The Evans Shopping Centre, located at Evans and Bestobell in Etobicoke, was constructed around 1955.
Let’s Go Shopping
Tag: Toronto
Parkdale’s Kinhurst Plaza (1961)
Admittedly, I’ve never been to Harry’s. I’m absolutely certain that the love it earned in Parkdale over its 48 years was both earned and well-deserved. Though I’m not familiar with Harry’s itself, the story is one I believe we’re all familiar with. The family-owned establishment becomes a neighbourhood staple, the owners retire, and a new one comes in with promises not to radically alter what has been established. The promises are often broken as the new owners soon discover that the business fundamentals weren’t as healthy as the community love or that an entrepreneur close to retirement is rarely motivated by future growth. Sometimes, as is the case with Boushey’s on Elgin street here in Ottawa, the retirement means the end of business entirely. For the purposes of this story, however, it is not actually Harry’s that has captured my imagination as such,1Though I do now regret not stopping in at least once on my walks in the area. but rather it is the smart midcentury retail plaza on King West between Jameson and Springhurst that has served as its home that has.
Continue reading Parkdale’s Kinhurst Plaza (1961)
Notes
| ↥1 | Though I do now regret not stopping in at least once on my walks in the area. |
|---|
Toronto (Telephone) Exchange
Earlier this week, I wrote a short piece about the Andrew’s Manor Apartments at 896 Eglinton East, in Leaside. Today, I transcribed the apartment’s entry in the 1954 Might’s Directory and filled in any missing information from the subsequent year’s edition.
Merry Christmas from the TTC
In front of the Andrew’s Manor Apartments at 896 Eglinton Avenue East, is parked this fine TTC bus decorated for the Christmas season, 1958. The program was run between 1955 and 1960. The bus above was doing duty on 38 Eglinton East and was the one that whisked tenants of the walk-ups to the Eglinton subway station in minutes. It was right up until 2008 that the 3-storey walk-up appeared as it did upon completion in 1953. The building was given an EIFS makeover in 2009.
Citicom and Timberlay Went A’Courtin’
The Somerset Court condominium, located on Somerset Street West just off Elgin, recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. Designed by architect Barry Hobin, it was a joint project of Robert McElligott’s Timberlay Developments and Toronto’s Citicom, which was probably best known until the late 1970s for its parking lot business. Since Robert Smythe tackled the ins and outs of the condominium’s development in a 2012 URBSite article, I will discuss it only briefly. Instead, I focus on Timberlay, Citicom, and the brief partnership they enjoyed during the middle years of the 1980s.
“A ‘Little Mexico’ on Lake Ontario” (The El Pueblo Townhouses, 1971-73)
Recently, I read a post by historian Richard White on his blog Historical Perspectives on Toronto Planning called “Rejected Development.” Perhaps best known for his his recent publication, Planning Toronto: The Planners, The Plans, Their Legacies, 1940-80, I read it with interest. In making an argument that planners in the postwar era did not always want to “‘bulldoze’ everything old and replace it with some lifeless, modern, tower-in-the-park sort of structure,” White offers the example of the rejected River Oaks tower development on Beech Avenue in the Beaches neighbourhood. The El Pueblo townhouse complex, which was constructed in its stead, has always stood out to me. Not only have I walked past it on a few occasions, but as a regular watcher of The Littlest Hobo, it was familiar.
Continue reading “A ‘Little Mexico’ on Lake Ontario” (The El Pueblo Townhouses, 1971-73)