From the Canadian Jewish News, April 5, 2014 Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew, by Stuart Ross (ECW Press) I hadn’t heard of Stuart Ross before reading Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew. I was therefore surprised to find that we are “landsleit” — both from Bathurst Manor — and that he is quite prolific, with more than a dozen books…
Tag: toronto
Night Was Just One Long Agony in Crowded Ward (1911)
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Suffering was Terrible — Little Children Lay Naked on the Bare Earth — Their Parents Half-Clad, Lay Beside Them — No Breeze in Narrow Alleys From The Toronto Star, July 4, 1911 If you really want to appreciate what a heat wave means, go through “The Ward.” You will see sights there that you have…
York Street of 40 Years Ago (1928)
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Recollections of Old Timer Forty Years Ago John Heenan ‘Tended Bar’ at the N.E. Corner of Front Street Many Changes Noticed Now — But the Sign Board of ‘Heenan’s Place’ Is Still to Be Seen From the Toronto Evening Telegram, November 2, 1928 John Heenan, veteran employee of the Walker House, whose trim grey uniform,…
Fewer women thieves in city than 10 years ago (1913)
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From The Star Weekly, July 5, 1913 Not long ago, a woman was caught red-handed in the act of shoplifting in Toronto under rather pathetic circumstances. Years ago, she had been accustomed to steal continuously from stores. In fact she belonged to a family which subsisted to a great extent by stealing.Then she had married…
Toronto Police of 1912 was “cosmopolitan” (Tely 1912)
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From The Toronto Evening Telegram, May 6 1912 Note: This article describes the surprisingly high cosmopolitan character of the Toronto Police Force of 1912. For the previous decade the city had been filling up with tens of thousands of European and other immigrants, so it only seems appropriate that some would find their way onto…
Devil in the White City: Murder & Chicago World’s Fair, 1893
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In this riveting page-turner that reads like a murder mystery thriller, Erik Larson resurrects the legend of a forgotten American psychopathic mass murderer, the cold-blooded H. H. Holmes, and overlays it atop the equally dusty story of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, one of the most impressive achievements of gilded-age America. Satisfying the modern…
Bungalow craze has Toronto builders gripped (1922)
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From the Toronto Star Weekly, September 9, 1922 Toronto is becoming a bungalow city. Entire streets of new houses built this summer consist of nothing but one storey, four, five and six roomed bungalows. To sell a new house, real estate men say, you must describe it as a bungalow, even if it is a…
Bone Button Borscht with Barbara Budd
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From the Canadian Jewish News, December 2004 What do you get when you put a popular shtetl folk tale into a pot and add some flavourful compositions for full orchestra, rich klezmer sounds, a pinch of Hanukkah seasoning and live narration by Barbara Budd, the Toronto-based actor and co-host of the immensely popular CBC radio…
Story of Toronto’s First Telephones (1922)
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They Were Used for Amusement by Dr. A. M. Rosebrugh, Who Secured Instruments from Dr. Bell, Inventor Wires Ran on Poles of Fire Alarm System Dr. Rosebrugh Tested a Line to Hamilton and Started the First Telephone Company in Ontario From the Toronto Star Weekly, September 9, 1922 By Knight N. Day Toronto has had…
A Toronto map from 1914 (in six easy pieces)
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I often get requests from researchers who have seen their family in the 1901, 1911 or 1921 census of Toronto but can’t find the street they were living on a modern map because the street has disappeared or the name was changed. Where was Buchanan Street? Where was Cuttell Place? Where was Alice Street? Etcetera.…
