The Long-Lost Chestnut Trees of University Avenue

It's hard to believe, but this is a photo of University Avenue. Today, this stretch of road is "Hospital Row," lined with concrete and glass. But this is what it looked like in 1896. That's Queen Park off in the distance. The Legislative Building had only recently been opened, but the land — previously part of the University of Toronto — had been leased by the Province all the way back in the 1850s.

They turned it into a public park. It was opened by the Prince of Wales, the guy would who later become King Edward VII (the same King Eddie our hotel is named after, and who now sits astride his horse as a statue in the park). About 30 years before that, 500 horse chestnut trees were planted along University Avenue and a grassy promenade was built down the centre of the street. It became one of Toronto's grandest avenues. Even Charles Dickens was impressed when he came to town.

So by the time this photo was taken, the chestnut trees of University Avenue had already been there for something like 70 years. But soon, the street would change. Toronto General Hospital moved to this strip in 1913. And over the next six decades, it was joined by many more, including Princess Margaret, Mount Sinai and Sick Kids. The trees have been replaced with concrete, pavement and glass. Only a thin sliver of green survives along the island that still cuts the avenue in two.

As Shawn Micallef points out in Stroll, University's grand avenue-ish-ness echoes the royal promenades on the other side of the Atlantic, like the Long Walk outside Windsor Castle. That's one of the places I'm planning on leaving dreams as part of the Toronto Dreams Project's UK Tour. One of the most interesting figures from our city's past — Colonel FitzGibbon — spent the final forgotten years of his life at Windsor Castle, having fought the Americans in the War of 1812 (he's the guy Laura Secord warned) and William Lyon Mackenzie in the Rebellion of 1837 (he took the threat seriously when no one else would, organizing the city's defenses despite the Lieutenant Governor's orders to do nothing). FitzGibbon is still there, in fact, buried on the castle grounds at St. George's Chapel along with many of the most famous kings and queens from England's past.

I've got a new dream for him all ready to go. You can help me leave copies of it at Windsor Castle, St. George's Chapel and along the Long Walk by contributing to my Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign — and you can get your own copy too.

-----

That statue of King Edward VII used to stand in another park on the other side of the world. I told the story of how it came to Toronto from India here. You can learn more about FitzGibbon and the Rebellion of 1837 in my post here. Mary Pickford grew up in a house on the east side of University Avenue just a few years before this photo was taken. I told her story here. I also posted another old photo of the tree-lined street from 1907 here.

blogTO has a bunch more old University Avenue photos in a post by Derek Flack here. That's where I first found a copy of this photo. Canadian Tree Tours has a bit more info about the horse chestnut trees here. And you can find the relevant excerpt from Shawn Micallef's Stroll on Google Books here. There's a short history of University Avenue and Queen's Park here.

UK Tour Preview: The Birthplace of Doctor Who

This is the BBC Television Centre. It first opened on Wood Lane in London all the way back in 1960. It was one of the very first buildings in the world built specifically to make television. And while the BBC stopped using it last year, it's been designated as a protected heritage site by the British government. The architecture is iconic, with a circular "doughnut" and a round courtyard — they say the frustrated architect went to a pub, drew a question mark on an envelope, and then realized the question mark was the perfect shape. What happened inside, however, is even more remarkable than the building itself. Many of the greatest shows in the history of television were shot right here: Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Top of the Pops, Monty Python's Flying Circus...

But for Torontonians, this building is particularly remarkable because it's where our own Sydney Newman first came up with the idea for Doctor Who. He spent most of the 1960s working right here as the Head of Drama for the BBC — famous for the radical new Canadian ideas he brought with him from his time at the NFB and the CBC. When the network was looking for a new show to fill a troublesome timeslot on Saturday afternoon, Newman suggested a science-fiction show about a time-travelling old man. Then, he put together a groundbreaking young team — including the BBC's first female producer and first Indian-born director — to make the show a reality. Within weeks of the airing of the first episode, the show was a hit. Fifty years later, it's still quite literally the most-loved drama on British television.

