation.

A new era was dawning for No. 10 so much so that its big black front door was on the book cover of The Canadian Establishment, Peter C. Newman’s shocking account of how the country is really run and by whom. EP added a third floor addition (not seen from the front thus saving the original look of the building) where the board room of one the world’s most powerful companies would sit. However it wasn’t Newman’s book that was to put Number 10 on the international map so to speak. Enter Hamlet stage right. Conrad Black was born in 1944 into an extremely wealthy Canadian family as his father, George Montegu Black, Jr., was the president of Canadian Breweries the massive international brewing conglomerate owned by E.P. Taylor. EP eventually fired George Black and as the young lad listened intently to his father’s rage over the dismissal Conrad vowed one day to take control of Argus. In 1969 through the Black family owned Ravelston Corporation Conrad started to became involved in a number of businesses, including newspapers and mining. Realizing his considerable potential, Conrad was taken under the wing of Bud McDougald and his dad’s old boss, E. P. Taylor , then the two most powerful businessmen in Canada. In 1978 McDougald died and Conrad acquired the shares owned by McDougald's widow in Argus Corporation, which then controlled Dominion Supermarkets, Massey Ferguson and Benny’s old company, Hollinger Mines . Through wheeling, dealing and a bit of a scandal (a CBC Television documentary speculated how Black might have encouraged the aging widow to sell) Conrad at the age of 34 took full control of Argus Corp finally sitting on the throne overlooking Toronto Street with the portraits of EP and Father staring down at him. In 1985 Black started to acquire more newspapers while divesting other Argus stocks until finally in the early 1990’s he formed Hollinger INC becoming one of the largest newspaper chains in the world. With the stroke of a pen No. 10 Toronto Street went from being Argus Headquarters to Hollinger INC (and a place I’m dying to see the inside of). I'll call thee Hamlet, King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me! Ironically the only time I ever came face to face with Mr. Black was in a barber shop. In November 2005 with indictments and criminal proceedings in the air, what does the fabulously wealthy and magnetic (albeit loathed by most) CEO of Hollinger INC the international conglomerate that started out as barber’s windfall do while the moving vans are lined up in the parking lot of Number 10? He comes into Ivan’s Salon for a $15 haircut just as he’s done for the past 25 years whenever he’s in town. Earlier that week while conducting a walking tour I saw him step out of his limo and into Number 10 to the amazement and delight of my guests. “To your left ladies and gentlemen is a plaque to the leaders of the 1837 Rebellion and to your right was once one of the richest and most powerful men in the world.”…We waved, he stared. I wanted to offer him a percentage of my tips if he’d do it again the next day for the betterment of tourism and all that but alas…... All told a very interesting man who for time worked in a very remarkable building.

Number 10 Toronto Street as it looked in 1867

Bank of Upper Canada by Bruce Bell

The Bank of Upper Canada building on the NE corner of George and Adelaide built in 1825-27 by Dr. W.W. Baldwin with the help of engineer Thomas Hall is the oldest Bank building in Canada and is the only building that still stands in the original boundaries of the Town of York (1793-1797) George, Adelaide, Front and Berkeley Sts. It would be in 1797 that Peter Russell expanded the town’s boundaries out to Peter Street in the west and Queen Street, then called Lot St. to the north. The bank was built by the powerful elite of early York known as the Family Compact, a group of men whose power and influence in a time before democracy reached our shores were unstoppable. They could and did whatever they felt was for the best interests of others including themselves. These men ran not only the town of York but the rest of the province thus naming their new venture the Bank of Upper Canada says it all. The bank started out in one of those early Family Compact founder’s William Allen (Allen Gardens) shop on the NE corner of Frederick and King in 1822. In 1825 it was decided that a grand and imposing structure should be built on the then northern boundary of York on Duke and George (until the 1950’s Adelaide east of Jarvis was named Duke Street) so that all who saw it firmly planted there would be intimidated much like the great banks still do to this day as they reach higher into the sky. The banks of early 19^th century Canada were not a place for the average citizen to deposit their meager earnings or open a RRSP, far from it. Banks were chartered and built mainly to handle Government deposits and payouts and to provide mortgages on land grants to the wealthy elite of the province. It was this kind of I-am-better-than-you-cause the-King-told-me-and-God-told-the-King thinking that got the Reformists under the leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie all steamed up. An average citizen wouldn’t even dream of walking up those cement stairs that are still in place today. In 1833 just a few yards east of the bank, postmaster John Scott Howard bought a piece of land and with the permission of William Allen was allowed to build a ‘reputable’ brick building with the idea that he would run the new post office.

That post office, York’s Fourth, built by architect John Howard (no relation) was to be known after incorporation in 1834 as Toronto’s First. In 1836 Sir Francis Bond Head a handsome, accomplished, adventuresome, former cavalry officer who had fought beside Wellington at Waterloo despite the fact he was just over five feet tall was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. At first Sir Francis, who lived in the Governors mansion on the site of present day Roy Thompson Hall, was willing to listen to reformers like William Lyon Mackenzie and they in turn were happy to have Sir Francis as Lt. Governor because his predecessor Sir John Colborne was a member of the reviled Family Compact. However, Sir Francis stopped listening to the reformers and started to side with the Family C. after realizing it was they who could give him what he really wanted; POWER. Soon whispers of a rebellion began to seep out from the taverns, hotels, theaters and coffee shops that once lined our streets with the loudest murmur coming from inside the Mackenzie camp. Newspaperman Mackenzie a few years earlier had his printing press thrown into the lake by the son’s of the Family C. when he wrote some unflattering remarks about their fathers. This event known as the Types Riot of 1826 is remembered today with a plaque on the NW corner of Front and Frederick. On the Morning of December 5, 1837 a force of 36 uniformed government guards made its way to the corner of Duke and George Streets to stand watch against an all out assault on the Bank of Upper Canada. That same night the infamous government-backed fighting force known as the McGraw troupe road en mass down Church Street to the Francis Bond Head Inn that once stood in the parking lot on the SW corner of King and Church, downed a few pints, made their plans for the following day and went to bed.

The next morning December 6^th 1837 the troupe galloped down Colborne Street and went on to meet up with Sir Francis and his 1000 volunteers. With their Union Jacks billowing in the wind and their fife and drum band reverberating patriotic tunes they headed up Yonge Street to squash Mackenzie's men. The two armies met about a half a mile below present day Eglinton Ave. where Sir Francis set off his booming cannons, which sent Mackenzie and his 150 men running back to their headquarters at Montgomery Tavern just north of Eglinton on Yonge.

