Working Class Neighbourhoods of Old Toronto
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- čas přidán 16. 08. 2015
- A compilation of photos, most taken between the turn of the century and the 1930's, set to Fairport Convention's version of the Battle of the Somme. Most of these images depict life in the working class neighbourhoods of eastern Toronto including Corktown, Cabbagetown (now Regent Park) and the Ward (now the Discovery District). The various ethnic groups which lived in these neighbourhoods between the 1850's and the 1950's included African Americans fleeing slavery, Protestant and Catholic Irish immigrants, working class British immigrants, Jewish and other eastern and central European immigrants, Macedonian immigrants, Italian immigrants and Chinese immigrants. Most of these neighbourhoods were demolished in the 1950's and 1960's. Corktown remains the best preserved today, featuring examples of both row houses and workers cottages.
My Irish/French raised-a-Baptist Ma grew up on Clinton Street in the 20's in what was a Jewish neighborhood. The depression left everyone scrambling to stay warm and fed, not well fed, just fed. Growing up working class in Scarborough any complaints we had about being poor during that time were met with "kid, times are tough all over". The depression left deep and lasting scars on all who managed to live through it.
The small angle-roof building at 00:15 is 36 Elizabeth Street (now a playground on the west side of City Hall). It’s a shoe repair store where my grandfather lived and worked when he first arrived in Canada in 1911.
Remarkable sir. Tough times but you had to work to "put bread on the table." Just over 10 years later, my father's family took a foothold to begin life in Toronto at the King and Spadina Avenue area. They moved a half dozen times but lived around there for decades until the 40s when they bought their mother a house at 42 Elgin Avenue (since torn down for a new home).
Thanks. My granparents moved here in 1929. Lives near Dufferin & Queen. My dad's 86 , I'm 65. Still live in the GTA
LOVE historical pix of Toronto. Thx for posting.
Great pics. I just wish they had put the street address, or where it is today. Interesting still.
A lot of people will look at these and say ,,Oh I could never live like that .,,But its strange when you have nothing just having a warm place to sleep is like heaven.and you wouldnt be a vegan anymore if you were starving and all there was to eat was a bologna sandwich someone gave you ,LOL
Had a friend who rented a very old row house near Spadina and King Street in the early 80's. Very affordable for young opportunists. He once had a rat crawl out of his toilet. Friend and his old home both long gone.
I feel like you may have mislabelled these families. My family arrived in Parkdale 1906. My great grandparents lived on Marguretta St until the 70's the others also lived in Parkdale . I found all their homes/apts. They were working class and went through the depression but these poor people were impoverished. Great compilation though thank you.
These people must’ve been immigrants from Eastern Europe or Ireland trying to gain a foothold in the city. It’s fascinating because in just a few generations, they are going to be the lifeblood of the city and will determine the fate of other people who will immigrate to Toronto.
Thank you for posting these gem-like collection of photographs. It is hard to imagine Toronto to have been so destitute in the past without studying such images.
This selection of photos take me back to my own childhood. I lived in one of those houses at Williamson Place. Just off of Sumac. It was a hard time in those days. I never thought I'd see it again. Thankyou so much. By the way, ... those houses were torn down to make room for the Gardiner Express way, not City hall.
I think this is a great slideshow, and don't mean to nitpick, but the majority of these photos depict life in 'The Ward'--otherwise known as the neighbourhoods that were torn down, to make way for Nathan Phillips, and City Hall. It's a small, but important detail that is missing, in the video description.
YOUR A AZZHOLE
the ward was actually redeveloped before nathan philips square existed. a lot of beautiful architecture was lost.
When I came to Canada in 1981, there were still a few Chinese restaurants left near the bus terminal. That was the Old Chinatown as I was told. All gone now. Even the bus terminal has closed. I still miss "The World's Biggest Bookstore", where I spent so many afternoons browsing the music books., a teenager in a strange city. Alone. With not much English.
Thanks for this, my mother was around that time and this brings to life a certain part of the city. Very nicely done.
Thank you for posting this. These pictures and others I have seen depict deplorable poverty that existed in Toronto many years ago - far worse than what there is now. As this clip makes very clear, ( and I have seen other pictures from the City of Toronto archives) people were living in absolute squalor. even within the shadow of old city hall. How Toronto's city fathers were able to sleep at night knowing what existed in working class neighborhoods around them is almost unbelievable, but it shows that people had even less of a collective conscience back then, in many ways.
"Less of a collective conscience back then". The slum is not there any more is it? Did it go away by itself? No, it was replaced with social housing of a higher standard elsewhere, created by the city fathers that you are so quick to vilify. Progress does not happen with the snap of a finger. There are scenes such as this STILL ABUNDANT in many places around the world.
