Beach Memories: Historic Walk along East Toronto’s Main Street set for Saturday, May 23
By GENE DOMAGALA
I will be leading an Historic Walk on Saturday, May 23, in the former Town of East Toronto.
For those wishing to take part, we will meet at the northwest corner of Main Street and Danforth Avenue at 1 p.m.
East Toronto was a town of 5,000 people with its own police station, fire hall, hospital, library, city hall, hydro services, and school.
It was located east of the City of Toronto, with these political boundaries: Woodbine Avenue to the west, Scarborough Road to the east, Danforth Avenue to the north, and Lake Ontario to the south.
The town owed its existence to the Grand Trunk Railway. The East Toronto area was once home to the largest railway centre in Ontario. The Grand Trunk Railway later became part of Canadian National Railway (CN) and employed approximately 500 workers.
East Toronto was a town from 1888 to 1909. Main Street was, both then and now, the town’s most important street.
We will see why on my walk as we visit historic sites on and near Main Street.
We will also learn about the people and businesses that made East Toronto such a bustling community 140 years ago.
There is a great amount of history still in East Toronto.
Did you know that Dawes Road used to go down to Kingston Road? Later, part of the former Dawes Road became Main Street.
East Toronto was also home to one of the area’s earliest baseball fields, where teams played many games just off Main Street.
The area had one of Toronto’s first funeral parlours, and one of the oldest curling rinks as well.
The Town of East Toronto had its own transportation system, and one of the first motion picture houses. That movie house was the Ideal Theatre, and it was on Main Street.
At one time there was talk that a graveyard would be established in the Main Street and Gerrard Street East area, but that did not happen.
There were also many religious institutions in the Town of East Toronto and that can still be seen today. Many of the residents who attended these religious institutions were most charitable in helping the less fortunate and that remains the case today in the area. East End residents help others out who may be in need or less fortunate.
Agriculture was a big part of the Town of East Toronto. There were chicken farmers, dairy farmers and fruit and vegetable farmers. The community had one of the first farmers’ markets which was located in the Main Street and Gerrard Street East area. The farmers from adjacent areas would gather together and sell their produce.
East Toronto has a variety of both big and little homes, and even some “mansions” which made the area an attractive place to live and work both then and now. I could go on more, but please join the walk.
I also want to raise a personal point, which will be included on the walk, and that is how long I have been writing Beach Memories for Beach Metro Community News.
It has been more than 40 years, which is about the time I’ve been doing my walks.
The walks could not happen without the support of this newspaper.
There have been many community papers in the East End, and especially the Beach, over the past 140 or so years. And each brought its own version of the news and happenings in the area.
However, in my humble and personal opinion, there is one community newspaper that is pages ahead of all the other local newspapers. And that paper is Beach Metro Community News, which has been serving the people of the East End since 1972.
No matter what you want to express, sell, make a comment on, or take an ad about (anything that is clean and just), this is the paper for you. This newspaper stands up for free speech.
In my opinion, the people at Beach Metro are “it”. Which is why my walk on May 23 will be making a stop at the paper’s offices on Gerrard Street East, just west of Main Street. We’ll make a visit to the office, learn a bit of the paper’s history, and I will also encourage anyone who wants to make a donation towards our non-profit community newspaper to do so.
Historically yours!
