Mike Filey's Toronto Sketches, Books 1-3

Mike Filey

• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781459729469
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

Mike Filey's column "The Way We Were" first appeared in the Toronto Sunday Sun not long after the first edition of the paper hit the newsstands on September 16, 1973. Now, over four decades later, Filey's column has enjoyed an uninterrupted stretch as one of the newspaper's most popular features. In 1992 a number of his columns were reprinted in Toronto Sketches: "The Way We Were." Since then another ten volumes have been published. Each column looks at Toronto as it was and contributes to our understanding of how the city became what it is. Illustrated with photographs of the city's people and places of the past, Toronto Sketches are nostalgic journeys for the long-time Torontonian and a voyage of discovery for the newcomer. This special bundle collects the first three of those volumes, packed with fascinating information about Toronto's history.

Includes

• Toronto Sketches
• More Toronto Sketches
• Toronto Sketches 3

Toronto Sketches: “The Way We Were”

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STORIES

A Street by Any Other Name . . .

Yuletide in Little York

Waterfront’s Steamy Past

Toronto’s Island Airport

Filling Up on Waterfront History

Let the Games Continue

Everything Old is New Again

Only the Sky is the Limit for the Time-Honoured CNE Air Show

The Fall of an Arrow

Toronto Swimmer Stuns World

Picture Perfect

Toronto’s Old Gates Took Their Toll on Us

The “Lead Sled” in Plastic

The Story of the Osgoode Hall Gates

Waiting for a Bus

Sports Stadiums for Toronto Not New

The Ubiquitous Rev. Scadding

Cemetery Offers Visitors Peaceful Look at Old T.O.

Sunday Laws Stripped Away One by One

Waiting for a Streetcar

Mr. Lea’s New Town

Historic Schoolhouse Turned Restaurant

Brickbats and Bouquets for Old T.O.

Canada’s First Victoria Cross Winner a Toronto Boy

Suited for Tip Top Success

Hero Called Coward

Those Floating Airports in Our Past and Future

The “Squirt” Makes Its First Toronto Appearance

A Jewel at Yonge and Front

A Historic Car Wash

Throwing Drivers a Curve

The First Plane Over Toronto

Small a Big Mystery

Meet Mr. Bloor – or is It Bloore?

New Uses for an Old Castle

The Gardens on Mutual

The Aikenheads – Ironmongers Extraordinaire

Canadian Tire Goes to Market

The Canadian Who Helped Build the Empire State Building

Postal History on Bay Street

An Explosive Success

Pioneer Industry Packs It In

Airport Fury Flies

“Heart” of the City

Trolley Buses Trundle into the History Books

Summertime Streetcars

Trillium Flowers Again

Auto Heritage May Hit the Road

A Cruise into History

Summers Past in Old T.O.

Red’s Back in Town

When a Huge Snow Storm Paralyzed T.O.

Final Curtain for Famous Theatre

Celebrating a Christmas Tradition

Santa Claus Comes to Town, Thankfully

Some Super Highway History

Hotel Fit for the Royals

The Alexandra Palace

“Little Norway” Trained Airborne Force in Exile

A Prince of a Gate

Procession of Grief

A Taste of History at the Market Gallery

A Sign of the Times

“Five-Pin” Ryan Bowled Us Over with New Game

Grandiose Transit System Certainly Not New Idea

Canada’s First Airmail Delivery – Late

The House that Mary Built

A “Sweetheart” of a Deal

Memory of a Disaster

Lighting Up the City’s Past

Our Man Filey in the Slammer

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

A Victim of the 1904 Inferno

A Voice from the Past

The Bugle Boy of Company “K”

Toronto’s Own Casino on Queen

New Generation of Glitter

Canada Zoomed Ahead with Ambitious Jetliner

It’s Time to Visit the Dock

A Towering Proposal

Home Sweet Streetcar

“Lady Lindy” in Toronto

Past Easters on Parade

Ontario’s Taj Mahal

Transferring TTC History

Rebirth of a Toronto Landmark

Fort York History Unearthed

Putting Toronto on the Map

So You Think Our Winters Are Cold?

Doubling Up in Downtown Toronto

Killer of the Seas Took Toronto by Storm

An Unsinkable Legend

A Street by Any Other Name . . .

June 9, 1985

While the origins of a great number of Metro Toronto’s street names are relatively easy to deduce (pretty words, catchy words, simple words), there are a few names that we’ll probably never discover the reasons for since the story behind the selection years ago was never documented. I can think of several that seem so obvious yet, so far, the reasons remain obscure; Pharmacy, Martin Grove, McNicoll and Robina, to name just a few.

