Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - 10 Toronto Buildings That Were Saved From Demolition: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1492

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

In this 1492nd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by Toronto historian Jeremy Hopkin to discuss 10 Toronto buildings that shouldn't have been demolished and thankfully weren't. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada, The Yes, We Are Open podcast from Moneris, The Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball Team and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

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I'm in Toronto like we wanna get the city love. Welcome to Episode 1492! Oh, Sail the Ocean Blue? Yeah, of Toronto Mike'd! Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. The Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team. The best baseball in the city outside the dome.

Watch me throw out the first pitch on June 2nd. That's right, June 2nd, 2 p.m. Christie Pitts, be there. RecycleMyElectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. The Advantage'd Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada, valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed and focused on long-term success. Season 6 of Yes We Are Open, an award-winning Monaris podcast hosted by FOTML Grego and

Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, returning to discuss 10 Toronto buildings we saved from demolition is Jeremy Hopkins. Jeremy Hopkins Good morning, Mike. Mike Welcome, J-Ho. Jeremy Hopkins Hi, good morning. Mike Welcome back. Now, I'm going to give you the business really quickly off the top, which is that you are 40 minutes late. Jeremy Hopkins Yeah.

Mike How can you be the official Toronto Mike historian if you're going to be 40 minutes late for your recordings? Well if I had a time machine I would definitely go back and fix everything with my DeLorean but it was a hell of a morning and I'm very sorry and then on the way here I got caught in romantic traffic as well as I was telling you there. Okay, shout out to Rob Pruse. Exactly. Rob by the way, keyboardist who co-wrote Romantic Traffic with Gore Depp. He will be here in the basement with Bob Ouellette for an episode of Toast and that is coming up Sunday, Sunday 6pm I believe, Sunday.

Join us on the live stream, live.torontomike.com. We're there right now. Poor basement dweller had to wait 45 minutes but it was worth it. Here's Jeremy Hopkins I'm so sorry Avery. Oh You just he just doxxed him. I feel like a basement dweller. Okay. Well listen too late I'm not fixing that in post but I'm happy to see you Better late than never when it comes to Jeremy Hopkins and last time you were here We discussed 10 Toronto buildings we demolished but but we shouldn't have demolished. That was episode 1468. If you want to go back and hear it, it was amazing.

I got great feedback. How was that episode from your perspective, Jeremy Hopkins? I like to go back every once in a while and watch it and it makes me smile. It was great. I really had a good time that day and it just, you bring out the best in me. That was really nice. Is that your best? I feel like we're gonna make you even bester. Well. Alan bester. I'm sure as I get a little more used to the format and just doing this,

and being on the other side of the mic, yeah, it'll get better. Well, it's already awesome. Amazing. I'm just kidding. But I like that you have a visual element. That's why the video is so key. So obviously this is a podcast. People are hearing us.

Maybe they're all running running maybe they're driving maybe they're walking maybe they're just lying in bed maybe they're making dinner maybe they're washing dishes Jeremy work with me let's name all the things people can be doing while they listen to us but then if they're listening to us they can't see that you bring photos of everything we talked about and you hold it up to the camera I do love joining the live stream when I can. Oh, you're amazing on the live stream. And it's nice to have a visual aid,

especially with buildings like this. Some people know them off the top of their head, but these ones are still around, so they're out there. But a lot of people, while they're watching this on the live stream, they don't really have a visual to go by right away unless they look it up. So I try to make it convenient. Do you remember that we had a song for the last episode where it was the again, it was 10 buildings that we did demolish, but we

really should not have demolished. And we kind of had a song for that. Do you remember the song? The little brown shack up back the tribute or the old to the little brown shack. I loaded up a song again, I got that song because you used it in like a promo video. They have social media, but I Was thinking what is the ideal song to introduce this topic? Which again, these are ten buildings We did not demolish. Mm-hmm. These buildings continue to stand tall This is our jam Jeremy. Oh nice This is our jam, Jeremy. Nice. Never been this blue

Also, I love playing jams from Bird and Cummings. Never knew the meaning of a heartache Shout out to FOTM Robert Lawson. But then again I saw him in the bushes on the way in. He's out there waiting to fact check you, but I also saw him at the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball game. Oh yeah, he was there. I started following him on socials and I saw him.

