Toronto Newspaper Histories: The Fighting Words of Black Jack Robinson

Originally published as a “Historicist” column on Torontoist on July 2, 2016.

John R. Robinson in Sutton, October 27, 1927. From the City of Toronto Archives, Globe and Mail fonds, Fonds 1266, Item 11977.

John R. Robinson would have been well suited to the internet age. The style “Black Jack” employed editing the Telegram between the Victorian era and the Roaring Twenties easily fits Twitter and other social media platforms—short, snappy, obsessed with local politics, and filled with bile and venom. His outbursts knew few grey areas, an attribute which pleased politicians the paper supported and aggravated anyone who aroused his wrath. As one biographer put it, “to Robinson, every battle was Armageddon.”

In person, Robinson wasn’t a dashing figure. His black hair was dishevelled and his clothes were so baggy that they looked as if they’d been sewn in a tent factory. Mail and Empire columnist J.V. McAree depicted him as someone who was always on the prowl, who strode the streets with eyes down, coat flapping and full of newspapers, so lost in thought that he was oblivious to his daughters if they passed by him. He read little more than the Bible, didn’t seem to have any cultural interests, and gave all of his children names beginning with J.

Born in 1862, Robinson’s journalism career began at age 13 when he apprenticed at the Guelph Mercury. Moving to Toronto in 1881, he worked as a reporter at the Globe before joining the Telegram two years later. He developed a strong rapport with Telegram owner John Ross Robertson to the point where they anticipated each other’s thoughts. Both were extremely loyal to the Orange Order and the British Empire, dedicated to exposing municipal corruption, and loathed Americans, Catholics, and Quebecois. “The gospel according to one John was the gospel of the other,” one historian noted.

Both men’s sentiments captured the essence of working class conservative populism in Toronto. The Telegram voiced the resentment of an unsophisticated, poorly educated audience toward snobs and anyone with an air of superiority. As media historian Paul Rutherford observed, “all this served to express class antagonisms (the poor against the rich) and yet emphasize a sense of community (the people of the nation against its enemies). The contradictory blend, perhaps best labelled populist, had proved a fine way to curry the public’s favour.”

Composing room, the Telegram, 1904. From the Toronto Public Library.

Robinson mastered the concise style of covering local news and dispensing political commentary Robertson developed over the previous two decades in reaction to the long-winded rambling that characterized the Toronto press. As Saturday Nighteditor E.E. Sheppard noted in 1888, Robinson was “a young writer who can draw blood in fewer words than any daily scribe in town.” After Robinson became editor-in-chief in 1889, Robertson ceased writing editorials. “Whenever Robinson attacked the language Robertson was satisfied,” observed Robertson biographer Ron Poulton, “because he felt that he could not have covered the subject better himself.”

One of Robinson’s first editorial battles stemmed from work begun as a reporter in 1887 to demand asphalt paving for city streets. With another reporter he filled sacks of rotten block paving from a stretch of Arthur Street (present-day Dundas between Bathurst and Ossington) and placed them in the Telegram’s lobby. The paper accused the contractor of being part of a ring which ignored the city engineer’s specifications and profited from using poor materials. The contracted sued for $20,000 in a libel suit. The court ruled in favour of the Telegram, prompting Robinson to proclaim “the utter failure of this attempt to silence this journal is the shadow cast before the coming event of a thorough reconstruction of the Works Department.”

Of politicians, Robinson observed that “you can’t appeal to their heads because they have been turned. You can’t appeal to their hearts because they haven’t any. But thank God they all have hides.” Combined with the efforts of the Orange Order, the Telegram shaped city council, often playing kingmaker when it came to mayoral candidates who suited the paper’s view of municipal governance. Some of Robinson’s opponents felt his relationship with City Hall was so cozy that ruled over the city in a dictatorial manner.

The Telegram, December 29, 1923.

Robinson was especially loyal to Tommy Church, who received praise so breathless that you’d think he was a god walking among Torontonians. Support of Church reached an absurd climax in 1923, when Church attempted a mayoral comeback after sitting as an MP for several years. Page after page deified Church, printing letters of praise from foreign dignitaries, depicting him as the staunch defender of prohibition and all other things “Toronto the Good” stood for, and printing praise from politicians who’d been dead for years. Allies of Church’s opponent W.W. Hiltz were portrayed, under rambling headlines, with photos resembling rows of mug shots, all in thrall to the evils of the Globe, Star, and Conservatives who disagreed with the Telegram’s favoured politicians.

For once, the paper’s fearmongering failed: when voters cast their ballots on January 1, 1924, Hiltz won. Robinson’s reaction on the next day’s editorial page was the printed equivalent of a Twitter meltdown:

WRONG NUMBER
Hiltz 10,116 plurality

WORDS OF CHEER
ARE WE DOWNHEARTED? Aye, aye, sir, answered the brave tar.

THOMAS THE TRUE
THESE COLUMNS STILL RELY ON T.L. CHURCH.

VOTE SHORTAGE
New Year’s Day 1924, was ideal except that supporters of T.L. Church seemed to note an acute vote shortage in the closing hours thereof.

CHEER FOR TORONTO
CHEER BOYS! CHEER for Toronto. Irrespective of who goes up or who goes down at the polls, regardless of the newspapers that suffer defeat or share the victory the civic patriot will continue to PRAY FOR THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM. THEY SHALL PROSPER THAT LOVE THEE.

T.L. CHURCH THE BEST MAYOR WHO EVER SERVED TORONTO
New Year’s Day shipment of adversity duly received, contents noted and in reply would say that Toronto’s loss will prove T.L. Church’s gain. Toronto loses more than T.L. Church loses in the defeat of the best Mayor who ever served a city, and the most faithful defender who ever guarded the rights and property of the citizens.

PARTNERS IN DEFEAT
Defeat in the good company of T.L. Church is more glorious than victory in support of any other candidate.

Two years later, when the Telegram celebrated its 50th anniversary, Robinson still fumed over the result. “Fifty years of unbroken success at the polls interspersed with the defeat of T.L. Church by Mr. W.W. Hiltz and a few other regrettable incidents,” he wrote, “have left scars on the finer feelings of these columns.”

For politicians who weren’t as sacred as Tommy Church, Robinson’s abusive tone just as often demonstrated his bigotry and prejudices as much as anger over perceived misdeeds against the public interest of the city he loved. “Mr. Robinson never stopped to consider consequences,” the Mail and Empire reflected in 1928. “He was a master in the use of bitter invective and withering sarcasm. At times his attacks on persons seemed cruel in the extreme and quite unwarranted, but he always claimed such attacks were in no sense personal.”

Sample front page, the Telegram, December 31, 1923.

A good example of Robinson in action occurred when he was summoned to Ottawa in June 1919 to testify at a hearing of a special parliamentary committee looking into the cost of living. In a series of editorials, Robinson criticized the committee’s examination of the William Davies Company (the giant meatpacking firm which inspired Toronto’s “Hogtown” nickname) executive E.C. Fox. Robinson was generally uncooperative, getting into verbal rows with enemies, like former Toronto mayor Horatio Hocken. When asked if Fox knew anything about butter fat percentages in Davies’ products, Robinson replied “he ought to know as much about butter fat as type metal.”

When Robinson demanded time to reply to Hocken’s charges that the Telegram was a lie-filled rag, the following argument ensued between the journalist and Oxford North MP Edward Nesbitt:

Nesbitt: Sit down

Robinson: You sit down.

Nesbitt: You are roaring like a bull.

Robinson: And you have less brains than a donkey.

(wild uproar)

Nesbitt (shaking his fist): Don’t think you are going to run this committee.

Robinson: Reserve your sympathy for your Austro-Germans in North Oxford.

The sergeant-at-arms was called in to restore order.

Among the Telegram’s press rivals, Robinson reserved special scorn for the Star. The papers had been relatively cordial to each other ever since Robertson supplied equipment to the Star when it launched in 1892. Though their politics were polar opposites, Robertson developed a friendship with Star publisher Joseph Atkinson, each complimenting the other for sticking to their principles. Atkinson biographer Ross Harkness provided an amusing example of their relationship:

Meeting him on the street [Robertson] would ask, “Well Atkinson, did you make any money last month?” At first the answer was always “No,” to which John Ross would jokingly respond “Better give it up; I’ll give you a job.” When at long last the answer was “Yes, we had a little over last month,” Robertson tipped his high silk topper in benign congratulations and continued his august ambulation.

Telegram paper box at 908 Queen Street East, July 23, 1930. FRom the City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 200, Series 372, Subseries 58, Item 1257.

After Robertson’s death, Robinson unleashed his hatred of everything the Star stood for. “Day after day Mr. Atkinson was pictured to readers of the Telegram as an evil old man, hunched in his office spinning Machiavellian plots for the destruction of the Empire, Protestantism, and Western civilization,” Harkness noted. “Since the Telegram still had a circulation within the city greater than that of the next two papers combined, most residents of Toronto knew Atkinson only from the distorted picture presented to them by his enemies.” Robinson went to ridiculous extremes to portray Atkinson poorly, such as claiming the Star’s suggestion to widen Bloor Street was based on Atkinson’s desire for a speedier ride between the office and his home in Forest Hill.

One of Robinson’s most obsessive crusades was the promotion of public ownership of utilities, especially hydro. Were Robinson around today, you can bet he’d be leading the charge against selling any part of Hydro One. Robinson stood faithfully by Sir Adam Beck and others who believed a publicly run system was better for ratepayers than falling prey to price gouging by private operators. Robinson also backed Beck’s unsuccessful plans to build a network of radial railways out of the city. Following Beck’s death in 1925, Robinson frequently spoke in public about the need to preserve Beck’s legacy amid political squabbling.

By the mid-1920s, Robinson’s power declined. Following Robertson’s death in 1918, the Telegram was passed onto a group of trustees, including his widow Jesse and son Irving. Both increasingly resented Robinson. Jesse was annoyed by his provocation of libel suits, which were unsuccessful, filed by Minnesota lumber tycoon E.W. Backus (for allegations over a sweetheart timber rights deal in northern Ontario) and Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (for allegations that cabinet ministers had accepted bribes of liquor). Irving resented Robinson’s authority and contempt for his friends.

Robinson’s failing health showed on the editorial page. “Old hates clouded Black Jack’s vision, impelling him to constant editorial outbursts that many began to find excessive and tiresomely repetitive,” Poulton noted. “He forgot that a crescendo a day scares the reader away, if he was ever aware of the rule.” During Robinson’s last year at the helm, he constantly slammed the Canadian Pacific Railway and displayed an increasingly bitter anti-Catholic bias. He and Irving constantly quarrelled. Following a board meeting in 1927, a glum Robinson declared “they’re all against me.”

His final editorials appeared in the March 3, 1928 edition. He criticized the vanity of proposed downtown skyscrapers and commented on a public speaking contest at Jarvis Collegiate. He also took a shot at Irving, who considered himself a snappy dresser, by commenting on a recent decision by the Business Club of Nottingham in England to fine a member for wearing plus four pants at a public function.

Shortly after, Robinson suffered a heart attack. Initially confined to his Wellesley Street home, he soon moved to his summer home in Beaverton. On May 1, 1928, for the first time anyone could remember, the classified ads were removed from the front page. Though temporary at first, the removal of this anachronistic element was seen as a sign of battles behind the scenes (the classified were permanently banished from the front in August).

The Telegram, September 29, 1928.

On September 28, 1928, the front page of the Telegram announced Robinson’s death. Across all papers he was remembered for his concern for the underdog, concise writing style, loyalty to church and empire, and his dedication to the city. The Telegram’s editorial page began with a quote from Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” which summed up Robinson’s motivations: “To Strive, to Seek, to Find, and Not to Yield” Despite their differences, Irving Robertson wrote about how Robinson’s dedication probably harmed his health. “Again and again he was urged to save his health and delegate his duties. But he had the restless spirit of Ulysses who, having drunk delight of battle with his peers, was impelled to be a participant and not a mere spectator of the pageant of life.”

Robinson asked for a simple service, requesting that the only flowers present be ones he grew in Beaverton. Two years after his death, his family presented a portrait to city council, which one alderman request be hung next to Adam Beck’s. Mayor Bert Wemp, a former employee of Robinson, noted that side-by-side they depicted “two staunch friends” who fought for public interests.