Scattered around Metro are many streets whose names have come about as a result of an association with a historic event in the city’s past. Take Temperance Street, for instance. Running between Yonge and Sheppard streets in downtown Toronto, this little thoroughfare was cut through the property of Jesse Ketchum who, as a young man of 17, moved to the fledgling Town of York from New York State, eventually settling on the farm of his brother near the busy little community of York Mills, several miles north of the little town.

At the age of 30, Jesse moved into town and bought a tannery on the west side of Yonge Street just south of Queen. In 1845, he laid out a street through his property and, because of his aversion to the consumption of liquor (his father had been an alcoholic) named the new thoroughfare Temperance Street. Land deeds drawn up for property on the new street decreed that liquor would not be sold in any building fronting on the street. It was only natural that the street took the name Temperance.

In the Queen Street/Broadview Avenue part of town there’s a small thoroughfare called Sunlight Park Road. Back in 1886, the city’s first professional baseball team began playing at a baseball field that was located just east of the mouth of the Don River and south of Queen Street. Because of the field’s proximity to the Sunlight Soap factory (now Lever Brothers) and with the ever-present smell of Sunlight soap in the air, the name Sunlight Park was a natural.

For a time, we also had Baseball Place in the same part of town. However, with the expansion of a Japanese car dealership on Queen Street just west of Broadview Avenue, that name disappeared in the name of progress.

One of Etobicoke’s major north-south streets is Kipling Avenue. The assumption has always been that it was named for the famous English author, Rudyard Kipling, but why and when remains a mystery. Some investigative work has produced the following details that may (or may not) shed some light on the events leading up to the street’s name.

Jesse Ketchum (1782–1867).

Toronto’s first extensive industry was Ketchum’s tannery that occupied theYonge/Queen/Bay/Adelaide block.

Sketch from Toronto’s 100 Years.

In 1907, Kipling visited Toronto as part of a North American tour. On his itinerary was a visit to the Woodbridge Fair where he was to officially open the event. At the last minute he was forced to cancel his visit to the fairgrounds, but it’s not difficult to imagine that the trip to Woodbridge from the city might have included using some portion of what was called in those days, simply, the Second Line. Perhaps someone dubbed it Kipling’s road (to Woodbridge) and the name stuck even though Kipling never made it to Woodbridge.

If you have any interesting stories about how some of the streets in and around Metro Toronto got their names, I’d be glad to hear about them. Perhaps they’ll even find a place in a new book I plan to write listing the origins of as many Toronto street names as I can find.

Yuletide in Little York

December 24, 1989

Well, the big day is almost here. Soon family and friends will gather to exchange gifts, enjoy fabulous taste delights and share all the good feelings that this special time of year brings, feelings that we wish could prevail all year long.

It goes without saying that our Toronto, the Toronto of 1989, is very much different than the city our parents or their parents knew. Better? Perhaps. Different? Without question!!

Back in the 1930s and 1940s, a gentleman I’d like to know more about, Mr. Percy Ghent, contributed a multitude of stories to the old Telegram newspaper, stories that focused on the changing face of his Toronto.

One of those stories is particularly interesting, especially when read at this time of year. Ghent’s Christmas offering first appeared on December 23, 1933, the year before Toronto celebrated its 100th anniversary as a city, and in it Percy took his readers on an imaginary trip around his hometown as he believed it might have looked 100 years earlier.

His story brought to life the hustle and bustle throughout York, as Toronto was then known, on Christmas Eve in the community’s last full year as a town. On March 6, 1834, the Town of York became the City of Toronto. Now, 56 years after his story was first published, Percy Ghent’s story is even more entertaining.

I’d like to share with my readers Mr. Ghent’s entertaining story, “Yuletide in Little York.”

Yuletide in little York – what was it like here during the festive season a century and more ago? What was it like, say, on December 24, 1833, when the town boasted less than 10,000 souls, but was sticking out its chest with pride at the prospect of becoming a real grown-up city in the New Year? Henry Scadding and other historians of Toronto’s infancy have left such detailed records of the scene that it is easy to make a tour in fancy, a sleigh ride if you like, around the little town; and the sights are well worth seeing.

That giant sign above the Steamboat Hotel on the bay shore, for instance, is one of the star attractions. Over the upper veranda of the hotel, it extends for the entire length of the building and on it is a steamboat of almost the same length. Smoke belches from the stacks and the bow wave breaks in spray, and there’s a foamy wake from sidewheel to stern.

At Front and John streets stands the Greenland Fishery Inn. Its famous sign depicts whaling vessels capturing one of those sea monsters. All on Yonge Street, and all with their quaint old signs, you’ll find the Bird In Hand, the Sun Tavern, the Golden Bull and the Red Lion.

On Front Street there’s the White Swan tavern, but if you prefer the Black Swan, it stands ...