I told the full story of Newman's career and the birth of Doctor Who in a recent post; he'll soon be getting his own dream as part of the Toronto Dreams Project. I'm planning on leaving it at the BBC Television Centre as well as other Doctor Who-related sites in London and Wales (including the former location of Lime Grove, the studio where the first episode was shot). You can help me get there by contributing to the Indiegogo campaign in support of the Toronto Dreams Project's UK Tour (or by sharing it on Facebook or Twitter).

-----

Photo via the BBC.

A Drink With The Toronto Star

Well, as the headline suggests, a few weeks back, I had a drink with Eric Veillette from the Toronto Star. It was for his "A Drink With" column, which is pretty neat: he's recently featured everyone from Councillor Josh Matlow to TTC CEO Andy Byford to Spacing co-founder Matthew Blackett. And as the man behind the Silent Toronto blog — all about our city's silent film history — he's got a particular interest in Toronto's past. So he's had lots of drinks with heritage and history folks, too, like Karen L. Black, (manager of Toronto's Museum Services), Black Creek Pioneer Village's Wendy Rowney, David Wencer (who writes some of Torontoist's Historicist columns, and is also the archivist for Sick Kids) and Colin Brunton (the director of The Last Pogo Jumps Again, the Toronto punk doc I wrote about a few weeks ago).

We headed to the County General on Quest West West for some whisky. You can check it out online here.

Ten Questions for Rob Ford (More Important Than The Crack One)

More than ten months have passed since the news of Rob Ford's crack video first broke. And while most of the world is focused on the Mayor's drug use, his drunken stupors and his bizarre viral videos, the police investigation continues. New court documents released this week are a reminder that while Ford finally did admit the crack video is real, he's still refusing to answer many of the most important questions related to the scandal. (He's even willing to violently plow through reporters in order to avoid having to answer them.) Substance abuse problems are just the tip of the Rob Ford iceberg. News reports and police documents have tied the Mayor's scandal to alleged kidnapping, home invasion, drug dealing, beatings, death threats, a killing, blackmail and extortion.

Here are ten of the most disturbing questions Toronto is still looking for answers to (many of them raised, of course, by allegations that have yet to be been proven in court):

1. Did you order Sandro Lisi to commit extortion?

So, you know, Sandro Lisi? Your former driver? The guy with a violent criminal past? The one who was recently convicted of making death threats? The one you hang out with in high school parking lots and stage elaborate package-drops with? Well, he's currently not only charged with drug trafficking and possession, but also with extortion. Police allege that in the first few days after the Star and Gawker reported the existence of the crack video, Lisi used "threats or violence or menaces" to get the video back. And according to the phone records, he started calling the guys with the video right after a phone call from you, Mr. Mayor, at the exact same time the crack story was breaking.

Police documents also allege that the man trying to sell the video was kidnapped two weeks later by members of the Dixon City Bloods: "They talked to Siad about 'the video.' Siad was crying, saying he destroyed the video and his family is in trouble. Abdi told Siad that if he saw him in Dixon he would kill him."

Did you order Sandro Lisi to commit extortion? Were you aware of, or involved with, the kidnapping and the death threat?

 
2. Did you order the attack at 15 Windsor?

Five days after the crack story was first published, someone broke into 15 Windsor, the alleged crack house where the video is thought to have been shot. The Toronto Star reported that "Fabio [Basso, the owner of the house], his girlfriend, and Fabio's mother were assaulted by an unknown attacker brandishing an expandable baton who broke into their home." They also say that Sandro Lisi had been seen there earlier that day. And the day before. According to a Star source, he confronted Basso on the front porch: "'Where are the guys who made the video, Fab,' Lisi said, according to a witness who was present. 'You know where they are.'"

Did you order that attack? Were you involved in the planning of it? Do you know anything about it?