Mackenzie knowing all was lost escaped to the United States. Twelve of his of his supporters, the most famous being Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, were hanged on the scaffold erected on the NE corner of King and Toronto Streets. The men of Upper Canada may have died but the Bank prevailed. The Government force of uniformed guards stayed at the Bank of Upper Canada at the corner of George and Duke Sts until January 1839. In reality the people did eventually win when in 1848 fellow reformer Robert Baldwin (who as born on the NW corner of Frederick and Front Sts in the same house that Mackenzie would later have his printing press) successfully introduced Responsible Government. Time healed a bit of the old wounds and the bank building itself underwent a major renovation in 1843 with the introduction of the stone portico (replacing a earlier wooden one) that appears today. In 1851 architect Fredrick Cumberland (built the present St. James’ Cathedral that same year) and as much a part of the ruling elite of Toronto as Baldwin had been added a three story wing on the north side of the original bank with an entrance on George St. and lived there with his family in the spacious apartments above.

In 1861 after 35 plus years the Bank of Upper Canada moved its offices from Duke and George to Yonge and Colborne Sts to be closer to the new financial district. In 1866 the once all powerful Bank of Upper Canada collapsed after ill advised mortgages granted on worthless land deals. In 1870 The Christian Brothers bought the old bank building and turned it into De la Salle College. In 1873 they expanded to take in the post office next door to be used as gymnasium. In 1876 the Brothers hired in my opinion the greatest architect Toronto ever knew Henry Langley (The General Post Office at Adelaide and Toronto Sts -1872-1960) to build a wing connecting the two followed by the construction of a huge mansard roof (still in place) that would attach Howard’s former post office to the bank thus giving the appearance of one large building.

The new building concealed the original square outline of the former bank forever and maybe just maybe it was this all consuming transformation that saved Dr. W.W. Baldwin’s original 1825 bank from the wrecker’s ball. By the 1940’s the entire building was taken over by the United Co-operatives of Ontario and added an addition to the north end of Cumberland’s 1850 wing. An irony to this former bastion to the Family Compact was the fact that the United Farmers of Ontario, a radical political party, was also now housed in the former bank. The years rolled by and by the 1960’s the building was now being used as an egg grading station then artists studios. Farmers and artists! The graves of the founding fathers were now spinning out of control. On June 30, 1978 a fire broke out that gutted the top floors and even though the oldest bank building in Canada was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1975 it was on the verge of being demolished. It sat there an empty shell boarded up and forgotten even though it was now declared a National Historic site in 1979. In 1980 the building that encompassed two centuries of the political, economic and social history of Toronto not to mention the work of our city’s greatest architects was rescued by now legendary developers Sheldon and Judy Godfrey. Bless them.

During their extensive renovation John Scott Howard’s 1833 Post Office was rediscovered, refurbished and was put back in operation and remains so to this day.

