Tag: toronto

Restoration of old Mount Sinai Hospital

Although most of the old Mount Sinai Hospital on Yorkville Avenue is gone, a prominent architectural firm has agreed to restore the only wing of the hospital still standing. The wing, built as an addition around 1928, was used as a nursing home after Mount Sinai moved to its present location on University Avenue in…

Bathurst Manor memory: frog hunting in the creek

There were bull-frogs in the creek on the other side of Wilson Heights, Jackie told us: monstrous bull-frogs, the biggest he had ever seen. He had brought one home like a warrior returning from battle with a spoil. But he said the granddaddy of them all, the Moby Dick of bull-frogs, was still in the…

Hyman’s book store was Spadina landmark

As the “people of the book,” wherever Jews live, they will always find a dealer who can provide them with sforim — Hebrew, Jewish and religious books. Before the turn of the century, rabbis and scholars brought with them numerous sacred books, and from time to time, a shipment of books would arrive here. Barenholtz…

Remembering the Temple Building on old Bay Street

THIS article, by an unknown writer, is reprinted from the Toronto Telegram of July 7, 1928, along with the photo, restored from the microfilm. The photo at bottom, with an earlier view of “Old Bay Street,” has been added.   DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN . . . the Temple Building used to loom up on the west…

Snapshot of Jewish education in Toronto, 1917

From the Toronto Daily Star, August 11, 1917 Toronto Jews Foster the Higher Education Schools Many, and No One Is Neglected Among the City’s 35,000 Hebrews AND LIBRARIES TOO Hebrew and Yiddish Taught, and a Yiddish Paper is Published Although the Jewish population in Toronto forms but one-sixteenth part of the entire city’s population, there…

Edmund Scheuer and the Toronto Jewish Free School

The Toronto Star Weekly of February 12, 1916, carried this report on the Jewish Free School sponsored by Jewish philanthropist Edmund Scheuer. Making Good Canadians Out of Girls of Jewish Birth Splendid Work Being Done at the Jewish Free School Tolerance for Creeds of Others Taught Loyalty to King and Country Strongly Emphasized. The Jewish…

Great new structures pierce Toronto’s skyline (1928)

THE Toronto Telegram reported on Friday June 1, 1928 the construction of these six buildings that would considerably alter Toronto’s skyline. Here is the caption information to this large illustration: * * * Great New Structures Pierce Toronto’s Sky Line Cost Millions to Construct Never in the history of Toronto has there been any year…

1911 profile of Mrs. Jacobs, wife of Holy Blossom rabbi

Note: The following article, which appeared in the Toronto Star Weekly of April 15, 1911, highlights the various activities of Mrs. Jacobs, wife of the Rabbi Solomon Jacobs of the city’s most prominent Jewish congregation, Holy Blossom, then situated at 97 Bond Street.  * * *  Mrs. Jacobs, Leader Among Jewish Women, and Working Girls’…

Obit: Canadian arts patron Bluma Appel (1919-2007)

Known for her patronage of the arts and her dedication to social causes, Bluma Appel died of cancer July 15 (2007) in a Toronto hospital. She was 86. Born in Montreal, Appel supported many arts and cultural organizations as well as individual artists. An officer of the Order of Canada, she was also the founder of…

Horses on Yonge Street bridge below Davisville

No, it isn’t an advertisement for Marlboro Cigarettes. Those dozen horses, seen in silhouette on an old railroad bridge that spans Yonge Street below Davisville, are the work of 34-year-old site-specific sculptor Robert Sprachman of Toronto. Entitled The Iron Horse, the sculpture consists of 12 life-sized silhouettes of horses arranged on the defunct Beltline Railroad…