His journalistic legacy lived on through his daughter Judith (1899-1961), who joined the Globe as a reporter the year after his death. During her distinguished career, she co-founded the Second World War era weekly News, and served as a respected political columnist with the Telegram.

We give the final word to the Globe’s obituary of Robinson. “He fought because he was spiritually and mentally incapable of remaining neutral. Everything was white or black to him; there was no grey or middle tone.”

Sources: J.E. Atkinson of the Star by Ross Harkness (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963); The Paper Tyrant by Ron Poulton (Toronto: Clark, Irwin & Company, 1971); A Victorian Authority by Paul Rutherford (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982); the June 21, 1919, September 29, 1928, and December 16, 1930 editions of the Globe; the September 29, 1928 edition of the Mail and Empire; the January 2, 1924, April 19, 1926, and September 28, 1928 editions of the Telegram; and the Spring 2010 edition of Urban History Review.

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Renowed Editors of Canadian Daily Newspapers (Toronto: Thomson Newspapers, 1959)

The Globe, October 3, 1928.

The Globe’s memorial editorial observed that “Canadian journalism loses its most picturesque character and Toronto loses a great man.”

It was inevitable that such a man be sometimes wrong, or even oftentimes wrong. But the greatest tribute to the character of the departed editor is that even his most bitterest enemy never doubted his motives. It was everywhere conceded that John R. Robinson struck with all his force, in his unique and inimitable fashion, because he believed that so to strike was in the public interest.

Despite’s Robinson’s attacks on the Star, whoever wrote its memorial editorial showed restraint and respect:

Yet while he could wield a fiery pen John R. Robinson was in his own person one of the kindliest of men, devoted to his friends and enjoying the enthusiastic support of the newspaper staff to whom for so long he gave such energetic leadership.

Toronto Metros-Croatia, 1976 Soccer Bowl Champions

Originally published as a Historicist column on Torontoist on September 24, 2016.

Toronto Sun, August 30, 1976.

Toronto sports fans needed a champion in 1976. The Argonauts hadn’t hoisted the Grey Cup since 1952. The Maple Leafs were nine years into their Stanley Cup drought. The World Hockey Association’s Toros had fled to the hockey hotbed of Birmingham, Alabama. The Blue Jays were preparing to launch their first season, so who knew how long it would be before they reached the World Series?

The Metros-Croatia victory in the 1976 Soccer Bowl was an underdog story the city could embrace. The team endured a strife-filled season, not enhanced by a league which disliked the ethnic tenor of the team’s name and was annoyed that a perennially indebted franchise with meagre attendance made the finals instead of a premier market like New York.

As soccer exploded as an amateur sport across North America in the mid-1960s, veteran sports entrepreneurs, especially NFL owners, saw an opportunity for a professional gold mine. Two rival leagues began play in 1967: the National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) and the United Soccer Association (USA). Both were confident that soccer was the sport of the future. “We won’t go broke in soccer,” declared Jack Kent Cooke after a USA meeting at the Royal York Hotel in February 1967. “It will succeed. I’ve never backed a loser and I don’t intend to start now.”

Cooke may have later regretted that statement. While he had tasted success with Toronto’s Maple Leafs baseball team, had a winner with basketball’s Los Angeles Lakers, and got the Los Angeles Kings off the ground, he wasn’t so lucky with the USA’s Los Angeles Wolves. Nor were the other owners in either league. Heavy financial losses, coupled with a looming anti-trust lawsuit, prompted the leagues to merge in January 1968, forming the North American Soccer League (NASL).

Globe and Mail, April 24, 1968.

The merger left a complicated legal situation in Toronto. Both leagues were attracted to our city by its multicultural diversity and growing amateur and semi-pro soccer infrastructure—in youth soccer, participation across Metro rose from 5,000 in 1964 to 17,500 in 1969, while senior leagues steadily added teams. With the merger, the NPSL’s Falcons agreed to buy out USA’s Toronto City, which was owned by Knob Hill Farms proprietor/future Maple Leafs owner Steve Stavro, who quickly wondered where his first payment was. He was also miffed that the Falcons wanted a piece of the annual promotion of a match between European teams he retained as part of the settlement. Stavro threatened legal action to prevent the Falcons from opening their home season at Varsity Stadium in May 1968.

Muddying matters was the interference of Canada’s governing soccer body, the Canadian Soccer Football Association (CSFA). It would take a full column to detail their financial demands on the Falcons and the Vancouver Royal Canadians, which CSFA president Bill Simpson justified on the grounds that “soccer development in Canada costs an enormous amount.” The basics are that CSFA wanted a flat $25,000 payment, percentages of gate receipts from league games and matches against international teams, money to cover legal fees stemming from the anti-trust suit that was dropped, and a sum equivalent to a portion what their American counterpart made from NASL broadcasts on CBS. They also threatened to suspend the Falcons and any team who played against them if the dispute with Stavro dragged on.

By May 1968, the Falcons resolved their problems on both legal fronts. Stavro got his money and promotion, while CSFA agreed to lower fixed fees. Simpson continued to wag his finger at the Falcons, threatening to revoke the franchise if the majority of the money coming to them came from sources other than the gate (Simpson believed insisting on ticket money ensured the teams would continue to promote the sport).

Or maybe the CSFA wanted to profit before the Falcons and Royal Canadians folded, which is what both teams did after the 1968 season. The Falcons were estimated to have lost around half a million dollars. When the 1969 NASL season began, the league had contracted from 17 teams to five. “The pro teams actually hurt soccer, not helped it,” Stavro told the Globe and Mail. “It took some English teams 50 years to develop and in North America they tried to do it overnight.”

Globe and Mail, May 11, 1972.

NASL kept Toronto in mind as it regrouped. On December 10, 1970, it granted a franchise to Prosoccer Ltd., a group of businessmen headed by John Fisher. Nicknamed “Mr. Canada” for the patriotic tone of his radio broadcasts on CBC during the 1940s and 1950s, Fisher had guided the country through its 100th birthday as Centennial Commissioner. Over 1,000 entries were received in a name-the-team contest, with Metros coming out on top. General manager Jack Daley expected a $75,000 loss in year one, which he termed “a contribution to soccer.”

Despite the second-worst record in league during the 1971 season, the Metros had the second-highest home attendance. They tried to develop roots in the community—coach Graham Leggat conducted school clinics and became a popular dinner speaker, while a partnership with the Toronto and District Soccer League attempted to develop players for the Canadian national team.

But the team’s financial situation faltered. Attendance at Varsity Stadium never matched expectations. Front office personnel were shuffled. An attempt to lure Manchester United star Bobby Charlton out of retirement went nowhere. Leggat’s successor as coach, Artur Rodrigues, intended to keep his day job in the maintenance department of the Clarke Institute. There were few signs of a winning product on the field. By the end of 1973, losses were estimated to be between $175,000 and $300,000.

Fans holding coach Artur Rodrigues after the Metros clinched their first-ever playoff spot. Toronto Star, August 11, 1973.

The Metros had already received grants totalling $40,000 from Metro Council when they were given a $250,000 loan guarantee from the Ontario Development Corporation in December 1973. Giving provincial funds to a pro sports team was so unprecedented at the time that the loan was cleared through Premier William Davis personally. ODC managing director Alan Etchen noted that, as the only major league soccer team in Ontario, the Metros made “a substantial contribution to our ethnic and other cultures.” Etchen believed the team would be profitable within three years, draw tourists, and provide great jobs in fields like advertising and popcorn sales.

Asked about the loan, Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard said that while his team would never tap the provincial treasury, it was a good idea to make money available for sporting ventures. “Soccer is a great sport and we have a lot of Europeans here who understand the game,” he told the Star. “Anything we can do to give them some enjoyment is money well spent.” He also cautioned that “you can’t borrow yourself out of debt.”

Fisher claimed that as a tourist attraction, the Metros were “a better risk than a lot of factories.” Globe and Mail columnist Dick Beddoes would have differed:

Toronto Metros, strongly believing in Santa Claus, have grown utterly shameless about accepting public charity. Failing through their own indifference or incompetence or stupidity, the sponsors of this impoverished soccer team have sought public succor. The notion here is that stores operated for private profit, such as the Metros, should make it on the merit of their merchandise. If they cannot make it on that standard, they should not become what a certain Mr. [David] Lewis calls corporate welfare bums. They should be allowed to sink into bankruptcy without the public being obliged to wade through a bog of red ink to bail them out.

The loan didn’t help. Attendance continued to sink, prompting desperate measures. After having witnessed a sullen crowd, which resembled a jury, team president Bruce Thomas hatched a plan to pay the first 1,000 youth who showed up for a June 1974 game against the St Louis Stars a dollar each to sit in the bleachers and cheer. “If we’re going to go down, let’s not go down in silence,” Thomas told the Star, alluding to signs which pointed to the franchise’s demise. NASL commissioner Phil Woosnam told Thomas the plan broke league rules, so the Metros wound up letting youth in for a one dollar, which also earned them a free ticket to the following game. Despite the deal, only 3,139 showed up to see the Metros lose 2-1. Further attempts to lure youngsters results in stands filled with kids weary of the team’s lousy play.

As the 1974 season ended, offers came in for the club. One group offered to move the team to Mexico City. Citytv was a rumoured buyer. Stavro denied interest, suggesting the best solution was to find a group of businessmen willing to continue losing money in the near-future. The league was committed to having a franchise in Toronto (as part of its utopian vision of having 40 franchises by 1984), even though some observers such as former GM Daley felt there were too many other sports and local, lower-level soccer teams serving as distractions. Whoever bought the team would have to deal with the ODC and Metro Toronto loans.

After four months of negotiations, the Metros announced on February 5, 1975 that half the team was purchased by Toronto Croatia of the National Soccer League. Over two decades, Toronto Croatia had developed a strong organization, winning the NSL championship the previous four years. Under the agreement, they took on half of the Metros’ debts, and insisted the team be renamed Metros-Croatia. When the NASL threatened to prevent the name change, Croatia threatened to walk. Money talked, but the league continued to refer to the team as “Metros” in official correspondence.

The team essentially started from scratch, as the Metros were so poor they couldn’t afford an office or a telephone. Croatia asked for a one-year leave of absence from the NSL, whose president, Toronto city councillor Joe Piccininni, called a presumptuous move. “I personally think they have made a serious mistake in moving into the North American Soccer League,” he observed, “but that is their business.” A war of words ensued between Metros-Croatia and the NSL, with Thomas threatening to seek a ban on all imported players in Ontario-based leagues.

The team finally achieved a winning record in 1975 under fiery coach Ivan Markovic, who had previous run the Yugoslavian Olympic squad. But a move to Lamport Stadium for the 1976 season sent attendance downward again, with an average of 4,697 fans during the first three home games, a distressing figure as ticket sales rose elsewhere around the league.

Globe and Mail, April 27, 1976.

Given the team’s hapless history, it wasn’t surprising they bungled the announcement on April 26, 1976, that they had signed veteran Mozambique-born star Eusébio. While Thomas held a press conference to promote an exhibition game against Tottenham Hotspur, Eusébio unexpectedly showed up. While he claimed the deal was done, Thomas was puzzled. “I don’t know why he’s even here,” he said. “This exposure can only help his bargaining power.” The team finally admitted they signed him, despite concerns over whether the “Black Panther” could work within Markovic’s highly structured system, and whether his knees, which were eroded as badly as Bobby Orr’s, would hold up.

During his debut the following night, Eusébio admitted he didn’t play well because, having spent the winter playing in Mexico, Toronto was colder than he was used to. He also noted he spent much of the game studying his teammates, concluding “they are a good team.” As team officials feared, Eusébio soon chafed under Markovic’s hyper-criticism, leading to benchings. An anonymous team official told the Star that Eusébio was a clubhouse lawyer of the first order and has been causing dissent among the players. “That’s one thing. Another is that he’s being paid more than $1,000 a game to score goals and he hasn’t been scoring.”

The coach showed signs of cracking during a May 30 return to Varsity Stadium, one of several games which tested the field’s readiness for soccer during the 1976 Summer Olympics. Metros-Croatia received numerous stoppage of play calls throughout the match, prompting Markovic to repeatedly run onto the field to protest. During one of those runs, he either pushed or hit Eusébio.

Left: coach Ivan Markovic, Toronto Sun, July 11, 1976. Right: Eusébio, Toronto Star, April 28, 1976.