The Bank of Upper Canada when it was De La Salle College 1878

The Royal Alexandra Theatre by Bruce Bell

In the summer of ‘72 I came down to Toronto from Sudbury to see if I could snag a part in the film Class of ’44 being shot here and one night my new hang out, Fran’s Restaurant on College Street then the most happening late night hot spot in Toronto, was all abuzz when the doors flung open and in a flurry of commotion a group of highly charged people entered. I turned to one of my friends and said “I wonder who they are?” Some one at our table said “The Godspell cast coming in from their show at the Royal Alex” Time froze as I, wide eyed and impressionable having just arrived in the big city, stared in awe at this group of people which later I found out included Martin Short, Gilda Radner and Andrea Martin and vowed to myself that one day I too was going to be a Godspell-type person and come to Fran’s after a show. Of course my next question was “Where’s the Royal Alex?” That night some 30 years ago is still fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday. After getting a small part in Class of ’44, I went back to Sudbury with a swelled head, left high school, took an apprenticeship with the Sudbury Theatre Centre, came back to Toronto five months later, marched directly to the Royal Alexandra Theatre where I got a job as an usher and stayed on for four years. Best thing I ever did. Back then, unlike now, with big blockbuster musicals taking years to complete their run, shows at the Royal Alex would change ever six weeks or so. In the four years that I worked there, I saw over a hundred plays and musicals and had the chance to meet, or at least be in close proximity to some of the biggest and most legendary names in show business. For a kid from the north who, only a year before was gazing out of the math class window wondering what he was going to do with his life, this really was something. The most down to earth actor I met back in those heady days was, the legend herself, Katherine Hepburn. She would let me sit with her in her dressing room while she dabbed on what she called a necessary evil of showbiz - her make-up - and tell me stories of old Hollywood. Night after night for six weeks, I also got to escort her to her car, while hundreds of people who were lining the walkway from the stage door to the street cheered and applauded her every turn. She was warm, funny and completely natural. The strangest actor, yet not without his own legendary charm, I ever encountered was Yul Brenner. Before he arrived to appear in an interesting yet bizarre musical entitled Odyssey, playing Ulysses, we were given a list of do’s and don’ts. Never look him in the eye and never under any circumstances talk to him. He was to be treated like a king. One night after the show, my friend the late Marjorie Gross (who would later go on to produce the hit TV show Seinfeld) met up with me backstage. Pretending she was longsighted, began rubbing the top of the work-light (a huge bulb in a stand) and yelling at the top of her lungs ‘Yul? Yul is that you?’ When, from around the corner, the real smooth topped Yul appeared and stared us down as if we had just committed high treason. Didn’t say a word, just stared. Petrified we slowly walked backwards towards the stage door, all the while his piercing eyes transfixed upon us. We fled down King Street giggling like the teenagers we were. Nothing was ever said and a few days later as I was sneaking about, as was my custom, I caught a glimpse of him shaving his head. He looked up, stared me in the eye and said “You again!” Somewhere in my box of memorabilia I have a note signed by Yul Brenner himself stating that I was to be banned from backstage. I had it coming. But for the most part, the stars I encountered, whose careers were either at their height or in their final stages, that came through the Royal Alex during that time were pretty much down to earth. But it wasn’t just movie stars I had the chance to rub shoulders with. I also had the opportunity to meet one of Broadway’s greatest lyricists- Jules Styne, who wrote the music for Funny Girl and Gypsy. One of the most unassuming men I ever met who also wrote the music for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Three Coins in the Fountain and a hundred other immortal standards, he would tell me endless stories about a young Barbra Streisand and the great Ethel Merman as if I were a colleague and not just an usher. For someone like me, whose passion in life was show business, my time at the Royal Alexandra fed that obsession well. Although I never went to University and hold no theatre degree, my years spent watching and learning from some of Hollywood’s, Broadway’s and Canada’s best, more than prepared me for a life in the theatre. In between having John Gielgud showing me the right way to stage fall and Glenda Jackson spinning me lurid tales of London’s underground theatre scene, I would wander around the Royal Alex’s backstage searching for clues to its early years. When our boss Mr. Mirvish (to this day I still can’t bring myself to call him Ed) bought and restored the Royal Alexandra theatre back in 1963, he pretty much left the back stage area, including the dressing rooms, untouched. As beautiful as the auditorium and lobbies were, for me to get the true feeling of a theatre is to hang out backstage in the wings. Visions of chorus girls in big, feathered headdresses coming down the stairs from their dressing rooms above, the controlled chaos, the whispering and hand gestures, the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd. Like I said last month maybe I wasn’t fully aware of it then, but my other passion in life was history and the Royal Alex was packed full of it. The Royal Alexandra Theatre was built in 1906-07 by architect John M. Lyle in the then popular Beaux Arts style a favorite of the Edwardians who loved mixing theatre with Society. The idea behind the Royal Alexandra Theatre Company sprung from the mind of millionaire Cawthra Mulock the 20 something president of Guardian Trust who was determined to make his jewel on King Street a Toronto home for touring companies based in London and New York. The site chosen, the former grounds of Upper Canada College, was across the street from Government House the opulent home and gardens of the Lt. Governor where Roy Thompson Hall now stands. All that remains of the College that once stood there, built set back from King Street and facing the now vanished Russell Square, is it’s boarding house now home to Vinnie’s restaurant on the SW corner of Duncan and Adelaide. As the Royal Alexandra was being completed one of the final touches was the painting of the ceiling mural by Frederick S. Challener entitled Aphrodite Discovering Adonis. With its walls of gold brocade and plaster molding tipped with gold the theatre billed as the most beautiful on the continent raised its curtain of crimson silk embossed with the Royal Arms on August 26 1907 with a production of a Mark Swann pantomime entitled Top o’ the World. Show business before the onslaught of WW1 was dominated by the actor/manager, men and woman like Sarah Bernhardt and Maurice Barrymore who toured relentlessly with their own acting companies. Decked in furs and surrounded by a hundred steamer trunks they would find themselves disembarking at the then Union Station at the foot of Simcoe Street amidst an explosion of camera flash powder, adoring fans and the steam emanating from the trains filling the station. From there it was into either a horse drawn landau or a chugging automobile to be driven to their hotels like the newly built King Edward before being whisked off to the theatre. As the decades rolled by the once pastoral setting the Royal Alexandra found itself in was transformed into a freight yard for the ever booming rail transportation industry. But through it all the theatre, named for the Queen consort of Edward VII, continued to play host to the world’s greatest actors. By the time the Edwardian age came to a close upon the death of Edward VII in 1910 Vaudeville was at its height and no matter how high and mighty some of the great theatres of the world viewed themselves, the Royal Alex too made room for baggy pants and seltzer bottles. It was not uncommon to find Sarah Bernhardt performing a scene from La Dame aux Camille at the end of Act I of a Vaudeville show.One of the biggest hits of the 1920’s to play the Royal Alex stage was Chu-Chin-Chow a musical extravaganza billed as the worlds most beautiful production. In an era when Chinese people living in Canada were considered second class citizens by our own Government this musical which consisted of 300 white people with painted-on slanted eyes (like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s) and dressed in then Chinese inspired costumes was none the less a world wide phenomenon. The 1930’s saw the introduction of talking pictures and the Royal Alex being in step with the times and not wanting to go the way of Toronto’s other great theatres like the Grand on Adelaide Street-demolished in 1927- was wired for sound. The Royal Alexandra’s once opulent interior with its box seats draped in blue and old rose old silk though not as tattered as other movie palaces like the Regent (which stood next to the Grand) was however starting to show its age. But the touring companies kept on coming-in between the picture shows of course. After WWII the last of the great actor/mangers were making their way across the ocean. Plastered throughout the little anteroom that used to be the stage door area (the stage door was moved a few years ago to exit behind onto Pearl St. instead of coming out onto King St.) old steamer trunk labels left by these traveling companies emblazoned with their names still can be seen yellowed with time clinging to the walls. Television and cinemascope put the final nail in the coffin of what remained of Toronto’s great theaters and down they came. In 1963 it probably came as no shock to the residents of our city when scaffolding began to appear around the Alex. And why not, everything else was being demolished, this being the height of Urban Renewal. Not so with what I like to call my Alma Mater. Mr. Ed Mirvish was doing something that was unprecedented in Toronto at that time. He was actually restoring this bauble of Edwardian architecture. The first show I remember my parents telling me they saw at the Royal Alex was Hair with its climatic nude scene in 1970. This revolutionary musical was the biggest hit the Royal Alexandra let alone Toronto ever saw. It was a turning point for theatre in our city. I finally did make it onto the Royal Alexandra’s stage when in December of 1974 I got a walk-on in Lionel Blair’s Christmas Pantomime and as I promised myself after its opening I went to Fran’s restaurant on College Street. While being a cast member of Cinderella didn’t quite have the same cache as Godspell to me it was a triumph all the same. There were two other moments I’ll always remember that happened during my tenure at the Alex. One was standing outside looking skyward with Mr. Mirvish in April of 1975 when OLGA the Sikorsky helicopter placed the final piece on the CN tower. The other happened on the opening night of Gypsy starring Angela Lansbury, the nicest person you’d ever want to meet. I was standing at the back of the theatre, once again beside Mr. Mirvish, when the orchestra struck those first cords of the famed musical’s overture. Classic Broadway that sent chills up my spine and Mr. Mirvish knowing full well that I loved the theatre as much as he did turned to me as said “Now that my young man is show-biz!”. What a moment. What a guy. What a theatre!

Bruce with David Mirvish standing beneath a portrait of Ed Mirvish 2002 and Bruce with Ed Mirvish circa 1973

The History of the Winter Garden Theatre by Bruce Bell

So there I was, fresh off the bus from Sudbury I began working as an usher at the Royal Alexandra Theatre where, as a wide eyed teenager seeking a life in show business, I waited for that big break to come my way. In between watching some of the biggest names in the theatre world strut their stuff across the stage I used to like to roam around that glorious theatre searching for anything that had to do with its past. Maybe I wasn’t fully aware of it then but my other passion in life was history and the Royal Alex was packed full of it. On one of my wandering I opened a rusty old door on the top floor high above the stage in the old scenery storage room and found a box of old programs. As I was flipping through this treasure trove I came across a 1919 ad for a Vaudeville show at a theatre called the Winter Garden on Yonge Street. The ad included a picture of an amazing theatre that looked like it was in the middle of a forest. The Winter Garden, what a whimsical name I wonder what ever happened to it? The address listed said it was just north of Queen on top of Loew’s Yonge Street (now the Elgin) which by the time I arrived on the scene in 1972 was a movie house called The Yonge and the Winter Garden if it still existed was just a myth. I wonder if it’s still there I thought.

I asked some of the old time stage hands at the Alex if they have ever heard of the Winter Garden. The rumour going around was a few years before a theatre was ‘found’, its staircase hidden behind a false wall and that the CBC used it once as a location for its White Oaks of Jalna series. Although it was stripped bare of its seats the magical ambience still survived. I so wanted desperately to see it but when I went to the Yonge Theatre to ask for a tour they said no one was allowed and that it was too dangerous. A few months later I went back to the Yonge Theatre to see Vincent Price and Diana Rigg in Theatre of Blood a crazy movie about an actor who takes revenge on the critics who panned him by killing them off in various theatrical ways. The same usher who told me months before that it was to dangerous to go into the forbidden theatre said I should have been here last week because there was world premier party upstairs in the old Winter Garden for Theater of Blood where they served Bloody Vincents. In the summer of 1973 I also had just missed out on an extra casting call for a Telly Savalas movie of the week The Girl who Cried Murder which later I found out that a scene was shot at the old Winter Garden. One of the many actors who came through the Alex in those days told me back in the ‘60’s he was in a movie called Roses in December that had a scene shot in the abandoned Winter Garden but it was never released. Even though my playground was the Royal Alexandra with all its treasures that went with it I longed to see the Winter Garden. I felt then it was my destiny.