Yeah, the idea that the slum isn't there anymore because of benevolent upper class reformers is pretty grotesque. They did do a few good things such as adding sewers to areas like The Ward in the early 20th century, but most of the reforming wasn't actually focused on helping people.
They tore down the slum housing and replaced it with institutional buildings like hospitals, with no concern for where the inhabitants would go. The objective was to remove what was seen as a dangerous blight on the city, not to actually help those people.
The last clearances were in the 1960s and many residents fought them tooth and nail. Some were evicted from their homes by force before they were demolished. The entirety of the original Chinatown was destroyed to make way for new City Hall. Not something to be proud of.
@@mitchellwilson6660 Whenever I hear spoiled people today talking about how tough they have it, I'll show them this video. We're pretty lucky to be living at this time and place in history and it's tough to listen to people who don't appreciate it.
Excellent video, of Toronto's history, what things used to look here
Thank you for uploading the pictures. Unless we see the reality of the times we only have a hazy imagination of what it was like then. This was the slums that Gladys Smith, later known as Mary Pickford, was born into in Toronto. Were these Health Dept. pictures?
Yes, most of these pictures were taken by the health department.
Thank you for the compilation...stark in reality!
Thank you for posting. Great photographs.
It's fascinating how we talk about our lives being so very hard nowadays what with inflation and housing being so unaffordable and yet a scant 100 years ago or so I think life could be much harder than today. These folks had to be stoic and resilient to get by. I think these pictures reflect the conditions most of our ancestors came from. It's worth remembering that life has never been easy but somewhere down the line your decedents will marvel at how you persevered through it all.
""Aaaah! The good old days!" Think twice before you make that statement. lol.
I have blocked pancake rachel corrie and deleted her racist screed which has no place on a video commemorating Canada's multicultural roots and immigrant history. I'm going to debunk the claims that were posted though.
First of all these images don't disprove the idea of Canada as a multicultural nation. They do the opposite. At the time these images were taken these neighbourhoods were dominated by immigrants from eastern and southern Europe including Italians, Greeks, Macedonians and Jews fleeing persecution in the Russian Empire.
None of these people were considered ethnically white by the Canadian upper class and they faced discrimination similar to that experienced by Middle Eastern and South Asian immigrants today. Not sure how you can claim these images don't show multiculturalism when there are numerous signs in Yiddish visible in them!
Second, it's true there aren't many African Americans in these pictures. That's because a) they were taken in Canada, not America, and b) many of Toronto's black citizens, who had arrived fleeing slavery in the 19th century, had already gained a degree of upward mobility and were no longer living in these areas by the turn of the century. There were several prominent black businessmen in early Toronto, such as Thornton Blackburn, who founded the city's first cab company.
Third, the idea of "no Asians" is especially laughable as one of the areas shown in this video (The Ward) became Toronto's first Chinatown. There had been Chinese immigrants living in Toronto since the 1870s but it took a long time for a permanent community to take root because anti-Chinese racism was so extreme.
Chinese people would only be rented the absolute worst of housing which was soon condemned, meaning that they had to move on to another area and start over. They were finally able to get a foothold in the 1920s and formed a community that flourished until the 1950s, when Chinatown was expropriated to build new City Hall. A great book about Toronto's Chinese history is The Chinese In Toronto From 1878: From Outside to Inside the Circle by Arlene Chan.
Don't post white supremacist shit on my video celebrating immigrant communities.
she is ignorant and has a lack of knowledge. dont listen to her
Thanks for your great video and your stance in racism!
thank you for posting these rich and colorful pictures of Toronto,really appreciate it,such a wonderful history.
Even white Irish Catholics were discriminated against before this era.
@@johnnytightlips0628 They’re all black & white LOL
Thank you
Wow Cabbage town my mom lived there in the 40s
Great video. When I was watching and I saw all those young children and looked at their faces and into their eyes, I wonder what kind of life they eventually went on to have. Whether it was a long life or a short life, were they successful or fall on hard times? Did they end up living their whole life in Toronto or where did they end up? It made me feel melancholy
So many people with haunted looks. But they built Toronto, along with all the other Toronto residents.
The way Canada is headed we may see this again.
If that's working class, I'd hate to see how the poor lived!
1:55 Yonge Street Mission
The poorest of Toronto for sure
Yup, the good old days...
I wonder what nationality the men at 2:59 are? Very nice looking...
They would be Eastern European but it's tricky to pin down an exact country. Maybe Macedonians since they appear to be at a boarding/rooming house and there are no women. Most Macedonian immigrants in the early 1900s were young single or recently married men who came over to Canada on their own.
@@mitchellwilson6660 thanks Mitchell
😀👍
POOR PEOPLE OF TORONTO SO YOU CAN SEE THE TRUTH
Shame no commentary.
and yet immigrants kept coming seeking better future
For many immigrants at the time, this life in Toronto was a vast improvement from where they came from.
THE TRUTH HURTS EH