The situation was grim by mid-July. Despite a winning record, attendance failed to budge at Lamport, either because fans weren’t used to the team’s new home, or the new top ticket price of $5 was too high. A proposed sale to Carling O’Keefe brewery fell through when an offer was rejected by Croatia shareholders, who decided instead to inject an addition $120,000 into the team. The promotional budget was miniscule. Player cheques were late. A collection was taken up by members of Our Lady Queen of Croatia church to pay Filip Blaskovic’s salary. The anemic offence failed to score over seven straight games before Eusébio broke the 755-minute long drought on July 11 against the Portland Timbers. Markovic rewarded him with a benching. The coach was booed.

Not that Markovic would have cared. Earlier that day he announced his resignation for “personal reasons,” though it looked like a firing to some. His demise was attributed to his demanding nature, penchant for altercations with players and their friends (such as when a buddy of Miralem Fazlic reputedly went after Markovic with a two-by-four following a benching), and the scoring drought. “I am not happy to go, but I must go and don’t wish to say anything about anybody who brought it about,” he told the press. As an unidentified member of the Croatian community told the Star, “when a team goes seven games without scoring a goal, something has to give, and in this case it was the coach.”

His replacement, Marijan Bilic, had captained Toronto Croatia during their NSL days. His relaxed style eased tensions, allowing players to enjoy the game. It also helped that Markovic’s finale was also the team’s last game in Lamport (attendance 3,490), as they moved back to Varsity for their final three home matches. Thomas and four other directors held over from the Metros era resigned at the end of July, a move Croatia officials felt was long overdue, feeling the holdovers offered poor financial support to the team.

Toronto Sun, July 7, 1976. This game marked Chinaglia’s debut with the Cosmos. Alas, Pele sat out due to a groin injury.

Through the efforts of players such as goaltender Paulo Cimpiel, who had nine shutouts, improved play from Eusébio (named captain after Markovic’s departure), and late-season signings of winger Ivan Grnja and midfielder Wolfgang Suhnholz, Metros-Croatia clinched a playoff spot on August 11. Eusébio, whose financial health was good, thanks to transatlantic real estate investments, promised to share the performance bonuses in his contract with his teammates, as the league banned overall team bonuses. “I can’t tell you how impressed everybody on the team is,” goaltender Zeljko Bilecki told the Star, “He wants to win so badly.”

The run to the Soccer Bowl was filled with obstacles, ranging from injuries to several key players to Cimpiel going AWOL. But the team was determined to prove naysayers within NASL who constantly belittled the team, especially when no Metros-Croatia players were picked for either of the league’s all-star rosters.

The league was still hung up on the team name. “We were put in a spot and haven’t forgotten it,” a NASL official admitted to the Star. “This is a group interested not so much in advancing soccer in your city as advancing their own national aspirations.” They were peeved that the Carling O’Keefe offer had been rejected. And they were especially peeved that Metros-Croatia was going deep into the playoffs while the league’s marquee team, the New York Cosmos, had been eliminated. Visions of Cosmos stars like Pele and Giorgio Chinaglia drawing viewers to CBS’s broadcast of the Soccer Bowl vaporized.

Metros-Croatia had won seven consecutive games by the time they arrived at the Kingdome in Seattle to take on the Minnesota Kicks on August 28 for the Soccer Bowl. The league instructed the PA announcer to refer to each team by their city, to avoid uttering the dreaded term “Metros-Croatia.” Toronto officials smiled at the discomfort their presence gave NASL management. “The league is embarrassed that we’re here,” one told Sports Illustrated. “But now they’re just going to have to stand up and take it like a man.”

As per usual with the team’s finances, they couldn’t afford to bring a doctor along. The Seattle Sounders loaned theirs to patch up six injured players, all of whom played in the game. Among the walking wounded was Eusébio, whose ankle was shot up with novocaine. “It lasted all game,” noted Dr. Marty Kushner, “so I must have given him a good shot.”

Toronto Sun, August 29, 1976.

It was, as Eusébio scored the winning goal in Toronto’s 3-0 victory before limping off to the dressing room. “When I scored our first goal, I knew we’d win,” he told the Sun. “I didn’t think I could have played the whole game. I thought maybe I’d play 30 or 40 minutes but my teammates asked me to try and keep playing. It was a sacrifice but it was good to do it for this team and for Canada.”

The game drew 25,765, a record for the NASL championship. As the Star‘s Jim Kernaghan observed, “The dust had settled at the Kingdome and the guys from the wrong side of the tracks, the no-name Toronto Metros-Croatia, had grabbed soccer’s top award on this continent and gone, leaving many wondering what happened.” The Globe and Mail‘s Christie Blatchford saw it as a victory for Croatia’s shareholders for all the belittling they received about the team’s name, hoping they might be bold enough to drop “Metros.”

The next morning, around 300 fans greeted several returning members of the team at the airport. A party was held late into the night at the Croatian National Hall on Dupont Street. The rejoicing was short-lived, as the team’s financial troubles made it impossible to match contract offers for free agents like Eusébio and Suhnholz. The league continued to harp on the team’s name—hours after the victory, New York Cosmos GM Clive Toye introduced a motion prohibiting nicknames which weren’t North American. “This is now a major league and there is no longer any place for ethnic names. I admire the tremendous contribution various ethnic groups have made but soccer can stand on its own feet now and doesn’t need to have Scottish, Italian, or any other kind of ethnic name.” One wonders what he would have made of MLS’s later emulation of European team names. The motion failed.

Toronto Sun, August 30, 1976.

Metro Council infused more money into the franchise. Another bid from Carling O’Keefe was rejected in November 1976 on the grounds too many people would lose their investment, even though the brewery offered $900,000. Their title defence in 1977 ended in a semi-final loss to the Rochester Lancers. By the end of that season, the team owed around $1 million, prompting some creditors to resort to collection agencies.

The Metros-Croatia saga ended on January 31, 1979, when 85 per cent of the team was sold to the owners of the Global television network. Within weeks, the team was renamed the Blizzard and gained a new home at Exhibition Stadium.

Toronto Croatia re-established itself as a separate National Soccer League team. The team long outlasted the demise of the NASL in 1984 (whose final championship game the Blizzard lost). Despite all the claims soccer was poised to become the next great North American pro sport, NASL failed to develop a foundation. Rather than nurture the pool of American and Canadian talent developing in local leagues, it threw money at foreign players nearing the end of the line. In Toronto, the obsession with Metros-Croatia’s name showed that league officials failed to understand how a multicultural environment could spark interest and form a base to build upon. “This is not just an ethnic team,” midfielder Ted Polak noted after the 1976 Soccer Bowl. “We are many nationalities…that is something, no?”

Toronto proved it could embrace soccer, whether it was playing on the nearest field or spilling out onto city streets to celebrate World Cup victories. And, despite mixed results on the field,. Toronto FC has found the financial success the Metros never discovered. In August 2016, to mark the 40th anniversary of Metros-Croatia’s victory, Toronto FC honoured the achievement.

Sources: the February 15, 1967, March 29, 1968, April 17 1968, April 27, 1968, May 15, 1968, April 22, 1969, September 26, 1969, December 11, 1970, August 4, 1971, November 13, 1971, November 3, 1972, December 4, 1973, December 6, 1973, December 7, 1973, June 13, 1974, August 20,1974, October 19, 1974, November 21, 1974, February 6, 1975, March 12, 1975, April 27, 1976, April 28, 1976, May 31, 1976, July 12, 1976, August 30, 1976, September 11, 1976, August 19, 1977, and February 1, 1979 editions of the Globe and Mail; the September 6, 1976 and October 27, 1986 editions of Sports Illustrated; the January 19, 1968, December 7, 1973, June 6, 1974, May 1, 1975, May 6, 1975, May 18, 1976, June 11, 1976, July 8, 1976, July 12, 1976, August 24, 1976, August 26, 1976, August 30, 1976, and November 11, 1976 editions of the Toronto Star; and the July 9, 1976, July 11, 1976, July 12, 1976, July 30, 1976, August 29, 1976, and August 30, 1976 editions of the Toronto Sun.

Vintage Toronto Ads: Perogies Galore!

Originally published on Torontoist on January 26, 2010.

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Toronto Sun, September 13, 1977.

Over the past few days, Torontoist readers have shared their thoughts about prorogation and construction on Roncesvalles Avenue. The timing couldn’t be more perfect for today’s ad to fall into our lap, as it’s relevant to both hot topics: the tasty perogies served up at prorogation protests across the country and an eatery that once graced the torn-up street.

The Sir Nicholas Tavern began serving Polish specialties in the late 1960s. When asked about the name, owner Nicholas Sacharewicz noted, “I deserve to be a sir. It’s about time.” Among the notable figures that paid homage were Pierre Trudeau, singer Bobby Vinton, and Pope John Paul II. Most reviews, such as the following from a 1977 edition of the Globe and Mail, felt the honourific was deserved:

Deluxe Polish cooking is alive and well at Sir Nicholas. The décor is, to be polite, exuberant, fully of statuary and coats of arms and candles born aloft by cherubim. There are wonderful spicy dishes like sauerkraut soup, pickled wild mushrooms from Poland, cabbage rolls, broiled sausages and, of course, melt-in-the-mouth pierogi.

Sources: the December 7, 1977 edition of the Globe and Mail; and the August 14, 1981 and October 18, 1982 editions of the Toronto Star.

UPDATE

Google Maps image showing St. Nicholas Tavern sign, August 2014.

The building was later occupied by Tinto Coffee House and Lambretta Pizzeria. The sign for the Sir Nicholas Tavern survived until the early 2020s, when it was finally removed.

The Life and Death of the Yonge Street Mall

Originally published as a “Historicist” column on Torontoist on January 17, 2015.

Yonge Street Mall, circa 1971. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 200, Series 1465, File 312, Item 55.

For Globe and Mail columnist Bruce West, the debut of the Yonge Street Mall in the spring of 1971 offered Toronto “an enjoyable thing that used to exist only in small towns on a Saturday night. I refer to the simple pleasures of ambling up and down Main Street meeting your fellow residents eye-to-eye and even venturing to bid them good evening.”

The good feelings didn’t last. After an initial wave of euphoria for a permanent pedestrian zone in downtown Toronto, four years of seasonal experiments ended amid accusations that the mall enhanced the deepening sleaziness of Yonge Streetand the province’s refusal to grant the city key exemptions from potential liabilities.

Such concerns were far from the minds of local pedestrian mall advocates as the 1970s dawned. The concept spread across North America following its implementation in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1959. In 1963, shoe store proprietor Herbert Lowe proposed a midday pedestrian mall along Yonge between Queen and Dundas as a way to revive business. Lowe believed Yonge Street suffered from a combination of competition from suburban shopping centres, inadequate parking, and the decision to build direct links between the subway and the two major department stores at Queen Street (Eaton’s and Simpsons).

The Telegram. May 29, 1971.

By August 1970, the will was present among city councillors who believed the city’s streets required reorientation toward its citizens. Council’s public works committee unanimously established a subcommittee to plan a temporary pedestrian mall along Yonge. The guiding force was Alderman William Archer, who was once described as “a man deliriously in love with the city.”

The inaugural zone, scheduled to run for a week starting on May 30, 1971, stretched from Albert Street (now the Eaton Centre entrance next to Baton Rouge) to Adelaide Street. Amenities ranged from tree planters to a honky tonk piano anyone could play. While most merchants looked forward to increased foot traffic, there were exceptions. Simpsons, which never fully warmed to the concept, feared the mall’s effect on business and car congestion.

The mall was an immediate hit. Up to 60,000 visitors were estimated to walked through on day one, many ready to sing the mall’s praises. “People pollution is better than car pollution,” an Anglican minister told the Globe and Mail. “Trees are growing in Yonge St. and there’s not a negative sigh to be heard,” the Telegram observed, “except perhaps from several thousand first-day visitors to Toronto’s four-block mall who kept wondering: ‘Why not up to Gerrard… Why not all the way to Bloor… Why not forever?’”

Yonge Street Mall, circa 1971. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 200, Series 1465, File 312, Item 6.