One day not only was I going to see this mythical theatre I was going to play it if and when it ever opened again. Or so I thought being the idealistic teenager hell bent on making a name for myself. The story of the Winter Garden Theatre’s rise and fall and rise again is a perfect acronym for all that is good on how we as Torontonians go about preserving our past. Toronto by the turn of the 20^th century now with a population of 200,000 was shifting westward when the City Hall moved from the St. Lawrence Market area to Queen and Bay streets. During this time Vaudeville was reaching its peak as the most prevalent form of entertainment in the city. By it very nature Vaudeville was a grind industry as most of the theatres were pumping out 5 full length shows a day, all day long starting at 11am. Toronto was considered ‘hitting the big time’ on the traveling circuit and we had over 50 theaters large and small to prove it.

But what was needed now was a first class Vaudeville house one to rival anything New York City had. A theatre that not only was beautiful in design but one that could attract an up-market crowd, a theatre that offered only one top billed show a night thus making going to see a Vaudeville show an event. On Monday February 16^th 1914 Toronto got that theatre when the Winter Garden opened its doors. Eight months earlier Loew’s Yonge Street Theatre the opulent showpiece downstairs now known as the Elgin opened its doors and ran shows all day long. The two theatres, designed by Thomas Lamb for the New York based Marcus Loew circuit, were based on Loews Corporate headquarters in New York The American Theatre a double-decker theatre complex on 42^nd street. Thanks to Marcus Loew’s aggressive booking practices only the biggest names in Vaudeville appeared on his stages. A 16 year old Milton Berle was billed as a droll talker and singer when he played the Winter Garden in 1924 and when he returned in 1930 as a headliner of his own show ‘Get Hot with Milton Berle and is 12 Berle-ing Hot Dancers’ he packed the downstairs theatre. Another act was George Burns together with his comedy partner and wife Gracie who together danced, sang and did their ‘domestic argument comedy’ in September of 1925. But there was one headliner who Marcus Loew had a soft spot for and became his good luck charm as they started out in show business together. She could and did play any of his theaters whenever she wanted, the incomparable Sophie Tucker.

At the time of the Winter Garden’s opening, movies were beginning to share the bill with Vaudeville acts. When the Winter Garden opened in 1914 no one ever thought that Vaudeville was headed for oblivion. And irregardless of that fact we kept on building even bigger vaudeville houses. Two months after the Winter Garden opened the largest theatre in the British Empire the colossal 2,622 seat Hippodrome on Bay Street now the site of the present day City Hall opened for business in April 1914. The Hippodrome, unlike the Elgin and Winter Garden theatres long corridor and narrow frontage, was built to stand out at a distance and its terra cotta and enameled brick façade was topped off with two copper domed towers on each corner. The Hippodrome was the largest theatre in Toronto until 1920 when the Pantages (now called the Canon) just north of the Elgin/Winter Garden opened becoming the largest Vaudeville house in the British Empire. This is when the expression ‘Going to the show’ meant more than just going to see a ‘show’. But it would all come to an end with the arrival of talking pictures. All these great theatres, including the Royal Alex built in 1906 were refashioned into movie houses and the performers the ones that couldn’t find work in radio or talkies hung up their straw hats and canes. On Saturday June 16^th 1928 the last Vaudeville show appeared on the Winter Garden stage. The doors were closed and remained shut for the next 60 years. On October 3 1930 the last live show played Loew’s Yonge Street Theatre and for the next 48 years operated as a first run movie house. On March 17 1978 the theatre, while still functioning as a cinema, was re-named the Elgin. Three years later in 1981 the Ontario Heritage Foundation bought the Elgin and Winter Garden theatres with the idea of restoring and using them as a performing arts complex. In June of 1982 the Winter Garden was declared a National Historic Site and a few months later the Elgin received the same designation. In March of 1985 CATS opened at the Elgin for a two year run and the once opulent gold leaf interior that was painted blue and white during its movie house years was now painted black. In May of 1987 restoration on the entire complex begun including purchasing the seats for the Winter Garden from the Biograph Theatre in Chicago where on July 22 1934 gangster John Dillinger was shot outside of after attending the Clark Gable movie Manhattan Melodrama. Somewhere in the Winter Garden’s auditorium is the last seat Dillinger ever sat in. After three years of renovations the newly restored Elgin and Winter Garden theatres opened on December 15 1989. The first time I set foot in the Winter Garden was on June 17^th 1991 when I attended that year’s Dora Awards for Toronto theatre. From the moment I entered the sumptuous downstairs lobby now named for the architect Thomas Lamb with its grand staircase (bricked up when the Winter Garden was closed) to when I got aboard the gigantic passenger elevator that whisked me up to my destination six stories above Yonge St. I was experiencing what the thousands that came before me once did. Tonight was going to be special. I was finally going to ‘the show’. When I entered the Winter Garden for the first time I was taken aback by its extraordinary fairy tale quality, its roof of leaves, the support pillars that were transformed into tree trunks, the stage surrounded by lattice work and the ceiling mural with its lit moon, everything that the 1919 advertisement had first shown me way back during my Royal Alex days. How magically surreal it all must have been in the days before television, radio and the world wide web to have entered this enchanted world. We are fortunate to still have these stylish and elegant theatres plus the added bonus of the Royal Alexandra and the Cannon standing in our city today. The Hippodrome may be long gone as is Shea’s Victoria, as well as the Regent Theatre, the Majestic, the Grand, the Princess, Shaftsbury Hall and the Royal Lyceum but to have the Winter Garden built as the most beautiful theatre on the continent still standing is a true blessing.

Lount and Matthews and the Rebellion of 1837 by Bruce Bell

In 1776 when asked by his British jailers if he had any last words American patriot Nathan Hale standing on the gallows, his calloused farmers hands tied behind his back, his blonde hair gently falling on his brow, his rugged yet handsome face partly hidden beneath a blindfold stared steadfastly ahead and proudly expressed “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country”. With those now immortal words spoken a single tear slid down the cheek of the little drummer boy bearing witness to his fallen hero the sun began its slow descent casting an orange hue over the whole affair, the trap door opened and Nathan Hale fell into history.