3. Did you order a jailhouse beating?

You are currently being sued by your sister's ex-common-in-law partner, Scott MacIntyre. He says that back in 2012 you ordered one of your former football players to attack him while he was in jail. According to the Toronto Sun, the lawsuit alleges that the attack "left him with a fractured left leg, facial cuts and dental damage. Four or more of his teeth were sheared at the gum line". MacIntyre claims that you ordered the attack in retaliation for his threats to go public with your drug use and criminal connections.

He also claims that he wasn't transported to the hospital until 36 hours after the attack. And that he didn't receive dental care until almost two months later.

Did you order the jailhouse beating of Scott MacIntyre? Did you use connections inside the jail to pull it off — and to keep him from receiving timely treatment for his injuries?


4. Who did you threaten to kill?

In one of your many videos, Mr. Mayor, you are seen threatening to kill someone. "I'll fucking kill that guy," you shout. "I'm telling you, it's first-degree murder... No holds barred, brother. He dies or I die, brother... I'll rip his fucking throat out. I'll poke his eyes out... I'll make sure that motherfucker's dead..."

After the video came out, you admitted that it was "embarrassing" and that you were "extremely, extremely inebriated". But you refused to answer the most important questions.

Like, for instance, who were you threatening to kill?


5. What do you know about the killing of Anthony Smith?

You famously took a photo with alleged gang members outside 15 Windsor. Two of those men — Anthony Smith and Muhammad Khattak — were later shot outside a nightclub on King Street. Smith was killed in the shooting.

Police documents suggest they have found no link between the crack video and the shooting, but there have been many questions raised about the suspicious timing of Smith's death. And you've failed to answer them fully. Back on May 30, the Edmonton Sun wrote, "There is now widespread belief Smith was killed for his phone, which may have contained the video." The CBC reported that "some friends" of Smith believed "he might have had the video stored on his cellphone." And your (now former) chief of staff, Mark Towhey, later revealed that he heard a similar rumour in the days immediately following the first Gawker and Toronto Star reports about the video: "There were a lot of phone calls coming into the office from people... One of our staff received some information from someone he trusted that we didn't know... that [the video] might have been the motive for a murder."

What do you know about the killing of Anthony Smith? How did you meet him? How well did you know him? Did you believe that he knew about — or even had a copy of — the crack video?


6. How did you get your cellphone back?

Last April — a few weeks after Smith was killed and a few weeks before the crack story broke — your cellphone went missing. The National Post reports that you told your staff you lost it while you were cleaning up a park, that you must have left it on the hood of your car and driven off. But police wire taps tell a very different story. They suggest you were doing drugs at 15 Windsor that night. And that your phone was taken by alleged members of the Dixon City Bloods.

Sandro Lisi seems to have tracked it down. According to phone records released in the ITO (court documents submitted by police) last November, he called your cellphone 19 times over the course of 45 minutes in the wee hours of the morning. Later that day, he called Liban Siyad — one of the alleged gang members — and accused him of stealing it. According to the wire taps, he said you were "freaking out" and that you would "put heat on" the Dixon Road apartment complex if they didn't return the phone.

The wire taps suggest that Siyad and his friend ("The Juice Man") agreed to return the phone. They also said they had a photo of you smoking a pipe and had you "in a lot of fucked up situations." According to those wire taps, Lisi agreed to give them a quantity of marijuana in exchange for your phone.

Police also say that Siyad is one of the men who may have been targeted by Lisi's extortion over the crack video a few weeks later.

Did you order Lisi to get your cellphone back? Did you instruct him to exchange drugs for it? Were you willing to use your position as the Mayor of Toronto to "put heat on" a neighbourhood in order to keep your drug use and criminal connections a secret? And, while we're at it, were you ever blackmailed over the cellphone? Or the photo they mentioned? Or the crack video?