Visitors especially embraced the novelty of drinking beer on a sidewalk patio. “Believe me,” Bruce West observed, “it’s going to take a while before every customer sitting right out having a drink in a Toronto sidewalk café is going to be able to really relax and enjoy himself without vaguely resembling one of those wartime Londoners trying to look nonchalant while keeping at least one ear cocked for the sound of buzz-bombs.” The opportunity to drink in the open drew lineups deep into the night at the Colonial Tavern. Due to restrictions requiring the serving of food, Colonial management had to bring in meals from Shopsy’s Deli to stay open. Though Diana Sweets closed early on the first day when it ran out of food, mall traffic produced the most profitable day in its 45-year history.

Lunchtime diners who couldn’t score a patio seat could order a takeaway box lunch or pizza from Eaton’s, or enjoy a “Monte Frank” (a hollowed-out French stick filled with a giant hot dog) from Woolworths. “It may never take the place of the Sunday picnic,” the Telegram reported, “but the work week is being enlivened for most Yonge Street workers who are following a city-wide trend toward outdoor eating.” Meals on the run could be accompanied by a stop at the fashion shows outside Eaton’s, where the crowd urged swimwear models to strip all the way down.

Adjusting to the absence of cars took time. “It’s funny to watch the people still cross with the lights in the pedestrian lane and in many instances sidewalks, even though they have the freedon of the whole street,” observed police constable Robert Peddie. “I guess it’s force of habit.” City workers and merchants noticed the lack of litter, as if visitors ensured the manicured street stayed in good condition for all to enjoy. “This kind of open air setup seems to bring out the best in people, “ Loblaws produce supervisor Brian Keho noted after checking the pristine state of his outdoor fruit display. “Even banana peelings and apple cores were carefully put in receptacles.” Loblaws was among the merchants who enjoyed one benefit of the crowds: less shoplifting. Merchants appreciated increased foot traffic, though results varied—some reported a tripling in sales, others saw little more than extra window shopping.

Fashion show, Yonge Street Mall, circa 1971. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 200, Series 1465, File 312, Item 5.

Cyclists embraced the mall, with more than 500, including future governor-general Adrienne Clarkson, staging an opening day ride from Queen’s Park. According to the Telegram, the cyclists “exchanged tips on cycle styles, looked down sanctimoniously at passing cars and discussed ideal weather and equipment for their non-polluting sport.” Throughout the week, Pollution Probe sponsored a free pancake breakfast to riders who dropped by Yonge Street.

The convenience of an already closed-off street made the mall ideal for celebrations when Premier William Davis announced the cancellation of the Spadina Expressway on June 3, 1971. That day, Davis praised the mall for the opportunity it gave Torontonians to take control of their streets. That night, a snake dance wound through the crowds on Yonge amid shouts of “You can beat City Hall” and “We’ve won.”

As politicians and the press praised the mall, cautious voices emerged. While Mayor William Dennison was pleased by the compliments he received while strolling the mall, he downplayed suggestions to make it permanent. He doubted proper legislation to close Yonge year-round would ever be approved by Queen’s Park, which controlled the ability to create such zones via expropriation rules under the Expropriation Act. He preferred to look at nearby side streets like Lombard or Temperance. He also wondered if enthusiasm would dim when the novelty wore off. Dennison also believed that the underground mall system under development would suit pedestrian needs just fine. Police chief Harold Adamson feared the mall was the “tail of a tiger” that would persuade merchants elsewhere downtown to request further street closures, producing traffic chaos. Metro Toronto traffic commissioner Sam Cass reminded people the mall was an experiment, and wanted to wait until it was over to draw conclusions regarding its effect on traffic.

Globe and Mail, May 29, 1971.

On the mall’s final day, an impromptu parade was led by city councillors William Kilbourn (playing harmonica) and David Rotenberg (accompanying on trashcan lid). “The mall concept is the best thing that ever happened to Toronto,” Kilbourn noted. “We’ve just got to have another mall next year—only for a month or more. Just look what it has done to the downtown core of the city.” The Globe and Mail agreed with Kilbourn’s sentiments. “The mall’s total effect was greater than the sum of its potted trees, benches, outdoor pubs and open space,” the paper reflected. “It showed in little things like the way people walked…Once on the mall, they slowed—a bit of euphoria.”

Newspapers agreed with Kilbourn, though they also suggested other streets better suited for permanent pedestrian zones. The usual suspects on these lists included Yorkville Avenue (existing retail base, too narrow to handle cars well, decreased hippie population), Markham Street (growth of Mirvish Village, though problems with nearby residents irritated by its development were foreseen), Elizabeth Street (the heart of the era’s Chinatown), and Kensington Market.

View of crowd walking through Yonge Street Mall at Gould Street, August 17, 1971. Photo by Harvey R. Naylor. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1526, File 5, Item 1.

Merchants and politicians quickly pressed for a second Yonge Street Mall that summer. Despite his pride in the first one, William Archer felt there wasn’t enough time to plan another without rushing. He was nearly alone among municipal officials in objecting to the approval of a pedestrian zone in the heart of the Yonge strip between Dundas and Gerrard. Scheduled to run for a week starting on August 13, 1971, the second mall would tie into a new Mardi Gras-inspired downtown festival, Carnival Toronto.

Archer’s concerns were justified. Problems with set-up delayed its opening. Visitors complained the park-like atmosphere of the first mall was replaced by a rowdy midway vibe of blaring speakers, crass commercialism, panhandlers, rowdies, and overpriced beer. In many ways, the problems of this incarnation foreshadowed what eventually doomed the concept.

Left: Street festival at the Dragon Mall on Elizabeth Street, south of Dundas Street, 1971. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1332, Series A, File 21, Item 1. Right: Alderman Ying Hope with Mayor William Dennison at the Dragon Mall on Elizabeth Street, 1971. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1332, Series A, File 21, Item 2.

A week after the second mall closed, another week-long pilot project launched. Elizabeth Street between Dundas and Nathan Phillips Square was transformed into Dragon Mall, a celebration of the local Chinese community. With proceeds funding a seniors residence, the streetscape included phone booths remodelled to resemble pagodas and a “Teahouse of the Celestial Dragon.” Regarded as positively as the first Yonge Street Mall, plans were made to install semi-permanent fixtures for future editions.

Despite complaints from suburban Metro councillors about their carnival atmosphere being embarrassing to such a prim and proper region, both the Yonge Street Mall and Dragon Mall returned for longer engagements in 1972. On Yonge, the mall was split into two sections (Albert to Adelaide and Dundas to Gerrard) which would join together during the August long weekend. Archer hoped to tone down the commercialism and the overwhelming amount of entertainment deployed the previous year. “We allow food, but that’s all,” he told the Star. “If you have people hawking sunglasses and whatever on the mall, you change the whole character of the place… The purpose of the mall is people.”

While requests to physically extend the mall increased, Archer listed reasons why this wouldn’t happen. Though some merchants wanted to run it up to Bloor Street, Archer noted hurdles like additional approvals from Queen’s Park, availability of landscaping materials, and a more complex street grid. As for a permanent Yonge Street Mall, no one figured that would be possible until construction of the Eaton Centre finished.

Advertisments for the Yonge Street Mall from the Telegram: (left) May 31, 1971; (centre) June 2, 1971; (right) June 3, 1971.

By 1973, signs pointed to the novelty factor wearing off. Members of the Downtown Business Council wanted merchants to make compulsory financial contributions instead of voluntarily, which had spurred accusations of freeloading. Pamphleteering by groups ranging from religious cults to body rub parlours was deemed a nuisance and banned for a year. Visitors complained about excessive panhandling from buskers and vagrants. A report by 52 Division recommended that the mall not operate north of Shuter Street to avoid the increasing sketchiness of that stretch and its related policing issues.

Criticisms gathered momentum throughout 1974. “This summer,” a Star editorial stated, “may be the critical time for the experiment. If the begging and pestering and brawling increase, the pressure to discontinue the mall may become irresistible.” The mall’s opening was delayed by over a week due to footdragging from Queen’s Park. When the province finally gave its approval, it declared that 1974 would be the last year it would exempt Ontario cities from claims of damage or lost business due to pedestrian malls from businesses and individuals. It also denied permission to maintain limits on pamphleteering.

“It is keeping with our policy of strengthening local government to assume that the municipal corporation should be held responsible for its actions,” read the letter Mayor David Crombie received from Minister of Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs John White. Apart from Ottawa’s Sparks Street Mall (whose exemption was built into the City of Ottawa Act), this discouraged other cities from running pedestrian malls. Later speculation pointed some of the blame for the province’s action on the influence of those behind developments like the Eaton Centre.

Soon after the Yonge Street Mall opened, Dragon Mall was scrapped after $20,000 set aside for it was transferred to Yonge. Budget Chief Art Eggleton claimed that the Chinatown Business Association preferred investigating permanent pedestrian solutions for Elizabeth Street instead of temporary malls. As the heart of Chinatown moved west to Spadina Avenue, this idea never came to fruition.

Samples of flyers handed out by body rub parlours at the Yonge Street Mall, 1974. The Yonge Street Mall: A Feasibility Study (Toronto: The City People Community Planning and Research Inc., 1974).

Back on Yonge, the bad press continued. Merchants fretted about crime affecting their business. Some stories published at the time stretched the credulity of later studies on the mall, such as a Star piece declaring an invasion of American prostitutes. Hare Krishna adherents were arrested for being a nuisance. A drunk driver nearly killed several pedestrians during a wild ride through the mall. Police hinted the situation was growing out of control, the limited access affecting their patrolling ability. As 52 Division head Thomas Cooke put it, the mall was a great idea, but its location was “a headache before, and the mall just compounds it.”

The Sun’s Bruce Blackadar visited one Friday night to investigate the claims. He found buskers playing Mozart on French horns, a Frisbee competition, and a choir praising Jesus. “The thought hits you that you’re more likely to be saved on the mall than lured into damnation,” he observed.

Star columnist Dennis Braithwaite also tried to remain positive about the humanity of the mall:

The Yonge St. Mall at 3 o’clock in the morning may be the final scene of our fretful civilization; but at least something’s happening there. The decadence is real, not contrived by an ad agency. That, I believe, is why our square civic politicians instinctively vote for a mall year after year in the face of police warnings that thereby they are sponsoring Sodom and Gomorrah, downtown.

Toronto Star, August 3, 1974.

A York County grand jury disagreed. In early August 1974, it ruled “the Yonge Street mall is a blot on Toronto.” As it had become “a crime centre for drug pushing, prostitution and a myriad other illegal activities,” it recommended it be killed.

The Globe and Mail was also ready to see the mall die:

It wasn’t just that some of the mall’s denizens were sleazy this year, the mall itself was. After all the debate over whether the mall would even continue, no one seemed very interested in trying to repeat the thoroughness of the first two years. Dumping a few tawdry trees and some dirty benches on a street does not constitute a mall. The wrangle between the provincial and municipal governments over who controls littering and soliciting hasn’t helped much either…The unpleasant characteristics that parts of the street have developed over the past few years were bound to have some effect on the experiment—you can’t have Eden in front of a pornographic movie house.

Everyone breathed easier when a TTC strike became the pretext to shut the mall down on August 13, 1974, two weeks ahead of schedule. Alderman David Smith, the mall’s coordinator, admitted that the closure was more psychological than practical: “Most people feel that the time you have a TTC strike is not a time when you have a mall.” Archer, still championing the project, felt city administrators had panicked.

Globe and Mail, August 6, 1974.

Several months later, in November 1974, a feasibility study compiled by a group of consultants and planners called City People offered 13 recommendations. It called for a permanent Yonge Street Mall, initially stretching from Wellington to Queen, then up to Dundas upon the completion of the Eaton Centre. A “semi-mall” was proposed between Dundas and College so that two lanes were available to emergency vehicles to head into the most problematic portion of the strip. The report argued that, unlike cities where pedestrian malls failed, Yonge Street had the right mix of offices, shopping and transportation to make a mall viable. It could also protect what remained of commercial businesses, which faced the problems of blockbusting (landlords forcing out established merchants, bringing in adult businesses while sitting on land ripe for future projects) and the construction of the underground pedestrian system which evolved into PATH. Levels of crime weren’t as high as other pedestrian malls that were studied, and it was felt both press and police were careless in spreading negative notions about Yonge Street (though the report also declared that “the place for sex merchants is not on the main street of Toronto”).