Music swells. Fade to black. Credits roll. Now if that isn’t enough to make every American school child pry the rifle out of Chuck Heston’s cold dead hand and defend the country against the King of England, there’s Patrick Henry’s immortal March 23 1775 “Give me liberty or give me death” speech to get them in the mood. These powerful albeit Hollywoodesque images that get especially forceful when our American cousins go to war unfortunately have also been drilled into my head via the never ending onslaught of American culture (pop and otherwise) that has been seeping its way across the border for almost two centuries. I say unfortunately because besides the fact those American men were hell bent on Canada’s destruction, our heroes with their own inspiring words somehow got lost in that never ending battle we fight daily (sometimes with ourselves) to preserve our own culture and heritage. But my beef isn’t with our friends to the south, as they have enough troubles; it’s with the way we have always dealt with our own past. Growing up, I was always told that Canadian history was boring and that’s why there was very little in the way of movies, books and TV shows that concentrated on Canada’s history.

I, like most Canadian children of the 1950’s and 60’s accepted this and sat memorized in front of a black and white TV set fascinated instead by a talking rooster in a sack. If only I knew then of what I was missing out on. Today as I wander around this city, self taught in its rich history it never ceases to amaze me just how little of it is marked as historically significant.

I have come to one conclusion on these walks; if Nathan Hale was Canadian chances are he’d be forgotten. In school why wasn’t I made more aware of the events that took place on April 12^th 1838 on the north east corner of Toronto and King Streets? This was once the site of our (York’s) 2^nd jail where hundreds of people were hung on the various gallows that at one time stood behind it for over 20 years. In the aftermath of Mackenzie’s ill fated Rebellion of 1837 two of his men Samuel Lount and Peter Mathews sat for four months in that jail waiting out their death sentence. As the day of their execution approached architect Thomas Storm (later his son William would build the still standing Courthouse at 57 Adelaide E and the Post Office at Number 10 Toronto Street) commissioned to build the Lount and Mathews gallows turned to his young foreman Joseph Sheard and said…“Well don’t just stand there pick up a mallet and get started”. Joseph 25 turned to his much older boss and said…“I’ll not put a hand to it, Lount and Mathews have done nothing that I might not have done myself and I’ll never help to build a gallows to hang them”. Storm, although a follower of Mackenzie himself was mortified.

Even today telling ones boss to go to hell is grounds for dismissal but back then Sheard risked his life. Remember they lost. The essence of the Rebellion of 1837 in which a total of 12 of Mackenzie’s men were hung on the corner of Toronto and King Street, had at its core the rights and freedoms of the common man. But Sheard wasn’t alone. Thousands throughout Upper Canada had signed a petition for clemency and despite explicit warnings for moderation from the British Government in London, Sir George Arthur the Lieutenant Governor, went ahead and hung these two men in an act of what was then thought of as judicial murder. When news of the hangings made its way to London the Colonial office decreed that all further hangings were to be halted and the rest of Mackenzie’s supporters were shipped off to Australia.

Mackenzie himself went into exile in the states for 10 years before returning to a hero’s welcome. On the day of the execution a fellow prisoner of Lount and Mathews wrote the following account years later…“The hours of April 12, 1838 were the saddest we ever spent. None of us could sleep and we were all early astir. It was a fine spring morning. Looking through the window of our room we saw the scaffold. Around the gallows the Orange militia stood in large numbers with their muskets. The authorities dreaded a rescue. While we were watching and talking we heard steps on the stairs, and then the clank of chains. It was poor Lount coming up, guarded by his jailers, to say goodbye to us. He stopped at the door. We could not see him, but there were sad hearts in that room as we heard Samuel Lount’s voice, without a quiver in it, give us his last greeting…

“Be of good courage boys. I am not ashamed of anything I’ve done, I trust in God, and I’m going to die like a man.”

This powerful drama, this forgotten human tragedy, this Rosetta stone to our Canadian identity was played out where today the trash compactor for Number 1 Toronto Street noisily goes about crushing its garbage of soiled coffee cups and empty donut boxes. As disrespectful beyond words that image may be what really gets me angry is why I was never taught Lount’s final words? Why didn’t they pass into our popular history?

The fellow prisoner continues….“I don’t know why Peter Mathews did not come up with Lount, but I saw him as they were led through the jail yard to the scaffold where two nooses were swinging. They never faltered. I saw them walk up the steps to the floor of the scaffold as firmly as if they were on the pavement. Again I saw them kneeling while Bishop Richardson, who attended Lount, and another clergyman who attended Mathews, prayed. Lount and Mathews shook hands with the clergymen and when we looked again their bodies were dangling in the air. Matthews struggled hard but Lount died instantly. When their bodies had been exposed for a short time they were cut down and quietly buried in the Potters Field…..”

Why do I know of the pain and passion of American patriot Patrick Henry and not of Samuel Lount? The legacy of Joseph Sheard the young man who stared down his boss faired a bit better.

His actions and words made him a hero to the citizen’s of 19^th century Toronto and after serving 20 years in public service went on to become our 19^th Mayor in 1871.

As an architect he built a fabulous mansion on the NE corner of King and Bay in 1851 home to the immensely wealthy Cawthra family. It stood until 1946 after spending most of its life as a bank and was demolished to make way for the present Bank of Nova Scotia. He is remembered today with a parkette built on the site of his home on McGill Street. In 1849 an amnesty statute had the effect of pardoning all persons implicated in the Rebellion and it was this statute that Mackenzie was to return to Toronto after a 12 year absence. The people of 19^th century Toronto celebrated their heroes, these men who lived amongst them both in memory and as next door neighbours who stood up against tyranny. The Citizens of Toronto loved their firebrand freedom fighter and built for Mackenzie a house on ironically, Bond Street that today operates as a memorial to this great man of the people. Yet something happened in the 20^th century that seemed to miss the point of keeping our early history alive, pushing British Kings and American Presidents into our collective consciences and burying any hope for lesser Canadian folk heroes to emerge, Laura Secord and her cow not withstanding of course. In the courtyard at Mackenzie House are the remains of a stone monument that used to stand in Niagara Falls. It was part of a larger a larger bas relief mural called Memorial Arch that was constructed in 1938 to commemorate the history of Canada and the heroes of the 1837 Rebellion. It was unceremoniously dismantled in 1967 our centennial year to make way for a parking lot.

Could you see the Americans dismantling the Statue of Liberty on their Bi-centennial and no one saying anything? There was a commemorative cornerstone laid to the memory of Lount and Matthews in the former Imperial Oil Building that at one time stood near the site of the old jail.

When the wrecking crews of the 1960’s came sweeping through the old downtown core, the stone was spirited away out to Scarbourgh’s Guildwood Inn that Valhalla of Toronto’s lost architectural adornments. The last time I saw the stone it was being used as a sideboard for making coffee.

Thankfully in 2003 Standard Life which now owns the site of the jail and former gallows allowed me to erect a plaque to Lount and Matthews and even paid for it. And now Lount’s final words will be there for all to see and read emblazed in bronze….“Be of good courage boys. I am not ashamed of anything I’ve done, I trust in God, and I’m going to die like a man.”

