Filey - Toronto Sketches 5

Toronto Sketches 5

The Way We Were

Mike Filey

Copyright Mike Filey 1997

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press Limited. Permission to photocopy should be requested from the Canadian Reprography Collective.

Editor: Barry Jowett
Designer: Scott Reid
Printer: Transcontinental Printing Inc.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Filey, Mike, 1941

Toronto sketches 5: the way we were

ISBN 1-55002-292-X

1. Toronto (Ont.) History. I. Title

1 2 3 4 5 BJ 01 00 99 98 97

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Book Publishing Industry Development Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions.

Printed and bound in Canada.

Printed on recycled paper.

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When I contributed my first column to the Toronto Telegram, little did I know that the newspaper was fast approaching its final deadline. In fact, on those random occasions when my views of Toronto, then and now, did appear, I was pretty sure that the presence of my material would send that particular days circulation figures higher than theyd ever been. So you can imagine my astonishment when the news broke announcing that the Saturday, October 31, 1971 edition of the Tely would be the last. Could my columns have contributed to the untimely demise of what had become a true Toronto tradition?

Hardly. Seems the end was in sight (a fact that, at the time, was known to very few) long before I first approached Ray Biggart and Glenn Woodcock with the suggestion that the paper might wish to run a column using old photos of various parts of the city from my collection, contrasting them with the present-day views taken by Telegram photographers like Dick Loek or a young Norm Betts.

When the end did come, my connection with the Telegram had been insignificant. Nevertheless, my material had appeared in the Toronto Telegram, one of the countrys great newspapers, and that fact was something I could always boast about.

The body was still warm when the Toronto Sun hit the newsstands early on Monday, November 1, 1971. As people warmed to Torontos Other Voice, as the new paper called itself, once again I was asked to be an irregular contributor (irregular in this case not referring to any medical condition, but rather indicating that my stuff wouldnt run every day or perhaps even every week. It would appear, well, irregularly.

Actually, it wasnt until some time after the Sunday edition of the paper first appeared in 1973 that my column, The Way We Were, was to become a regular feature. Since then Im proud to say that my column has been missing from the Sunday Sun on only one occasion and that wasnt even my fault. The advertising people oversold the paper and I was bumped for a Crisco ad.

Toronto Sketches 5 contains columns that appeared in the Sunday Sun from August, 1995 through the end of December, 1996. The original publication date is provided at the beginning of each column. In some cases, additional material that may have been prompted by the columns first appearance has been incorporated in the book version. In addition, space limitations in the newspaper may have precluded the use of more than a couple of photos. Where applicable, those that were not used have been included in the book. Unless otherwise identified, all photos are from the authors collection. Special thanks goes to Irene at Charles Abel Photo Finishing for her assistance.

As always, people at the Sun have made my work that much easier and that much more fun. In particular Id like to thank Marilyn Linton and Vena Eaton of the Lifestyle section and Ed Piwowarczyk at the Features Desk, each of whom ensures that my material actually makes it into the Sunday paper and looks good when it gets there. Researching material for each weeks column results in extended periods in the Suns library (tax man, please note). It could be a drag, but thanks to head librarian Julie Kirsh and her little helpers Katherine, Glenna, Gillian, Joyce, and Sue for both their help and tolerance. A special thanks to Jeff Rickard, one of the Suns computer specialists whose expertise keeps my bits and bytes from running all over my RAM and ROM. By the way, Jeff now has his own business if you too need help.

Thanks also to the good people at Dundurn Press, who strive to turn out that vanishing breed of books you know, the ones about our great country. Its a tough and often thankless job, but someone has to do it. Dundurn does it well.

And finally, Im always on the lookout for story ideas as well as interesting old photographs of our city. If you have some of either and would like to share them with my Sun readers, drop me a note c/o the paper or the publisher.

Once again, thanks to my wife, proofreader, typist, and best fan, Yarmila.

Mike Filey
North York
(which after January 1, 1998 will be Toronto).

August 6, 1995

One sure way of telling that you are indeed getting old is to read that the Toronto Historical Board is about to place on its list of significant city structures a building that you actually watched being built when you were a kid. In my case the structure thats causing me some trauma is the former Union Carbide Building on Eglinton Avenue East between Yonge Street and Mt. Pleasant Road.

When I started my Grade 9 studies at North Toronto Collegiate in 1955 I was fortunate enough to get after-school and Saturday work as a drug peddler or perhaps a better choice of words would be to say that I pedalled a delivery bike for Phil Lewiss Redpath Drug store at the northwest corner of Eglinton and Redpath avenues. (The building later became the site of the very first Golden Griddle restaurant.)