In February 1975, Eggleton and Smith announced the Yonge Street Mall would not return, noting it was too late to plead with the province for the proper legislation. While proposals for a permanent pedestrian zone periodically appeared, the city’s focus shifted to investigating methods of cleaning up the seediness which increased after the Yonge Street Mall’s demise.

The notion of a partial or full pedestrian mall along Yonge Street or other major arteries lingers on, through the work of groups like Open Streets TO and summer lane closures. “Yonge is quintessentially the street—not a road—that belongs to all Torontonians,” John Barber wrote in a “Big Idea” piece for the Star in 2014. “It is our original public space and rebuilding it from the bottom up will become the signature project of a new, green Toronto.”

Sources: The Yonge Street Mall: A Feasibility Study (Toronto: The City People Community Planning and Research Inc., 1974); the May 31, 1971, June 4, 1971, June 7, 1971, July 17, 1971, August 17, 1971, February 22, 1972, July 7, 1973, September 3, 1973, July 27, 1974, August 6, 1974, August 13, 1974, and April 15, 2004 editions of the Globe and Mail; the May 31, 1971, June 1, 1971, August 13, 1971, August 21, 1971, August 28, 1971, August 1, 1972, November 9, 1973, June 29, 1974, July 19, 1974, August 3, 1974, August 8, 1974, and April 20, 2014 editions of the Toronto Star; the July 19, 1974, July 25, 1974, July 28, 1974, and August 15, 1974 editions of the Toronto Sun; and the May 31, 1971, June 1, 1971, June 2, 1971, June 3, 1971, and June 7, 1971 editions of the Telegram.

Behind the Scenes at the Royal Ontario Museum, 1945

All images from the December 22, 1945 edition of Saturday Night.

Among the 12 million side projects I have going at the moment is browsing through the Internet Archive’s collection of Saturday Night, the Canadian general affairs magazine which ran in various forms and states of financial stability between 1887 and 2005. For whatever reason, I decided to go backwards, and, as I write this, checking out editions from late 1945. Along the way, I’m collecting articles and ads that may be useful for future work.

During this period, Saturday Night regularly ran photo essays near the front, usually after the editorial pages. Depending on the topic, they were either a single page or, as in the case of this look behind the scenes at the ROM, a two-page spread.

Let’s dive into this backstage look – I wonder how of the items shown here are still in the museum’s collection?

The KKK Took My Baby Away

Originally published as a “Historicist” column on Torontoist on March 13, 2016.

Front page excerpt, Toronto Star, March 1, 1930. Note that the Star mostly referred to Isabel Jones as “Alice” and Ira Johnson as “Johnston.”

They saw themselves as valiant white knights of an “invisible empire,” avenging wrongs against good, solid, upstanding white Protestants. Others would say they were a sad sack collection of bigots indulging in, as American historian Frederick Allen Lewis put it, “the infantile love of hocus-pocus and mummery, that lust for secret adventure, which survives in the adult whose lot is cast in drab places.” For an interracial Oakville couple in 1930, the Hamilton branch of the Ku Klux Klan tried, but ultimately failed, to drive a wedge into their relationship.

Annie Jones turned to the Klan when she felt like she was running out of options to break up the impending nuptials of her daughter Isabel to black labourer and First World War veteran Ira Junius Johnson. When Mrs. Jones asked Oakville police to intervene, they noted their hands were tied because Isabel was legally an adult. She wanted her peers in the Salvation Army to talk sense into the couple, but Ira and Isabel refused to acknowledge house calls. Mrs. Jones later told the press she was heartbroken over the situation.

The Klan’s suitability for solving Mrs. Jones’s anxieties was spelled out in the creed found in its Canadian membership manual:

We believe that our white race has a ministry of supreme service to mankind, and that the introduction of elements which cannot readily be assimilated or fused into our racial stock will lead to the corruption of racial health and seriously impair the service we might render to our fellow men. We therefore avow ourselves to be ever true to the maintenance of our racial integrity.

Oakville Klan trial, KKK hood, March 10, 1930. City of Toronto Archives, Globe and Mail fonds, Fonds 1266, Item 19469.

Not as many Canadians heeded the Klan’s call as American organizers hoped. While there were violent outbursts, cross burnings, and numerous threats issued to those opposing its philosophies, apart from playing a role in the 1929 Saskatchewan provincial election, the KKK never achieved the political sway it earned south of the border. Among the reasons it failed to take off, especially in Ontario:

1) Bad market research. The anti-Catholic Klan made its first move into Canada in predominantly Catholic Quebec in 1921. While the KKK fizzled there quickly, La Belle Province later proved far more receptive to fascist movements.

2) Respected competition for Ontario’s bigotry. We already had the ultra-Protestant Orange Order, which had long been established as pillars of the community and operated the levers of political power in strongholds like Toronto.

3) Internal warfare. Soon after a head office was established on the fifth floor of the Excelsior Life Building at Adelaide and Toronto streets in 1925, bickering led to splinter groups.

4) Failure to combat the impression they were just another vulgar American import. No matter how much Klan organizers in Canada wrapped themselves in maple leaves and Union Jacks (and suffered delusions of being saviours of the British Empire), the Klan, according to Martin Robin in his book Shades of Right, was seen as “foreign, American, and inimical to the British tradition of commitment to fair play, common sense, tolerance, give and take, and the rule of law,” even if we didn’t always honour those ideals.

Evening Telegram, March 3, 1930.

To the Klan, Mrs.Jones’s tale of woe sounded like a case of a Negro holding an innocent white girl captive. The couple moved into Johnson’s home on Head Street for a few days in late February 1930, until friends told him their cohabitation was causing a stir. While he stayed at home, Isabel moved into his aunt Viola Sault’s home on Kerr Street, which also housed Johnson’s parents and uncle. Despite Ms. Jones’s objections, the couple planned to marry on March 2.

When Ira and Isabel drove to New Toronto the afternoon of February 28 to get a marriage license, the Klan decided it was time to act. Around 10 p.m. that night, a caravan of 75 robed men from Hamilton drove into Oakville. They marched into downtown and planted a cross on a main street. “Maintaining order throughout,” the Globe reported, “not a word was uttered by the gowned visitors, who stood around until the last bit of timber had been consumed by the flames.”

Then the raid began in earnest. Finding nobody at Johnson’s house, they went to Sault’s place, where the occupants were playing cards. The couple was placed into separate cars. “I asked what authority they had for taking her away, Johnson told the Star. “They didn’t make any reply and drove off.” He was forced to sit between two “guards” during his trip back to Head Street. The Klansmen then nailed a cross in front of Sault’s house and set it ablaze, drawing the attention of neighbours. When the fire died down, a representative knocked on the door, which was answered by Johnson’s mother. “The spokesman told me,” she later recalled, “that if Ira…was ever seen walking down the street with a white girl again the Klan would attend to him.” As for Isabel, after a consultation with her mother the Klan deposited her into the care of Salvation Army Captain W. Broome.

Duty fulfilled, the Klansmen drove back to Hamilton. On their way out of town, the caravan was stopped by Oakville police chief David Kerr. Recognizing some of the passengers as prominent Hamilton businessmen, he let them ride off without any penalties. According to Kerr, “there was no semblance of disorder and the visitors’ behaviour was all that could be desired.” The Klansmen assured Kerr that if a similar situation occurred again, they would place themselves entirely at his service.

Oakville mayor A.B. Moat praised the raiders for their chivalry. “Personally I think the Ku Klux Klan acted quite properly in the matter,” he told the Star. “The feeling in the town is generally against such a marriage. Everything was done in an orderly manner. It will be quite an object lesson.” While front page headlines from Hamilton to Toronto described the raid, no papers initially condemned the incident, stressing in some cases the supposed civility it was carried out with and the placid reaction of some Oakville residents.

Oakville Klan trial, Chief Constable David Kerr, Oakville, March 10, 1930. City of Toronto Archives, Globe and Mail fonds, Fonds 1266, Item 19489.

Anger was left to leaders of Toronto’s black community. Lawyer E. Lionel Cross called the incident an outrage. “As a British citizen, I have believed the rule of law should always prevail,” he told the press, noting that any man was “free to choose what companions he cares to have. When anybody under the guise of patriotism or any other ‘ism’ trespasses on the right of any man, no matter who he may be or of what race, it should be the duty of all law-abiding citizens to denounce any such action.” Reverend H. Lawrence McNeil, minister of the First Baptist Church of Toronto, declared that “everyone recognizes that the Ku Klux Klan is inimical to more than one group, and it is detrimental to the great ideal of Canada’s being just and equal. Only at the penalty of the decay of Canada can we afford to allow the Ku Klux Klan to gain headway in this country.”

Cross, McNeil, and lawyer B.J. Spencer Pitt rallied the black community to speak out against the raid. The trio also applied pressure on provincial Attorney General W.H. Price to conduct a full investigation. Price, whose department was long wary of the Klan, ordered Kerr and crown attorney William Inglis Dick to produce a comprehensive report.

Meanwhile, the Klan pled their case to the public via letters sent to the Globe and the Star. Credited to “Scribe,” the letters claimed credit for suggesting Isabel stay with the Salvation Army, and assured the Joneses that “it would be a pleasure of the Klan to act in a brotherly manner to them, and to any one in similar circumstances, regardless of colour or creed.” They also praised Johnson’s parents for being “of sterling character and are highly spoken of in their community,” extending them “sincere wishes that their son would mend his ways and that this demonstration would be a warning to him.” The letters are gag-inducing, making a reader simultaneously amused and horrified by claims that separating an interracial couple wasn’t a case of taking the law into one’s hands, but merely a means of “endeavouring to maintain British justice.” The Klan also declared it was “essentially purely British, and is not in any manner affiliated with the KKK in the United States, nor are we opposed to the coloured people, provided they are true British subjects.”

As the investigation continued, it was becoming obvious Oakville residents were confused by the raid. The Telegram observed that the general feeling was irritation at the Klan’s high-handed action, and that police and the public were confused as to why Isabel “got into an automobile with five strange men late at night” (she told Kerr she believed they were police officers). Mayor Moat retracted his support of the action, claiming the Star misquoted him.

Back in Toronto, angry letters filled editorial pages, lambasting the Klan. In Earlscourt, a local labour organization demanded that legal action be taken against the perpetrators. Black community leaders echoed that call in a mass meeting at the First Baptist Church on March 4. A Star editorial the next day pointed out the hypocrisy of anyone who still claimed that there hadn’t been a disturbance. “The history of private justice and secret tribunals all over the world,” the paper concluded, “shows them capable of being prostituted to purposes of the greatest evil.”

Toronto Star, March 6, 1930.

The front page of the March 5 edition of the Star carried a bombshell headline: “HAS NO NEGRO BLOOD, KLAN VICTIM DECLARES.” Johnson now claimed that his family was of mixed white and Cherokee ancestry, which explained his darker complexion. There were long associations with the black community within his family—his white maternal grandfather had preached to black congregations stretching from Guelph to Oakville, while his mother had served as a midwife to black families. This admission led to a more positive portrayal of Johnson from both the press (which now played up his war record) and figures previously opposed to him. Captain Broome believed the claim, noting Johnson had attended some Salvation Army meetings and seemed to be “a decent sort of chap.” Mrs. Jones now claimed that she opposed the marriage not because of his skin colour, but because he was too lazy to “get a job and make a man out of himself” in order to support Isabel.

Whether Johnson’s new claims about his ancestry were true is subject to debate. The minister slated to perform the marriage, Reverend W.C. Perry, long believed the Johnsons were black, while older Oakville residents thought they were “black as the ace of spades.” Decades later, author Lawrence Hill interviewed local historian Alvin Duncan, who backed up the community’s belief about the Johnson family’s background. Hill wondered in his book Blood: The Stuff of Life if Johnson really had aboriginal ancestry or if it was an identity he adopted to avoid further arousing the Klan’s wrath. “The incident provides yet another example of the negotiation of racial identity and the lengths to which people will go to keep their blood ancestry secret because of persecution from the outside world,” Hill observed. “Tomorrow, perhaps, things will change. But today, race has nothing to do with blood, and everything to do with what people will believe.”

The province’s investigation led to the issuing of four summonses on March 7. While one man was never found, the other three were soon identified as chiropractor William E. Phillips, chiropractic assistant Harold Orme, and Hamilton Presbyterian Church pastor Ernest Taylor. The Crown charged them with an obscure section of the Criminal Code originally designed to handle burglaries, which outlawed being masked or having faces blackened at night without good legal reason.

