Marion Saver received $2,000 worth of merchandise, writes Susan Goldenberg Drum roll, please. On July 4, 1946, at the inaugural Miss Canada beauty pageant, the winner, defeating 58 other contestants, was lovely North Yorker Marion Saver, 21, who credited her victory largely to the rabbit’s foot lucky charm she had held. Three years earlier, she …
Murder victim owned Windsor’s Barb-B-Q roadhouse on Yonge Street, writes Susan Goldenberg What all the Toronto newspapers called “Toronto’s First Gangland Murder” — the Jan. 7, 1939 shooting death of bookie/alleged racketeer Jimmy Windsor, 46 — had a North York connection. Earlier that day, according to newspaper stories, Jimmy, appearing carefree, had sung barbershop quartets …
Don Mills street named in honour of 19th century business owner, writes Susan Goldenberg “Aggie Hogg Gardens,” a short interior street alongside the green space in the middle of the Shops at Don Mills at Lawrence Avenue and Don Mills Road, is named in honour of a notable 19th century North York woman who was …
The North York of today largely is due to Mel Lastman, mayor of North York for a record astounding twenty-five years, 1972-1997. He was in the lead in the transformation from a sleepy Toronto suburb into what he proudly called “downtown uptown.” Born in 1933 in Toronto’s Kensington Market to poor Jewish immigrants, he developed …
‘North York’s attraction was its proximity to the then-separate city of Toronto,’ writes Susan Goldenberg Hard to believe perhaps but what is now a business district at Dufferin and Lawrence near the Allen Expressway was a busy airport in the first half of last century. Nameless originally, it became Barker Field in honour of World …
Family bequeathed home to Canadian Film Centre One of Canada’s largest-ever horse racing empires got its start in North York at a 10-hectare estate, Windfields, on Bayview Avenue between Lawrence and York Mills streets, owned by legendary Canadian business tycoon and thoroughbred racehorse breeder E.P. Taylor. He bought the land in 1932. Up until then, …
Susan Goldenberg talks about archeological discovery of Indigenous cultures Indigenous artifacts from as early as 1300 to 1500 A.D. have been discovered in North York by archaeologists in excavation digs. They include fragments of wood palisades, tools made of stone and animal bone, pottery, pipes, and human remains. The one thought to be oldest, circa …
‘Metro Council wanted to unify police and fire departments,’ writes Susan Goldenberg In April 1953 the Toronto area’s 13 municipalities, including a strongly opposed North York, were amalgamated as Metropolitan Toronto. Each municipality retained autonomy in local matters but services that crossed boundaries became Metro responsibilities — water supply, sewage disposal, public transit, education and …
‘The truck was so slow that bicyclists easily passed it,’ writes Susan Goldenberg In North York’s pioneering days firefighting was by water bucket brigade. In 1922, when North York became independent from York township, one of the first actions was to buy the community’s first-ever fire truck, a converted Model T Ford car, popular with …
Laboratories ‘produced life-saving serums against the main war front illnesses,’ writes Susan Goldenberg On rainy Oct. 25, 1917, in the midst of the First World War, a history-making medical event, little remembered today, occurred at the then-undeveloped north end of North York: the formal opening of facilities to produce serums to “protect the health of …