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Maple Leaf Gardens: The Heart of Nations Sporting Life By Bruce Bell

To say the least Toronto in the 1930’s was depressing place to be. High unemployment due to the crash of ’29 left many folks in our city wondering about the bleak future ahead. In the midst of soup kitchen lines and for some collecting relief known as the Pogey’ for the first time there was one man who refused to let a little thing like the Great Depression get to him and decided instead to build a massive sports and entertainment complex to be known as Maple Leaf Gardens. His name was Conn Smythe, one of the most colourful characters in Toronto’s history and another one of his legacies is still very much in the minds of Torontonians today with the hockey team he founded our beloved Toronto Maple Leafs. Conn Smythe was born just around the corner from the future site of the Gardens, on February 1, 1895 the son of a local newspaper man. By the time WW1 breaks out Conn, who by then was enrolled at U of T in a civil engineering course, signs up as a gunner and manages by War’s end to be decorated with the Military Cross for his bravery shown at Vimy Ridge winning the rank of Major which becomes his moniker throughout the rest of his life. After the war he returns to Toronto and couches the U of T hockey team to Olympic gold at Antwerp Belgium. While touring the States Conn catches the eye of Colonel John S. Hammond who at the time was looking for some one to put together a new pro hockey team, the New York Rangers. Hired on the spot but was fired just as fast because of his explosive and not very gentlemanly behavior took the dismissal personally but instead of getting depressed or worse changing his ways in order to get his job back decided instead to purchase a team of his own.. In February 1927 together with his business partner Frank Selke, they buy the Toronto St Patrick’s hockey team for $200,000 and decide to build a new home one appropriate for a hockey team that they renamed The Toronto Maple Leafs. The rest is history. Built in record time of just 5 months, the art deco palace to hockey that would take up an entire city block opened on November 12, 1931 in front of a sellout crowd of 13,233 singing along with the 48^th Highlanders and their rendition of Happy Days are Here Again.

The inaugural game was between us and the Chicago Blackhawks with the great Charlie Conacher scoring that first goal for Toronto (we lost 2-1 however). While I flipping through a copy of the opening night program I couldn’t get over the fact that all the hockey players were then pictured wearing shirts and ties. In fact it was seen as a social faux pas if women entering the Gardens weren’t wearing hats and gloves and the men weren’t dressed in shirts and ties.

This polite etiquette wasn’t just confined to the stands either. On the ice sometimes after a one player bumped into another you could almost hear one player say ‘excuse me’ for the game then was still seen as a gentleman’s sports. Maybe hockey changed forever after Conn took over game for he would tell his players ‘If you can’t beat them on the in the alley, you can’t beat them on the ice”. After one particular nasty ice fight Conn gleefully rubbed his hands together and muttered “We’ll have to stamp out that kind of thing or the people are going to keep on buying tickets.” Conn brought a new vitality to the game, modernized it for better or worse and I feel without Smyth hockey especially the Toronto Maple Leafs would never be as popular or as passionately love as it is today.

To hit the point home he hung a sign in the Leafs dressing stating ‘The Toronto Maple Leafs- defeat does not rest lightly on their shoulders’. But it would be Frank Selke who said it best when he came up with the logo 'Maple Leaf Gardens: The Heart of Nations Sporting Life'.

As the Leafs started to get more aggressive in their play Frederick McLaughlin the owner of the Blackhawks issued a statement calling for more decorum in the game. Conn answered back at his next public appearance in Boston in a game against the Bruins when he placed an ad in the local paper which read…. “If you’re tired of what you’ve been looking at, come out tonight and see a decent team play hockey”… Toronto may have suffered though the depression and was seen for years to come as a dull and lifeless city but Conn, his team and the Gardens were like fireworks going off in a cemetery. Within five years of his dismissal from New York Conn got even winning the 1932 Stanley Cup from the Rangers and went on to win seven more during his reign as boss of the Maple Leafs. If the Gardens was to have a golden age it would be the 1950’s when hockey, now televised, was becoming more than just a game. Names like Howe, Maurice Richard, King Clancy, Punch Imlach, Jean Beliveau, Dickie Moore, Pete Conacher and Jacque Plante, all called out by that other legendary hockey icon Foster Hewitt. The Gardens was a shrine filled to capacity with screaming fans some wanting a win and others, out for blood. In November 1961 Harold Ballard along with John Bassett and Conn’s son Stafford Smythe acquired full control of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Gardens. Even though the Leafs would go on to win the Stanley cup four more times including the symbolic Centennial Cup in 1967 it would be their last, for a long, long, long time. In 1969 Harold takes full control of the team and appoints Jim Gregory its General Manager. The Ballard years were now in full swing, literally. Who can ever forget Harold Ballard swinging his cane at reporters with his long suffering companion Yolanda forever at his side? The Gardens in the 1970’s was still a force in the entertainment industry even if the Leafs as a powerhouse hockey club had ended. The house that Conn built was to see basketball, wrestling, opera, ballet, the circus, the Beatles, Elvis and Sinatra all making Maple Gardens a preeminent arena in North America and the only one of the original six arenas (Boston, Chicago, New York, Montreal and Detroit) still standing.

It became the place to see the greatest live rock bands in the world, anybody who was anybody played the Gardens. Maple Leaf Gardens became synonymous with success as far as music was concerned. But those days were coming to an end also. Ballard died in April 1990 leaving the Toronto Maple Leafs the once great club founded by Smythe 60 years previous in shambles.

In 1992/ 93 with Pat Burns and Doug Gilmour now on board, the Leafs came the closest to winning the Stanley Cup for the first time since '67, losing in the seventh game with the help of the greatest player in the history of hockey Wayne Gretzky and his team the LA Kings (they lost the Cup that year however to the Canadiens). On February 13, 1999 the Toronto Maple Leafs played their final game at the Gardens, losing once again to the Chicago Black like they did that first game ever played there 67 years ago. The Leafs moved into their new home the Air Canada Centre and played their first game on Feb 20 1999 defeating the Canadiens in overtime.

The era of Maple Leaf Gardens was officially over and its fate even today is still very much up in the air.

It’s now Tuesday February 23, 2004 and I’m waiting outside the old Gardens for a few friends.

I’m taking them back inside for what I was calling once last time, take a look, relive some old memories.

Joining me on that day were the son’s of the builders of MLG, Dr. Hugh Smyth together with Frank Selke Jr. and his brother Chilt plus Peter Conacher a former Leaf who played in the NHL from 1951 to 1958 and whose father scored that first goal for the Maple Leafs on opening night in 1931, City TV’s sport anchor Jim McKenny himself a former Leaf 1965-78 and Jim Gregory the onetime Leafs GM hired and fired by Ballard in the turbulent 1960’s now a NHL big wheel and the one man who probably knows more about hockey than anyone alive. We met at the Carlton street lobby where just a few years ago would have been abuzz with ticket takers and fans. As we entered the Gardens itself I gasped at the sight of this enormous empty space.

Even though the seats were gone, the colours, the banners, the flags, the boards, the ice, the penalty boxes all removed it still was unmistakably Maple Leaf Gardens. We made our way to what was once centre ice where embedded in the cement in big bold brass were the letters H. Ballard 1983 and what looked like hand and footprints that someone had cemented over.