7. Have you used your power as Mayor in an attempt to obtain confidential information?

The police say that back in August, you realized someone was following you. They think you and your friends spotted their surveillance vehicle while you were hanging out in your old high school parking lot. Five days later, they say a member of your staff phoned the police to tell them you thought you were being followed. They gave the cops a license plate number that was just one number different from the plate of their surveillance vehicle. The police say they offered to speak with you directly, but you never followed up.

Instead, they say that your new chief of staff, Earl Provost, gave them a call; that he asked them for the registration information of the vehicle. That's confidential information — and the police told him so. According to the ITO, Provost said you were angry with him for not being able to "give him what he wants."

The police claim those actions "clearly indicate that Mayor FORD is utilizing his position and the powers of the Office of the Mayor, to obtain information not available to regular citizens... I believe that Mayor FORD was trying to get the registration information for the vehicle that he and LISI observed on August 18th, 2013."

Is that true, Mr. Mayor? Were you trying to abuse the powers of your office?


8. Have you been paying the bills at 15 Windsor? Or helping the owners get special treatment from the City?

In the ITO, police describe a notebook. They believe it belonged to you or one of your staffers, and say that it contained entries relating to the alleged crack house at 15 Windsor along with the water department and outstanding bills. The police document suggests, "One possible explanation for these entries could be that the Mayor is dealing with house maintenance and bill payment at 15 Windsor Rd."

According to a report by the Toronto Star, a city official told them that in January 2013, a member of your staff "called the city's water department on behalf of resident Fabio Basso regarding a sewage issue at 15 Windsor Rd."

Were you paying bills for a crack house? Did you use your power as the Mayor of Toronto to get them special, expedited treatment for their sewage issues?


9. Did you order a hacker to illegally delete the crack video?

According to a VICE source, at the same time the police say Sandro Lisi was busy with his extortion, one of your current staffers (who was working for your brother, Councillor Doug Ford, at the time, and who has recently stepped aside for cancer treatment) tried to hired a hacker to delete the video off a website. The source claims the hacker was able to access the account, but couldn't delete it.

Do you know anything about that? Did you or your brother order someone to illegally hack into someone's account and delete the video?


10. What was in those mysterious packages?

In the ITO released last November, police surveillance shows you going to elaborate lengths to hide the fact that you were picking up packages from Sandro Lisi. In the ITO released this week, they say that your communications with him are "indicative to that of drug trafficking". The Globe and Mail has also detailed reports of your family's history with drug-dealing, which claim your friend and former staffer David Price and your brother Doug Ford sold large quantities of hash together during the 1980s.

So what was in those packages? Drugs? Nothing else? And if so, do you simply purchase drugs from Lisi? Or is there more to your relationship?

-----

Photo by the West Annex News (cropped, via the Wikimedia Commons)

The post also appears on The Little Red Umbrella.

High Park In Winter

It's hard to believe, but we're only a few weeks away from the days when the Sakura cherry blossoms will be blooming again in High Park. So, I recently took the chance to take a walk through the park while it's all still full of winter. I had my eye out for Snowy Owls and Bald Eagles — both of which have been spotted there this year — and while I wasn't lucky enough to see any, I did get to see plenty of pretty. (Even if it was so cold on the banks of Grenadier Pond that my iPhone kept shutting down.) I've uploaded a bunch of my photos, along with a few archival pics, to a gallery on Facebook, which you can check out here (whether you have a Facebook account or not):

FULL GALLERY

And, as always, you can follow me on Instagram at @todreamsproject.

UK Tour Preview: How England Helped Save The Group Of Seven

The Group of Seven's A.Y. Jackson painted this painting right at the very end of the First World War. He'd spent the last few years on the front lines in Europe: first as a soldier crawling through the trenches in Flanders, then as an official war artist with the Canadian War Records Office (a department created by Lord Beaverbrook, a Canadian newspaper baron turned British Cabinet Minister). But when the war finally ended, Jackson's job wasn't quite over: he was sent to Halifax to capture the scenes of Canadian soldiers returning home. Arthur Lismer — one of the two British-born members of the Group of Seven — was already there. He was working for the War Records Office, too. Together, during the spring of 1919, they painted the warships as they came home. That's when Jackson made the sketches for this painting, Entrance To Halifax Harbour, which he probably finished back home at the Studio Building in Rosedale.