While waiting for the court hearing, the Klan taunted its opponents and victims. Broome believed the couple was being tailed by brown sedan while the two remained separated. Kerr claimed that “lots of people would leave town if we were to tell everything we knew to the newspapers.” In Toronto, McNeil received a serious of threatening phone calls at his Edward Street home, though the his family increasingly regarded them as pranks. Not taking any chances, the police guarded his home.

Oakville Klan trial, Reverend Ernest Taylor, Hamilton pastor and Klansman. City of Toronto Archives, Globe and Mail fonds, Fonds 1266, Item 19481.

The sidewalk outside the Oakville Police Court was crammed as the accused faced their trial on March 10. A man distributed Klan leaflets to the crowd, claiming its strength as the most powerful secret society in the British Empire. Inside, the crown’s case collapsed under the questioning of defence lawyer C.W. Reid Bowlby. Kerr admitted that he believed Johnson had an unsavoury reputation, refused to answer if he thought the raid was lawful, and noted the defendants were “fine types of men.” Isabel was badgered by Bowlby to say that the Klansman had treated her in a gentlemanly mayor, and admitted she didn’t recognize the defendants. Phillips testified that the hooded robe was traditional garb, not a costume. Evidence that Orme and Taylor wore hoods was insufficient. Bowlby pointed out the ridiculous law the Crown used as their chief weapon, especially regarding normal events like Halloween and masquerade balls. To cheers from Klan supporters, he declared that they were justified in splitting the couple, and that he was sure “that there are hundreds of parents throughout the Dominion of Canada who would be eternally thanked that such a step had been taken.” By this point Johnson had enough and quietly left the courtroom.

He missed Bowlby heaping further praise the Klan’s actions:

If they gone there and knocked the furniture about and assaulted people, there would have been an offence. But they did a humane, decent thing in taking her away from that man…There can be no doubt that [my client] was hooded, with a lawful excuse. It was no more wrong for him to do that than it is for other lodgemen to wear regalia…I ask for a dismissal, and I am sure that thousands of parents, with justice in mind, will back you in your course.

Even though the charges carried penalties up to five years in prison, the crown felt that given Phillips’s place of respect in the community, a fine would do. Police magistrate W.E. McIlveen agreed, dismissing charges against Orme and Taylor, and slapping Phillips with a $50 fine.

Oakville Klan trial, Isabel Jones, William E. Phillips, Mrs. Annie Jones. City of Toronto Archives, Globe and Mailfonds, Fonds 1266, Item 19485.

Outside the court, Phillips posed for photos with Annie and Isabel Jones. “You go home with your mother, or you’ll be seeing me again,” he warned Isabel. A Starreporter who overheard the conversation reported that her response was “All right.” Phillips reassured Mrs. Jones that “everything will be all right now. Just send for me if there is any further trouble and I’ll be right there.”

The slap on the wrist emboldened the Klan, enticing it to step up its solicitation efforts in Oakville, which extended to handing pamphlets to schoolchildren. Black leaders joined with Jewish leaders in Toronto to demand further legal action. Johnson’s home mysteriously burned down, though he told the press he didn’t think the Klan was involved (“I know I have enemies in this town, but I don’t think one of them would go so far as to burn my home”). The Canadian Forum pointed out the hypocrisy of the Klan getting off with a wrist slap while a recent Communist meeting in Toronto was brutally broken up by police. “If Ontario was true to its vaunted British traditions, Communists would be allowed to speak and meetings of masked Klansmen would be dispersed with night sticks,” the magazine opined. “If some of these ‘prominent business men’ parading in their Knight-shirts were cracked over the head, trampled in the mud, and then heaved into a lousy jail, they would be content perhaps to mind their own business for the future.”

The government got their chance to amend McIlveen’s decision when the attorney general’s office filed a counter-appeal against Bowlby’s appeal of Phillips’s fine. The case was heard by the Ontario Court of Appeal on April 16, 1930. Deputy Attorney General Edward J. Bayly made the case that Phillips deserved a harsher sentence to preserve the sanctity of the rule of law. Bowlby argued about the noble nature of the Klan’s motivation for the raid, “like clergymen doing a Christian act.” The five judges didn’t buy Bowlby’s hyperbole—David Inglis Grant grilled him on what right men had to take a woman to wherever they think she ought to be, while William Middleton rhetorically asked why if their mission was so lawful the raiders required masks.

Sir William Mulock. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1257, Seres 1057, Item 5036.

After a lunch break, Chief Justice Sir William Mulock delivered the unanimous verdict—not only did Phillips’s conviction stand, but, as the meek fine was “a travesty of justice,” he was sentenced to a three-month jail sentence.

[T]hey committed not only an illegal offence as regards her, but also a crime against the majesty of the law. Every person in Canada is entitled to the protection of the law and is subject to the law. It is the supreme dominant authority controlling the conduct of everyone and no person, however exalted or high his power, is entitled to do with impunity what that lawless mob did. The attack of the accused and his companions upon the rights of this girl was an attempt to overthrow the law of the land, and in its place to set up mob law, lynch law, to substitute lawlessness for law enforcement which obtains in civilized countries.

Mulock compared mob law to “a venomous serpent.” He also warned that while the offence had been treated with leniency, the sentence was “not to be regarded as a precedent in the event of a repetition of such offense.”

Though the Klan pondered appealing the case all the way up to the Privy Council in England (at the time Canada’s highest legal authority), no further action was taken. An official statement noted that “Mr. Phillips is happy indeed to serve a term in prison for such a cause as this.” Soon after he began serving his sentence in Milton on April 23, he launched a 13-day hunger strike, though it was suspected he snuck in a few snacks. Though it failed to muster much public sympathy, Klansmen lined up after it ended to feed him oranges. Soon after Phillips’s release in July, the Hamilton Klan asked Oakville’s town council for permission to have a parade and open-air meeting. “Despite the persistence of the speakers,” the Globe reported, “the Council almost unanimously turned down the request, it being stated that the town had suffered too much adverse publicity on the Klan’s account already.”

Some observers saw the raid as one of symbolic death knells for the Klan in Canada, while others contended it was already dying, remaining moribund until another generation of white supremacists tried to revive it locally.

Toronto Star, March 24, 1930.

In between the trials, the couple at the heart of the raid had a happy ending. On March 22, 1930, Jones and Johnson were married at a ceremony presided over by Frank Burgess, the First Nations pastor of the New Credit United Church. Refusing to be intimidated, Burgess told the press “I was here before the Klan.” Asked about the promise she made to Phillips to stay away from Johnson, Isabel smiled and said “That’s just too bad. We’ll just have to forget about that.” Broome recommended the union go ahead—while he was still iffy about interracial marriages, he told the Star that Ira had many good points and always acted gentlemanly. Mrs. Jones provided a written statement giving her consent. Orme, speaking for the Klan, indicated that the Hamilton chapter had lost interest in the couple’s affairs, resigning them to the crazy thought that “we will not put asunder what God hath joined together.”

“I am indeed glad that it is all over,” Viola Sault told the Telegram. “I sincerely hope that they may settle down in peace.” The couple continued to reside in Oakville, and would raise three children.

Sources: Colour-Coded: A Legal History of Racism in Canada 1900-1950 by Constance Backhouse (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999); Blood: The Stuff of Life by Lawrence Hill (Toronto: House of Anansi, 2013); Manual of the Order of Citizenship Invisible Empire Knights and Ladies of the Ku Klux Klan of Canada (Toronto: Ku Klux Klan of Canada, circa 1927); Shades of Right: Nativist and Fascist Politics in Canada 1920-1940 by Martin Robin (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992); White Hoods: Canada’s Ku Klux Klan by Julian Sher (Vancouver: New Star Books, 1983); the April 1930 edition of Canadian Forum; the March 1, 1930, March 3, 1930, March 6, 1930, March 8, 1930, March 19, 1930, and July 22, 1930 editions of theGlobe; the March 4, 1930 edition of the Mail and Empire; the March 5, 2003 edition of the Oakville Beaver; the March 1, 1930, March 5, 1930, March 6, 1930, March 8, 1930, March 20, 1930, and March 24, 1930 editions of the Toronto Star; and the March 1, 1930, March 3, 1930, March 6, 1930, and March 24, 1930 editions of the Telegram.

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

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A reprint of the Oakville Star‘s coverage from 1930 (click on image for larger version). That there was “no editorial comment about the incident” speaks volumes from a modern perspective.

Canadian Forum, April 1930.

This was one of those stories which simultaneously excited and depressed me. Excited in uncovering deeper details as research went on, though this meant sifting through numerous conflicting accounts — determining which name to give Isabel Jones was a challenge, as she was also dubbed Isabelle, Isabella, and (according to the Toronto Star’s early coverage) Alice. Depressing because of the topic matter and how, distressingly, the KKK was still relevant when I wrote the original piece thanks to the shenanigans of a certain American presidential candidate.

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Evening Telegram, March 7, 1930. Click on image for larger version.

The harassment Reverend H. Lawrence McNeil and his family received was among the depressing elements. Numerous threats prompted police protection. “It is not that I am the least intimidated by the message,” he told the Star, “but my wife is quite nervous over the affair and it is best to see that adequate measures are taken.”

Sample phone threat: “You have been talking too much of late and you are going to be stopped. Be prepared to have a call from us and we will leave our calling cards and symbol.”

Crank calls continued for at least a week. “I am almost certain it is some dummy calling who wants to create a scare in the newspapers,” Mrs. McNeil later reflected.

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Toronto Star, March 11, 1930. Click on image for larger version.

One of the least impressive figures of the story is David Kerr, head of Oakville’s tiny police department. Note his wide smile while posing with the lone person to be convicted in the incident, W.E. Phillips. His initial reactions of waving the Klansmen off and praising them for their orderly behaviour boggles a present-day mind, though one wonders that, since he recognized them as prominent Hamilton businessmen, he was paying respect to their position in society or hoping to retain their good graces. Though he was a prosecution witness during the police court hearing, his testimony didn’t do the crown’s case any favours,

In a front page story in the March 6, 1930 edition of the Star, Toronto lawyer Harry Waldman criticized Kerr’s actions. “If any offence had been committed that evening, surely when it reached the attention of the man who has been appointed to preserve law and order he should have investigated,” Waldman observed. “And if he recognized the perpetrators of the alleged offence, as he is reported to have done, he should have immediately instituted charges against the offenders.

Kerr benefited financially from his bumbling handling of the case. In May 1930, he and constable J.W. Barnes asked for a salary increase “in recognition of their services.” Their request was approved.

Sphere-ical Images of Toronto (1)

Recently, Newspapers.com began adding many of the “Great Eight” British weekly illustrated news magazines of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to its holdings. Since many of these publications targeted ex-pats who felt strongly about their British ties and support of the Empire, I figured it would worth spending some time to see what Toronto-related content lurked within their pages.

This post begins a series that will browse through those pages, starting with The Sphere.

Launched in 1900 as a rival to the Illustrated London News, The Sphere was a weekly paper which quickly took on an ultra pro-British Empire tone. It would barely survive the transition from empire to commonwealth, publishing its final edition (by then under the same ownership as its original rival) in 1964. The British Online Archives has a good contextual essay about The Sphere, and its role in promoting imperialism.

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The Sphere, April 30, 1904. Click on image for larger version.

We’ll start with images used to cover the Great Fire of 1904, even if only one shows the actual blaze.

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The Sphere, September 21, 1907. Click on image for larger version.

Next up, let’s visit the 1907 edition of the Canadian National Exhibition. The grounds were in a state of transition at the time – a fire in 1906 destroyed the Crystal Palace and the Grandstand, just as a whole new slate of buildings, many designed by architect G.W. Gouinlock, arose. Among the sites finished by 1907 were the Horticultural Building (now the Toronto Event Centre), the Railway Building (now the Music Building), and a new Grandstand (which burned in 1946 and was replaced by a structure which evolved into Exhibition Stadium).

The Sphere, September 15, 1917.

Jumping ahead a decade, some First World War-related work at the Polson Iron Works, which was located near the present-day intersection of Sherbourne Street and the Esplanade. The war delayed the company’s plans to move into the new Port Lands industrial area, which never happened as it declared bankruptcy in early 1919. Its name lingered on via the area it intended to move to, which became Polson Pier.