While defiantly a real character those old enough to remember the Ballard years the man was not well liked by everybody. Dr. Smyth who was for 20 years was also the Leafs doctor said Mr. Ballard removed anything that had to do with his father from the Gardens pictures, painting, his name gone in one stroke the day Ballard took over the Leafs. The one item Mr. Ballard couldn’t touch however was the Conn Smythe Trophy first presented in 1965 to Jean Bellevue and subsequently presented every year to the most valuable player in the playoffs.

We all stood silently looking down at this legacy in cement when Chilt Selke (a retired veterinarian) broke the silence when he said he remembers the Gardens opening night in fact he remembers the old Mutual Street arena when his Dad and Conn first came up with the idea of building the Gardens (in 1977 the NHL honoured Frank Selke Sr. with a trophy presented annually to the Best Defensive Forward- first winner Canadiens Bob Gainey Both Frank Jr. and Hugh had both skated on the ice here back in the late 1940’s in a kids league and Dr. Smyth even has his name on the 1948 Stanley Cup when he was the Leafs stick-boy. Jim Gregory got everybody laughing when he told us a story of two hockey players on opposing teams who almost came to blows while quietly shouting insults at each other and then almost coming to blows during the National Anthem. As cavernous as MLG is it felt intimate as we stood there. So this is it I thought, centre ice, how many times as a kid did I see this very spot on TV, in my living room in Sudbury? My father, my brothers, my uncles, my aunts, the whole city glued as the puck was dropped on the spot I now stand. We made our way from center ice to the former Leafs dressing room. As we went through the tunnel under the stands McKenny in his sardonic fashion says he fondly remembers being hit over the head by angry fans as they booed and hissed him as he made his way to the dressing room. As we rounded the corner and headed into the former dressing room I was taken aback at how small it was. It too was stripped bare, the seats, the showers, the benches. The ceiling was falling down, the walls had holes punched though, but man this was the place…. the Toronto Maple Leafs Dressing room at one time the most intense few square feet in all of Toronto. As we entered a silent hush filled the room. I stood and watched as Conacher and McKenny came in and wondered how many times did these guys walk into this very room feeling either dejected or elated? What are they feeling now? The silence was broken by Jim Gregory pointing to a nondescript corner of the room said Punch Imlach would always stand there where for 2 decades the legendary coach of the Leafs with his trade mark hat would give his motivating sermons on why hockey is the most important thing in life next to winning. Hugh pointed to the spot on the wall where his dad had hung the sign ‘The Toronto Maple Leafs- defeat does not rest lightly on their shoulders’. Its all gone now, even the nails. I listened to these men, hockey’s royalty, as they relived their memories and thought what will become of the old Gardens. Is this really the end? Will it become a giant grocery store, a mall, a hotel or a parking lot. Will it be torn down to be replaced with a giant condo where 50 years from now someone will say you know there used to be an arena here called Maple Leaf Gardens and it was once the heart of nations sporting life.

Frank Selke Jr. and me looking at Harold Ballard's name in cement at centre ice at the Gardens

The Gooderham (Flatiron) Building by Bruce Bell

This summer tourists from around the world will once again stand on the Front Street meridian and snap a thousand pictures of the historic Gooderham Building framed within the stunning skyline of a modern day Toronto. I often wonder how many of these photos I end up in as I cross the street just as one of those tourists is snapping their camera. Arguably it’s the most photographed building in Toronto and because it’s well over a hundred years old it shows up in practically every book ever written on this city in the past century.

Built in 1891 (it pre-dates New York’s more famous Flatiron building by 10 years) it has come to symbolize the defiance of 1960’s Urban Renewal by its very existence standing proudly at the apex of Church, Wellington and Front like the bow of some great ship. To us it’s always been there but for a hundred years prior to its construction the building that at one time stood there was to the people who once called this area home just as important and historic to them as the Gooderham is to us. Around 1800 Church Street was considered the outskirts of town and Wellington then called Market Street was an access road for farmers coming into the town to sell their produce at the Market. The only other reason to come out this far would be to visit Coopers wharf that lay at the foot of Church Street just south of Front to collect your mail, say good-byes to old friends or shop at the first general store in York that once stood on its massive wooden pylons. The only other major structures in the area were Chief Judge Scott’s home at Scott (named after him naturally) and Front Sts. and York’s first jail where the King Edward Hotel now stands. In 1820 Peter MacDougall, a French Canadian of Scottish descent, arrived in York and built a small farmhouse on the corner of what would later become Church and Wellington where Pizza-Pizza now stands. The land was once owned by the Attorney General John Macdonell the aide de-camp to General Isaac Brock who died at his side during the War of 1812 at the bloodbath at Queenston Heights. As I wander around Church and Wellington Streets today I can’t help wondering did Macdonell as he lay dying on the battlefield ever think of this same corner in his beloved York with the hope of one day retuning and building a home for himself. The land was passed on to his nephew, James on the condition that he change from being a Catholic to becoming an Anglican and it was he who in turn leased it to Peter MacDougall. In 1829 the house was remodeled by John Brown and turned into a hotel named Ontario House. In a local newspaper article written that year it says “On the corner of Church Street stands The Ontario House, a hotel built in a style common then at the Falls of Niagara and in the United States. A row of lofty pillars, well grown pines in fact, stripped and smoothly planed, reached from the ground to the eaves and supported two ties of galleries which, running behind the columns, did not interrupt their vertical lines.” In 1845 the Ontario House was taken over by Russell Inglis and renamed The Wellington. As a boy while working in a restaurant in Scotland, Inglis waited on novelist Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe) and would later retell conversations he had with the famed Scotsman to his enthralled patrons.

The hotel prospered because the area was now a stage couch terminus and in order to supply enough rooms for his over night guests he annexed the Coffin Block across the street. The Coffin Block named because it looked like a coffin stood were our present day Gooderham stands today at the apex of Front, Church and Wellington streets. It was 3 stories high topped off with a with a flat roof and in its basement was where people booked travel by stage coach to various parts of Upper Canada- places that had roads of course. This was Union Station before there were trains. In 1816 it took four days to reach Niagara Falls by stage coach. An advertisement dated September 20^th 1816 states “A stage will commence running between York and Niagara: it will leave York every Monday, and arrive at Niagara on Thursday; and leave Queenston every Friday. The baggage is to be considered at the risk of the owner, and the fare to be paid in advance.” In 1835 the basement operation became the headquarters to the William Weller (of Colbourg) Stagecoach Company. He operated a line of stages from here to Hamilton known as the Telegraph Line. In an advertisement he tells his passengers that he will ‘ take them through by daylight on the Lake Road, during the winter season’ On June 19^th 1832 something truly horrific happened in front of where the Flatiron stands today when a gentleman was found lying on the wooden sidewalk gasping for breath. Within a few hours he would be dead from Cholera. It soon began to spread rapidly and by the end of the summer a quarter of York’s population was either dead, dying or extremely sick,

Across from the hotel was the notorious Henrietta Lane. Long gone, this laneway ran from Wellington up to Colborne Street where Gooderham Court, the condo complex now stands. Notorious because the street was filled with brothels it was also ground zero for the first Cholera epidemic. Not surprising considering it was just steps away from the harbour. Next to Henrietta lane was John Grantham’s livery stable and behind that in the Big Field, as it was known, was the winter quarters of George Bernard’s Circus. All that muck, horse manure and mosquitoes were the perfect breeding ground for a disease that not only was wiping out our local population but what began a year before in India was now spreading across the world. It would be years before they figured out that cleanliness was paramount to healthy living and until then York and the rest of the earth continued to suffer through these outbreaks. By the 1840’s the area surrounding the Coffin Block had the look and feel of a wild-west town complete with saloons, prostitutes, wooden sidewalks and horses stuck in the mud.