In those early days, the Group of Seven weren't famous yet (in fact, they weren't even called the Group of Seven yet). And Canadian critics hated them. They were too modern, too experimental. They were dismissed as "The Hot Mush School." "A horrible bunch of junk." "The figments of a drunkard’s dream." "Daubing by immature children." More than 30 years after Van Gogh painted Starry Night, Canada still wasn't ready for Impressionism.

But in England, it was a whole different story. After the end of the war, an exhibition was held in London. Some of the Canadian paintings created for the War Records Office were put on display at the majestic Burlington House, a couple of blocks from Piccadilly Circus. Jackson wasn't the only member of the Group of Seven with work hanging on the walls — Fred Varley (the other member of the Group who was raised in England) had also been painting on the Western Front. But there were more pieces by Jackson than by anyone else. And the show was a big success. Thousands of people came to see the exhibit on the first day alone — including the Prime Minster of Canada, Robert Borden. Jackson's paintings for the War Records Office would eventually end up in some of the most important collections in Canada, including the National Gallery, the War Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Entrance To Halifax Harbour wasn't part of that exhibit. But just a few years later, the painting finally got its chance. In 1924, the English government put on a massive display of industry, engineering and artwork from all over the British Empire. The British Empire Exhibition was a VERY BIG deal: the biggest and most popular exhibition that had ever been held anywhere. Back in Canada, the job of picking the Canadian art to submit sparked a major battle between the old guard of conventional, established artists and the modernist up-and-comers like the Group of Seven. In the end, the modernists won the right to be included. And Entrance To Halifax Harbour was sent to London.

The reviews by Canadian critics were harsh. The Toronto Daily Star compared Jackson's work to "a spilt can of paint." But the English critics loved it. The Morning Post called the Group of Seven "the foundation of what may become one of the greatest schools of landscape painting." Only one piece of Canadian art was sold during the British Empire Exhibition — and it was Jackson's. Entrance To Halifax Harbour was bought by the Tate Gallery. It's still part of their collection today.

The show in London helped to establish the Group of Seven's reputation back home in Canada. Now that the British took them seriously, Canadian collectors started taking them seriously, too. The Group even used the reviews from the Empire Exhibition to promote their upcoming shows: they printed posters with the angry Canadian reviews side by side with the glowing British ones.

Even today, the Group of Seven are lauded by some British critics. A major exhibition of their work was mounted by a London gallery just a couple of years ago. According to the gallery's director, "[The Group of Seven] produced some of the most vibrant and beautiful landscapes of the twentieth century." He calls Tom Thomson "Canada's very own Van Gogh."

In a couple of months, I plan on heading to London myself. I'll be there to leave dreams from the Toronto Dreams Project at Toronto-related historical sites across the city. They'll include my dream for A.Y. Jackson, "The Longest Earthquake in the History of the World," which I launched as part of the AGO's First Thursday back in December. I'll visit Burlington House, where the War Records exhibition was held, along with other Jackson-related spots.

You can help me get there by contributing to my Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign (or by sharing it on Facebook or Twitter).

-----

You can read the full story of A.Y. Jackson and the First World War in one of my previous posts here.

Toronto's Icy Waterfront in the Winter of 1911

Well, it's been one a hell of a crazy winter in Toronto this year. And while the rising temperatures make it  almost sort of kind of start to maybe feel like spring will actually happen at some point, they say there's more snow on the way first. I suppose we might be able to take at least a little bit of solace in the fact that Torontonians have been dealing with ice and snow for as long as there has been a Toronto. Here, for instance, is a frigid photograph from the Toronto Archives taken on our waterfront during the winter of 1911.