Among the most infamous vessels produced by Polson Iron Works was Frederick Knapp’s roller boat, which is buried nearby.

The Sphere, June 1, 1929.

Next, jumping ahead another decade to an ad for wood stain used on the third incarnation of the Parkdale Canoe Club’s clubhouse. Built in 1924, it replaced the original (1905) and second (1915) versions which were destroyed by fires.

The club’s football team lost the first Grey Cup match to the U of T Varsity Blues in 1909. Records indicate they were coached by “Ed Livingstone,” who, though I haven’t nailed it down yet, was probably the same Eddie Livingstone who, as the cantanlerous owner of the Toronto Blueshirts hockey team, irritated his fellow owners in the National Hockey Association so much that, in 1917, they formed a brand new league to get rid of him: the NHL.

After a bout with receivership, the club reorganized as the Boulevard Club in 1935.

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The Sphere, August 3, 1929.

Two months later, this spread of recent architectural achievements was published, which includes the recently-opened Royal York Hotel.

As for the other buildings here:

Next time we’ll move into the 1930s and explore the preparations for a major astronomical landmark and some of the city’s artistic wealth.

Past Pieces of Toronto: Knob Hill Farms

From November 2011 through July 2012 I wrote the “Past Pieces of Toronto” column for OpenFile, which explored elements of the city which no longer exist. While I usually leave later thoughts until after the reprinted material, I think this story deserves some context up front.

“Surrounded by cashier trainees; Steve Stavro looks over his newest food store at Lansdowne and Dundas. With floor area of 100,000 square feet Stavro says it will be the largest of its kind in Canada. The store is expected to open next week.” Photo by Frank Lennon, August 26, 1975. Toronto Star Photograph Archive, Toronto Public Library, TSPA_0015126F.

While writing this story,  I let youthful impressions of how dumpy Knob Hill Farm stores were overwhelm the chain’s important roles as a pioneering purveyor of ethnic groceries (symbolizing the increasingly multicultural makeup of the GTA) and an affordable food source for low-income families. “We serve the working man with a big family and not much to spend on food,” KHF founder Steve Stavro once noted. “That’s the market that has been totally ignored by the big supermarkets.”

Several readers offered well-considered points about KHF’s strengths and the markets it served that conventional grocers like Dominion and Loblaws downplayed or ignored. It was the sort of constructive criticism that enlightens, rather than the roar of cranks commenting for the sake of being cranks. 

Knob Hill Farms, 222 Cherry Street, June 23, 1988. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 200, Series 1465, File 154, Item 11.

So what was my personal experience with KHF? My family usually stopped there during childhood visits to Toronto, either at the location in the Port Lands (later the Cherry Street branch of T&T) or, if we were driving back from visiting relatives near Port Perry, the Highway 7 and Woodbine Avenue store. I long assumed we picked up groceries for my grandmother, but when I told my mother about the reaction to this article, she noted that my father liked looking at the unusual-for-the-time products they carried. This makes sense, as Dad’s food curiosity genes carried over to me, and I love discovering hidden gems at the supermarket. Mainly, I remember the odd shopping carts, and large pools of water on the floor. 

As an adult, I occasionally drove to their monster-sized location in Cambridge (later the Home Depot on Hespeler Road) during the last year I lived in Guelph, shortly before the chain closed. These trips were exercises in awe: how large the store was, how dark it was, how closely it resembled an industrial warehouse, and how time-warped it was. I tended to buy one item: Heinz vegetable beef soup. I swear it was the last supermarket in Canada to carry the stuff. The store was rarely busy whenever I wandered in, one of those places where you could fire a cannon and fail to hit anybody. The combination of dim lighting and aisles devoid of humanity created a post-apocalyptic air. Had the chain continued, the Cambridge terminal would have made a great zombie movie set.  

Here’s the article as it originally appeared when it was posted on June 17, 2012, with some new images added.

Vintage Ad: New Knob Hill Farms in Markham

Toronto Star, December 10, 1963.

There were reasons Knob Hill Farms stores had the industrial-sounding tag “food terminal.” The décor suggested that a forklift had taken product from the receiving bay and dropped it on the sales floor. Warehouse-style shelving lined the aisles, whose floors showed little sign of a visit from Mr. Clean. Shopping carts designed to hold large baskets, cartons and cases had a romantic yearning for human shins (yours or another shopper’s). Several locations enjoyed previous lives as plants or warehouses. But for all its quirks, Knob Hill Farms was a trailblazer in the economy grocery sector. It proved people would trade frills for a lower food bill.

Steve Stavro grew up in the food business—his father operated a store on Queen Street East near Coxwell Avenue. Around 1950, the senior Stavro helped his son open a fruit store across the street. Its name, “Knob Hill Farms”, reputedly derived from a carton of carrots he noticed on a trip to San Francisco—he later stated the name represented “class and top quality for the working consumer.” In 1954 he opened a proper supermarket on Danforth Avenue near Logan Avenue. As the business grew into a small chain, Stavro found he hated dealing with middlemen and the costs they added. His solution was the food terminal, a massive store with low overhead. After selling his existing locations to employees, he relaunched Knob Hill Farms at Woodbine Avenue and Highway 7 in 1963. To stock the terminal, he dealt directly with producers, mostly from Ontario. Frills such as fancy shelving, bright lighting and shimmering floors were eliminated, as was prepackaging meat and produce in cellophane. It’s not a stretch to say that these cost-cutting measures would now be hailed as enviro-friendly and suit locavores just fine. For his skill at attracting customers and keeping prices low, one competitor dubbed Stavro the “Honest Ed of the food business.”

Vintage Ad: Terminal Wide Savings at Knob Hill Farms

Globe and Mail, February 5, 1976.

As the company grew during the 1970s, bargain hunters accepted odd merchandising techniques like grouping products by brand instead of item. Staying open until midnight helped sales. So did stocking products catering to the GTA’s multicultural population in an age when most grocery stores still carried a traditional selection of food. When the Dundas and Lansdowne store (presently No Frills) opened in 1975, customers could watch trucks unload fresh food in the middle of the produce department. As Stavro told the Globe and Mail, “I don’t like to do things behind closed doors. I want the customers to see everything and feel part of it. If you’re selling proper merchandise, you should have nothing to hide.” Like a certain Toronto mayor, Stavro claimed his “newswire” was talking to people in doughnut shops.

Where Knob Hill Farms splurged was advertising (even if their television ads looked cheap) and store size. By 1991, the chain operated two stores (Weston/401 and Hespeler/401 in Cambridge) that were over 300,000 square feet apiece. While the Cambridge store boasted amenities like a 500 foot long meat counter, 49 checkouts, an acre of produce and its own dedicated railway spur line, it was so dimly lit that it was possible shoppers wondered if someone would jump out of the shadows.

Cambridge proved a last hurrah as the chain’s sales declined. Retail experts felt its practices were trapped in a 1970s time warp. Investments in store infrastructure weren’t made, especially as Stavro devoted more time to the joys and legal hassles of his majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. Because checkouts weren’t equipped with scales, shoppers waited for staff in the produce section to weigh their purchases. Ordering from suppliers remained handwritten long after the competition went electronic (“That computer stuff is not for us,” Stavro once noted). Ads from the late 1990s suggested that practices like letting shoppers pick their own non-prepackaged produce was still a novelty. The stores aged badly, creating, according to retail consultant Richard Talbot, “a real down-market grubby feel.” At Dundas and Lansdowne, pools of water required regular dodging, while similar hazards at other stores led to at least two slip-and-fall lawsuits. Competing economy grocers with upgraded locations like No Frills and warehouse clubs like Costco provided brighter, cleaner shopping experiences.

Vintage Ad #1,950: The Closure of Knob Hill Farms

Toronto Star, August 26, 2000.

On August 25, 2000, the chain’s 800 employees were informed that Knob Hill Farms was closing. Over the next six months stores shut down individually, though the first proved controversial. Months earlier, Stavro secured a controversial 20-year lease extension for the Cherry Street terminal, promising to expand the store. The city had wanted the land for waterfront revitalization and its 2008 Olympic bid. When the store closed, speculation ran wild as to why Stavro wanted to hold onto the property. Legal tussles between Stavro and the city dragged on for several years, until the city declared the lease, which had been passed on to other interests, was valid. The site was eventually converted into a T&T supermarket.

Toronto Star, August 26, 2000.

When the Weston Road store brought the Knob Hill Farms story to an end in February 2001, Stavro reflected that “there is a bit of sadness…but in life you have to face these things and move on.” While some locations sit abandoned or have been demolished, others have been converted into retailers ranging from other grocers to Home Depot. Perhaps the main lingering trace of the chain is the sturdy plastic baskets lying around laundry rooms and garages throughout the GTA etched with the store’s steer-head-and-wheat logo.

Sources: the September 18, 1975, November 19, 1977, and April 25, 2006 editions of the Globe and Mail; the August 26, 2000 edition of the National Post; and the August 15, 1991, August 26, 2000, and February 11, 2001 editions of the Toronto Star.

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

“Shoppers line up at Knob Hill Farms; one of several supermarkets open on Sunday. Readers below support Sunday shopping.” Photo by Dick Darrell, published in the October 9, 1975 edition of the Toronto Star. Toronto Star Photograph Archive, Toronto Public Library, TSPA_0015135F.

Knob Hill Farms’ decision to open on Sundays in the mid-1970s amid confusion over whether the province would introduce new Sunday shopping legislation raised the ire of several Toronto city councillors. Tony O’Donohue was irritated by traffic jams around the Dundas-Lansdowne terminal and the low $25 fine slapped on those who broke existing Sunday shopping laws. Stavro, who told the Star that around 25,000 customers visited his three stores each Sunday, felt that there should be a public referendum on the issue, and believed Sunday provided shopping opportunities for those who couldn’t do so the rest of the week.

There are plenty of old Knob Hill Farms TV commercials floating around the internet, stretching back to the late 1970s. Here’s a small sampling.

Thinking About Rethinking Ontario Place (2013 Style)

Originally published on Torontoist on February 5, 2013. A lot has changed about the Ontario Place site since then, mostly under the Doug Ford government, mostly not good.

Among my goals for this site in 2026 is to clear out the pieces cluttering the draft folder that haven’t been reprinted for whatever reasons (like this one), or ideas for brand new posts that stalled out.

The Cinesphere, sometime between 1972 and 1989. Picture by Ellis Wiley. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 124, File 9, Item 29.

A year after the provincial government closed Ontario Place, the site’s future is still up for debate. While the recommendations of the official report issued by John Tory’s advisory panel last July continue to be reviewed, a group of architects, designers, and urban planners has devised an unofficial alternative vision for revitalizing the former amusement park. It’s called “Rethinking Ontario Place.”

Monday night, during a two-hour session at Innis Town Hall, residents and experts met to talk about that alternative vision. The basis of the discussion was 12 recommendations developed at a December design charrette, co-hosted by the Design Industry Advisory Committee, the Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI), and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU).

MPI research director Kevin Stolarick outlined each recommendation before handing the floor over to two panels: one devoted to urban design, the other devoted to critiquing the charrette’s ideas.

Designer Allan Guinan, architect Tom Bessai, and landscape architect Bryce Miranda discuss a future layout for Ontario Place. Photo by Jamie Bradburn.

The overall vision to come out of the charrette was equal parts faddish ideas (innovation centres for research and business incubation), heritage preservation (restoring the existing buildings), nostalgia (bringing back the Forum and the free festivals and cultural programming it offered during the 1970s), improved infrastructure (better cycling, pedestrian, and transit links), and opposition to a casino at Exhibition Place. A key point that everyone agreed on was that the redevelopment process needs to be slowed down before any rash decisions are made.

The critics’ panel disagreed with some of the charrette’s recommendations. The nostalgia factor in particular seemed to be lost on those—like economist Jim Stanford or Daniels Faculty of Architecture dean Richard Sommer—who had never experienced Ontario Place during its heyday. Sommer noted that festivals once ideal for Ontario Place have now spread around the city, while a recommendation for a diverse range of food stalls would compete with food trucks at venues like the Evergreen Brick Works and the Distillery District. He also lashed out at the anti-casino tone of the meeting. “Under what authority, and in whose interest, do you so quickly reject housing and a casino?” he wondered aloud.