You can see him at Cloverdale Mall almost every day of the week at... Music World? Yes. Oh, I just can't think about that. Let's let Burdon get to the chorus here and then we'll get to the reason we bumped up your second visit. So these are buildings that continue to stand tall. Is that right, Jeremy? Yeah. I tried to include some that were at some considerable risk at the time or ones that I liked and also tried to get a variety in there. There's never quite a top 10 because you can find a top 10 reason for so many things.

Love it. But the reason, because we were going to do this quarterly, but of course, this is actually your second visit of this quarter. We bumped it up and that's because you're curating a Doors Open Toronto site. Can you please tell me about that? Yeah, we're site number 97. I applied, actually I brought the idea up to this place called Motorista Studio, which is just, it's an event venue starting up in Leeside. And his whole concept behind making this venue was he saw my stuff online about Leeside Aerodrome.

And he thought, oh, I wanna make my place look like that and put photos of it around. And he actually printed off a lot of my photos and had them in the windows of, he has like a fake airplane window there and a few other things and amazing. And one day I was at a car show and I came up off, I was actually in the pinup costume contest of all things. They said, oh yeah, we want guys to come up too. And I was the only guy. So I won first place for the guys. Amazing. And then after I came off the stage he handed me his pamphlet and it was him from Motorista and I said oh those are my photos. So Motorista is founded based on this Leeside aerodrome

that was just north of where this was. East of Laird Drive, south of Eglinton and north of Wickstead was the airport and it was just a grass airfield founded in 1917 and it eventually became the very first commercial airport of Toronto before Pearson, before it was Malton, before the Island Airport and I just started digging and this place had such a history to it and I thought it would make a great doors open site so now we're making a gallery and we're going to have a car show on Saturday and it just snowballed into some a big event for the weekend. Amazing. So specifically it's this coming weekend?

Yeah, this coming weekend, May 25th and 26th and it's from 9 to 5. Amazing. Both days we're going to be there. Only on Saturday is going to be the car show but we'll be there both days. Okay, that is awesome. I'm glad you're here to tell the listenership about it. Robert Lawson just emerged from the bushes to say it's not music world, Mike. He says music world. He says shout out to Ridley funeral home music world, uh, is long gone. Sunrise.

Oh yeah. Sunrise. I can't believe I just said sun. I can't believe it. I confuse my sunrise with my, um, music world basement dweller on the live stream says he's starting to hitchhike to a motorista right now. Join you there. Amazing.

So before we get rocking, I mentioned the great Robert Lawson and I saw him at hitchhike to a motorista right now. Cool. Join you there. Amazing. So before we get rocking, I mentioned the great Robert Lawson and I saw him at Christie Pitts. That was for the home opener. We had a great time. The exciting news, I just teased in the intro. I have been asked by the owner

if I would be willing to throw out the first pitch for the Toronto Maple Leafs game on June 2nd. And I think my response was, don't you want somebody famous, but he, he wants to honor me. Now I'm going to record live from the site. So I'm going to be there anyway. So I want to let the FOTMs know, uh, again, it's a, not a ticketed event.