The area was so abundant with mud, partly due to the closeness of Lake Ontario with its waters constantly washing ashore, that the nickname Muddy York came into being. It never ceases to amaze me but going to school in Sudbury as I did the term Muddy York together with Hog-town was probably all I was ever taught about what one day would become my ultimate obsession-the history of York and its people. If that first Cholera epidemic a decade before was seen as horrific then the event that happened in front of the Coffin Block on December 28 1841 was nothing short of wondrous. It was on that spot that Toronto emerged from the dark ages when we lit our first gas street lamp. This new-fangled gadget brought Toronto into the gas age and for the first time people were walking around at night under the fuzzy glow of this marvelous invention. Before street lamps were installed going out at night was a dangerous occupation. Even today at night when just a few street lamps go out at once the effect can be a bit frightening. The gas for this new invention, made from coal, was supplied by Charles Berczy son of William (Berczy Park is named for them) and his company would eventually grow and become Consumers Gas. In 1860 Russell Inglis died and his hotel, the one time famed Ontario House and now known as the Wellington was demolished.

In 1862 the site (now Pizza-Pizza) became the headquarters to the Bank of Toronto. When built the bank was the most sophisticated and luxurious building in the city and if it were still standing today would easily rival the Flatiron for the attention of the tourist’s camera and no wonder they were both built for the same man, George Gooderham whose family owned Gooderham and Worts distillery.

In 1832 George’s father William Gooderham arriving from Yorkshire; brought with him money and 54 family members to help his brother-in-law James who arrived a year earlier expand his bakery business at Parliament and Mill Sts, to be known then as Worts and Gooderham. In 1834 James Worts, despondent over the death of his wife in childbirth, committed suicide. William Gooderham, together with his 7 sons (his 6 daughters, like other well-bred women of the 19^th century, were not encouraged to work) and the nephews left orphaned after the death of his sister and James, took control of the factory and re-named it Gooderham and Worts. The 'Worts' in the name of the factory is not named for James Sr. but for his eldest son, James Gooderham Worts, who took over his fathers' side of the business. In 1837 the company began distilling the wheat by-products into booze for a thirsty city. Toronto for all it's soon to be Victorian idealism and demeanor was a saloon-laden town with a tavern for every 100 people. Beer was drunk then, like water is today. Mothers fed their babies beer, kids drank beer openly in the streets, magistrates and clergy drank on the job and no wonder, water then was filthy and tasted horrible. Dead horses, cats, dogs, manure and daily garbage were thrown onto the ice of Lake Ontario and when the ice melted, the sewage would sink into the lake where upon people would drink the stuff untreated. That in turn led to the aforementioned cholera outbreaks, killing thousands. Beer seemed a nice alternative to death. And the Gooderhams were becoming experts at making good tasting beer and alcohol as well as extremely wealthy and in 1859 they undertook a massive building project. Under the supervision of architect David Roberts Sr., five hundred men worked on the construction of what are today the oldest standing sections of the Gooderham and Worts Distillery at Parliament and Cherry streets. Using four massive lake schooners to move stone from Kingston quarries the factory’s main building, the still standing gristmill, was finished in 1860 at a cost of a then staggering sum of 25,000 dollars, making it the most expensive building project in Toronto at the time. In 1843 William Gooderham, built the Little Trinity Church on King E because at the time St. James Cathedral at King and Church used to charge a pews fee and many working class Anglicans couldn't afford to pay it. As their fortunes grew the Gooderhams beginning in 1885 started to build worker-cottages on Trinity and Sackville Streets (still standing) but for all their wealth and power they continued to live amongst their workers in a house, now demolished, on the NW corner of Trinity and Mill Streets. In the late 1800's as Toronto was becoming more class conscience and the dividing lines between commercial and residential areas became more defined George Gooderham, son of William, who had now taken over the family business, built for himself an impressive mansion (still standing) in the fashionable Annex area on the NE corner of Bloor and St. George in 1889. George, now in full control of the family business, developed it into a financial and commercial empire becoming not only the richest man in Toronto but in all of Ontario. As the distillery flourished he enlarged its facilities and began to expand his own interests that included the Toronto and Nipissing Railroad, Manufactures’ Life Insurance and philanthropic enterprises like U of T and The Toronto General Hospital.

In 1882 George became the president of The Bank of Toronto (forerunner to The TD) and built as the head office the grand Bank of Toronto building on the corner of Front and Church where now Pizza-Pizza stands and where Russell Inglis’s Ontario House Hotel once stood. In 1884 George needing more room as his offices in his Venetian inspired bank building were becoming over crowded he erected a three-story office building next door. Today the site of that long demolished building, which was almost as opulent as the bank, is now part of the L-shaped condo complex Gooderham Court whose main entrance is on Church Street.

By 1890 that too was getting crowded so what he needed was not only more office space but a building that was to stand out in a sea of magnificent structures that once graced our streets. In 1891 he commissioned David Roberts Jr., the son of the architect who had built the distillery, to erect the Gooderham Building the last remnant of the Imperial City at a cost of an astonishing $18,000. There, on the fifth floor, underneath the green cone-shaped cupola, he set himself up in an office that overlooked not only the busy intersection below but also everything and everyone he held command of including his soon to be finished King Edward Hotel.

From his ships in the Harbour to his trains on the Esplanade to his Distillery in the distance to his employees at the bank all were within sight of the original Big Brother. Then he had commissioned, what was to become one of the great legends of our neighbourhood, a tunnel to pass underneath Wellington Street to connect with his Bank of Toronto. When he died on May 1^st 1905 his funeral at St. James Cathedral, against his last wishes for a small affair, was one of the largest the city had seen. He was a great benefactor, builder and much loved man to the people of Toronto who lined the streets to show their respect as his cortege made its way to St. James Cemetery. After his death the Bank of Toronto began to plan a move into what is regarded the most beautiful building Toronto ever knew, its new headquarters on the corner of King and Bay in 1913 itself demolished in 1960 and replaced with the equally stunning TD Center. (A scale model of that monumental building complete with its 21 Corinthian columns can be seen under glass in the TD Centre main banking hall at King and Bay Streets in downtown Toronto and out at the Guildwood Inn in Scarborough standing like an ancient Greek theater its impressive King Street entrance has been preserved).

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