Martin Prosperity Institute research director Kevin Stolarick outlines the anti-casino recommendation.

Condos were a hot topic. Stanford argued against building them. He feels that a “day of reckoning” is coming for the local market, and that the government would be jumping in at a bad time. Sommer believes there’s nothing wrong with housing on the site. He pointed to the abandoned Harbour City project (also developed by Ontario Place architect Eb Zeidler) which would have placed residential areas on islands near Ontario Place. Toronto Star columnist Christopher Hume, also on the panel, said he has no reservations about condos as long as they’re well designed.

“The discussion about what to do with Ontario Place is much too premature,” Hume said. “What we have to focus on now is how do we do it.” He suggested that Ontario Place should be handed over to Waterfront Toronto, who he felt would have a better grasp on what to do with the site than the City or the province.

The Opening of the Yonge Subway Line, 1954

Originally published as “Happy 60th Birthday, Yonge Line!,” a gallery-style post on Torontoist on March 31, 2014 to mark the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Yonge subway line.

Ontario Premier Leslie Frost and Toronto Mayor Allan Lamport throw the switch to launch the Yonge subway line, March 30, 1954. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1128, Series 381, File 298, Item 11847-45.

If it hadn’t been for a change in plans by Ontario Premier Leslie Frost, the opening of Toronto’s first subway line might have been marred by bruised egos among city councillors.

In the days leading up to the March 30, 1954, launch of the Yonge line, several members of the City’s Board of Control bellyached that Mayor Allan Lamport would be only the third-highest-ranked dignitary at the opening ceremony, behind Frost and Metropolitan Toronto Chairman Frederick Gardiner. “For the mayor to be ignored is the silliest thing that could ever happen,” complained veteran controller David Balfour. “I object to Toronto being brushed off like this.” Fellow controller Leslie Saunders was irritated that Gardiner would share in the spotlight, as the City had guided most of the subway’s construction, while Metro was a recent provincial creation. Mayor Lamport remained unusually quiet about the matter, though he later engaged in a power struggle with Gardiner after becoming chairman of the TTC.

The plan called for Frost to throw the official switch by himself—but, sensing an opportunity to smooth some ruffled political feathers, he called on Lamport to share the duty. At 11:30 a.m., Frost’s left hand and Lamport’s right switched on the power. Over 40 years after the first serious attempt to build a subway had been defeated by voters, and nearly five after the construction had started, Toronto’s red subway trains were ready to roll.

Hop aboard our gallery train, and join the 200,000 passengers who tested the Yonge line on day one.

The Telegram, March 29, 1954.

The Yonge line was approved by voters in 1946, and construction began on September 8, 1949. Stretching for 4.6 miles (nearly 7.5 km), the $59-million project included 10 stops between Eglinton Avenue and Union station.

Advertisement featuring route changes spawned by the opening of the Yonge subway, Globe and Mail, March 29, 1954.

At a dinner held at the University Women’s Club shortly before the subway opened, TTC public relations executive Paul Baker observed that the new line wouldn’t please everyone. “The TTC recognizes the hardships imposed on a small group by the elimination of surface transportation on Yonge St. from Davisville to Crescent Rd. The Commission must, however, consider the 99 per cent of its customers who will benefit.”

TTC Chairman W.C. McBrien, TTC General Manager W.E.P. Duncan, Toronto Mayor Allan Lamport, Ontario Premier Leslie Frost, and Metropolitan Toronto Chairman Frederick Gardiner at Davisville station, March 30, 1954. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1128, Series 381, File 298, Item 11847-31.

The opening ceremony began at 10:45 a.m. on March 30, 1954, or “S-Day” as some papers dubbed it. VIPs were bussed in shortly before the speeches began on a platform set up next to the station at Yonge Street and Chaplin Crescent.

Crowd attending the opening ceremony for the Yonge subway line, March 30, 1954. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1128, Series 381, File 298, Item 11847-22.

Around 5,000 people showed up to watch the official launch. While waiting for the speeches to start, they were entertained by the band of the Royal Regiment.

TTC Chairman W.C. McBrien addresses the crowd at the opening ceremony for the Yonge subway line, March 30, 1954. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1128, Series 381, File 298, Item 11847-34.

In his opening remarks, W.C. McBrien warned that the city would require more subways, and that the TTC couldn’t fund them alone. He made five suggestions on how to fight congestion: eliminate parking on major downtown routes; eliminate parking meters (which “belong to the horse and buggy days and have no place in a large modern city”); build parking lots in outlying areas serviced by buses to bring commuter to the subway or into downtown; urge businesses in the core to stagger their hours for employees; and start work on a Queen Street subway (which, in the conception muted at the time, was a streetcar tunnel running from Sherbourne Street to either McCaul Street or Spadina Avenue) immediately so that 80 percent of the existing downtown streetcar lines could be eliminated.

Following speeches by Frederick Gardiner and Allan Lamport, and a religious dedication, Premier Frost took the stage. “And now Mr. Mayor,” said Frost, “I am going to vary the program, by asking you to place your hand with mine on the control handle and, as we press it forward, give Canada’s first subway the green light.”

Ontario Premier Leslie Frost unveils a ceremonial plaque at Union station, March 30, 1954. Toronto Mayor Allan Lamport stands at right. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1128, Series 381, File 298, Item 11847-14.

At 11:50 a.m., 600 dignitaries boarded an eight-car train to head north to Eglinton. There, the train switched tracks and began its southbound run to Union, arriving around 12:10 p.m. to a greeting from the inevitable pipe band. During a brief ceremony, Premier Frost unveiled a plaque to commemorate the line’s launch.

Two TTC guides standing next to a scale-model cake of a subway train. Royal York Hotel, March 30, 1954. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1128, Series 381, File 298, Item 11847-5.

An official luncheon was held at the Royal York Hotel. Among the delicacies was a scale-model cake bakers spent a month working on. According to the Globe and Mail, the cake contained over 25 pounds of confectionary sugar, and was covered with “a special icing finished with an edible lacquer.”

The Telegram, March 30, 1954.

Naturally, the opening of the subway dominated the day’s newspaper headlines. The afternoon papers (the Star and the Telegram) had the advantage of being able print photos from the opening ceremony. That morning’s Globe and Mail went with an American nuclear bomb test in the middle of the Pacific Ocean as its headline, though a front page story about the subway proclaimed “TTC Nervous as Expectant Father.”

Pictures of the endpoints of the Yonge line: Union station entrance, and an overhead view of Eglinton station. The Telegram, March 30, 1954.

When it opened, the subway used the regular TTC fare structure: 10 cents per ride, or three for 25 cents. Tokens were introduced to ease entry into stations. Trains ran 19-and-a-half hours on weekdays, 16-and-a-half on weekends, and were supplemented by night buses along Yonge Street. Outdoor entrances like the one shown here at Union station caused slight anxieties about slippery conditions, especially in light of snow the day before the subway opened.

Sketch of a typical subway station interior by Walter Bell, Toronto Star, March 29, 1954.

The caption for this sketch: “TTC experts say the subway will take passengers up and downtown in less than half the time they used to spend on streetcars. The time from Eglinton to Front Street is clocked at 16 minutes.”

Cartoon by Bert Grassick, the Telegram, March 30, 1954.

Speed was a major selling point for the new line, especially as a replacement for the Yonge streetcar line. An example of the time savings: travelling between King and College took three minutes by subway, 17 by streetcar. Telegram reporter Philip Murphy compared a test run he took as “a cross between a streetcar ride, a train ride, and a drop down a laundry chute.”

Commuters waiting outside a downtown station, March 30, 1954. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1128, Series 381, File 298, Item 11847-16.

After a week of real-time testing, trains went into service for the public at 1:30 p.m. “The congenital publicity seeker will be deprived of the opportunity of claiming the distinction of being the first subway passenger,” noted the Globe and Mail, “for subway trains will be standing by for travel in both directions at each subway station when the gates open.” By rush hour, long lines flowed out station entrances, as commuters and the curious mingled to take their first ride. Delays of up to 15 minutes just to reach the turnstiles were reported at King station. Later that night, crowds overwhelmed College station thanks to a Maple Leafs playoff match at Maple Leaf Gardens. Overall, 200,000 riders hopped on the subway on opening day.

How to operate a transfer machine. Globe and Mail, March 30, 1954.

The intense level of ridership on day one overwhelmed station infrastructure. Transfer stamping machines broke down, while token dispensers emptied. Staff were dispatched from Eglinton to Queen to hand out tokens during rush hour. One employee claimed to have sold $100 worth of tokens in a 50-minute span. As for transfers, people who didn’t need them grabbed one anyways as a souvenir. Children ignored pleas from TTC staff to stop playing with the machines.

The Telegram, March 30, 1954.

As a memento, the Telegram offered a form riders could use to commemorate their first subway trip. One question that should have been included which applied to some riders: “Number of times you boarded a train to find it was going opposite your intended direction.”

Portion of a banner placed on the last Yonge streetcar, Toronto Star, March 30, 1954.

As the subway went into full service, the final runs were made that afternoon on the Yonge streetcar line, ending a tradition which stretched back to 1861. A banner placed on the last streetcar proclaimed “Goodbye Traffic Congestion.” The final trip was made mid-afternoon by members of the Upper Canada Railway Society. Streetcars service also ended on Avenue Road. The combination of the end of these services pleased motorists, who felt like race car drivers over the next few days.

Cartoon by Les Callan, Toronto Star, March 30, 1954.

A humorous look at some of the reactions to the changes the subway wrought among Torontonians. Much of the coverage noted an unusual expression among opening day commuters: pleasure. “Normally when they get on the buses,” observed TTC employee Victor Langdon, “they look tired out. Today you’d think they were on holiday.”

Sketches of opening day passengers by James Reidford, Globe and Mail, March 31, 1954.

Papers were filled with the experiences of first-day riders. Some were confused by the turnstiles, thinking they had to pay a fare to exit as well as enter. One mother told her son to “stop scuffing the nice red seats.” The Globe and Mail observed a woman admiring the colour schemes of the Vitrolite platform tiling, wishing her kitchen was in Summerhill’s grey and red, her bathroom Dundas’s yellow and black, thus proving subway-inspired décor ideas are nothing new. Salesman Wally Nichol recounted comments he had heard. “The waitress in the Union Station soda bar told me there were so many tourist customers that it was like Christmas,” he noted to the Globe and Mail. “I heard a college student say it must be spring because every woman in Toronto seems to have bought a new hat to ride on the first day.”

Cartoon by James Reidford, Globe and Mail, March 30, 1954.

Of the editorials published on opening day, the Globe and Mail’s was the most cautious. “Handsome and useful as it is, the subway is no miracle and will perform none. It will greatly alleviate some of Toronto’s traffic problems. It will get many of Toronto’s people to and from work more quickly and comfortably. But reason and realism compel us to point out that the peak of surface traffic anticipated at the time the subway was begun was reached and passed even while it was a-building.”

The Telegram, March 31, 1954.

Eaton’s capitalized on the subway by building connections with its Queen Street (now the south end of the Eaton Centre) and College Street (now College Park) stores.

Workers removing streetcar tracks on Yonge Street, the Telegram, March 31, 1954.

After the excitement of day one, passenger levels gradually settled down. The seemingly unending construction on Yonge Street would continue a little while longer as streetcar tracks were removed. Municipal and TTC officials began pressing their case for more lines; controller Leslie Saunders pushed for a meeting to discuss lines along Queen Street, Bloor Street/Danforth Avenue, and either University Avenue or Spadina Avenue.

On the issue of long-term planning, a Globe and Mail editorial dispensed advice that could apply today. “It is not enough for people to think and act in a big way on rapid transit. They have got to think and act in a big way on housing, development, parking, expressways, cultural and recreational facilities—everything that goes into the making of a modern metropolis. They have got to forsake the parish pump, the ward pump, as definitely as, today, they will forsake the ancient cars that grind and clank their way up Yonge Street. They must think along new and bigger lines, under new and better leaders.”

Sources: the March 27, 1954, March 29, 1954, March 30, 1954, and March 31, 1954 editions of the Globe and Mail; the March 29, 1954 and March 30, 1954 editions of the Telegram; and the March 29, 1954, March 30, 1954, and March 31, 1954 editions of the Toronto Star.