So you just got to drop by Christie pits. You get some awesome baseball. There's some great beer. There's great food. It's a great atmosphere. And you can watch me in the opening ceremony throughout the first pitch. So everybody's invited, of course, and I'm honored that that I get to do this. It's like a dream come true. So I'll be there on June 2nd again, June 2nd. Oh, basement dweller wanted to know where

I was in the 12th because he couldn't find me. I'm behind a centerfield fence. So basically a deep left field right beyond the fence. You'll find me set up recording. So that's where I am and I'll be there on June 2nd. But again, throwing out the first pitch Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. What did you think of that book I gave you that history book? It is amazing. And the person who did the research on all of that and had all of those stats, it's incredible. The amount of information that's packed in there. Awesome and did you enjoy your Palma Pasta lasagna? We did and my kids and Abby and Cooper and my wife Holly they all loved it and they're finnicky

eaters so it was a gamble so but they ate every bit they loved it. Do you want another one? I would love one. Okay. You are, you were going to get another, that's why you're back a second time in a quarter, you needed the palm of a puzzle lasagna. So I have a fresh craft beer from Great Lakes brewery. Amazing. I've got the lasagna.

I will remind everybody you can have that great combo at Great Lakes brewery, June 27 from six to nine PM because that's TML X 15. Everybody's invited to the 15th Toronto Mic Listener Experience. It's going to be a great night. Again, not a ticketed event. You just show up, you eat some free pasta, you drink some free beer, you hang out with me and great FOTMs. You know, amazing. So everybody come on out June 27th to the Great Lakes Brewery Southern Etobicoke location. I will definitely be there. And of course, we've already shouted out Ridley Funeral Home, but I've got another measuring

tape for you, J-Ho, but I'm keen to get this thing going here. So 10 again. The mic is yours. I'll try to stay out of your way, but you know, I typically have follow up questions and everything. But remind us, this is just 10 buildings that we did not demolish. Well, I don't want to preach to you. I'm fine with talking back and forth if you want. The first one is a bit of a multiple building. Are we going again? I feel like I need to, we should have these meetings. This is number 10. 10 to 1, right? Okay. So this is number, I feel like David Letterman now, number 10.

I actually numbered them this time. So the Eaton Center and all the buildings it threatened. You and Adam Bunch touched on a little bit of this. Well, the church, I always think of the church that sort of, okay. That's the Church of Holy Trinity. Right. Hopefully I'm holding it up high enough here. But it also, also the scatting houses in there and the rectory of the church and Old City Hall.

You can probably go up a couple of points. Oh, okay, sure, there you go. And then, right about there? Here, I'm gonna angle the camera to make sure. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, you can, yeah. Nice. No, the other way.

Oh. I know. See, it is a TV show now, Jeremy. Okay, here we go, that's, yeah, that's great. I can see it. Okay, cool. So this doesn't really show much, but this is the proposal for what they wanted to actually do originally with the Eaton center. And it called for old city hall to be completely demolished. But at one point,

they said, well, we can spare the tower at least. So there's the tower sitting there in their plan. But yeah, it, it, they pretty much wanted to annihilate everything there. Wait, so the plan was to demolish Old City Hall. Yeah. Demolish Old City Hall. Demolish anything in that area. There was the old Eaton's building originally on the property and the Eaton's annex, which had a pretty horrible fire just before they ripped a lot of it down.

But yeah, the plan was to just raise the whole thing, start new. And wow, there was so much pushback, though. A group formed called a group was formed called the friends of old city hall they pushed right back and they had protests they had people out there washing the wall saying this place isn't that old just wash it it'll look good right yeah but that's true sometimes it's just uh from the coal yeah just the coal grind oh yeah by the 70s everything was covered in in coal dust and it's a that. Yeah, it had a brown look to it. So yeah, you just had to power wash it or chemical wash it. The big smoke, right? Oh definitely. Okay, so

that's a great rousing start. So a lot of things that have come out of this place since, the old City Hall got used for courts afterwards and there was also another person pushing back or who didn't want his building raised. He even prevented Eaton's from taking his building down. And that was a clothe on the very corner, the northwest corner of Queen and Young. And just recently they restored the building and you can see it now they've ripped all the siding off. But there used to be a tower records in there. I don't know if you remember that. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a much older building. And the person had a beef with Timothy and said,

no, I don't want you to have have my land. I'm never going to sell this and nobody ever will. And it's still there today, even though everything around it's been torn down. So fun fact, fun personal fact is my first marriage was at Old City Hall. Oh, incredible. Yeah. You said the courts and they do a justice of the peace, do a lot of weddings there at Old City Hall, including one of mine. And I am glad Coolerheads prevailed and we were able to save this building. Yeah, eventually Eaton's gave up the fight and said, you know, there's so much public

backlash, we don't want the bad press. And they change their plans. And thankfully there's a few things left over still. And the Church of the Holy Trinity, as far as music goes, the Trinity sessions were recorded there by the Cowboy Junkies in the 80s. Beautiful. And it's an amazing album, just sounds incredible. And I gave it a relist and it went, wow, yeah,

it's just great. And I think a lot of people got onto it in the 90s because of natural born killers. It became a prime scene where they're all sort of hallucinating and. Well, that'll do it. All of our stone. Absolutely.

Okay. Now I am working on Michael Timmons making his Toronto Mike debut. Oh Margo's brother. He's in the Cowboy Junkies. And we, cause we're well past the due date for doing a Cowboy Junkies and we because we're well past the due date for doing a Cowboy Junkies deep dive on Toronto Mike. Wow that'll be great. On that note I got to promote Friday's episode which is Honeymoon Suite live in the basement

like Honeymoon Suite. Incredible. Okay so we'll start we'll do Honeymoon Suite Friday and then we'll get Cowboy Junkies. I think Margot is a bit shy like I think she's a bit media shy. I think Michael does the heavy lifting when it comes to the the media stuff But obviously I would love Margot Timmons on Toronto Mike what a dream come true Love the Trinity sessions. Okay, we're off to a rousing start here And I'm wondering if I might shout out some partners now and then we'll just rock and roll with the next nine Let's do it. Okay, so my friend I told you about this last time you were on, but recycle my electronics dot CA. Have you gone there to find out where you drop off your old tech, old cables, old electronics?

I haven't gone personally, but I do know about it now. And Well, you're going to do it. That's your homework. We have this cable drawer that keeps getting jammed and it would be great because there's some old format cables there that just just they're just causing problems now. It's funny when you go through an old drawer of cables and you're like, oh, that's obsolete. Oh, that's obsolete. Like you're never going to use those old cables now. And it's like, oh, they changed that format.

They changed that format. It was like from six VCRs ago or something like that. So recycle my electronics dot see a also you received a did you receive a wireless speaker from Minaris last time? You were here? Yes, I did. And I subscribed to the podcast as well. Yes, we are open. And there's the finale just aired.

So Al Grego will come by very soon to kick out jams related to episodes from the season six of Yes, We Are Open, which is an award-winning podcast from Minaris. And in the season six finale, Al went all the way to Peterborough, Ontario, and he talked to Scott Stewart, who owns Kawortha TV and Stereo.

They've been fixtures in the city for over half a century. I've almost been a fixture in the city for a half a century, look at that. In that time, their industry has gone through countless disruptive technology changes. We talked about all those cables changing. They've been able to adapt and today they continue to provide their customers of top quality products and service.

So we're going to hear the story of Kawortha TV and stereo in the season six finale. I like listening to his show. It's very personal and you really get to the heart of a business through what he's doing. He inspires the heck out of me, that cuddly one, Al Grego. And I'm also inspired, my wallet is inspired by the Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada, hosted by Chris Cooksey. So subscribe and learn from their suite of experts

and professionals who give you great advice and best practices. So thank you to the good people at Raymond James Canada and their podcast is the advantage investor. Okay. So we've seen number 10 buildings that we did not demolish. Number nine, number nine, Casa Loma. Wow. Wow. A lot of people know about this and they just think, oh, it's Casa Loma. They don't really pay much attention to it anymore because it's just been on every school trip

and all that sort of thing. It's just there. It's just there. It's part of Toronto. It's just part of the hill. It's our castle, man. Yeah. So it's, yeah, very cool building though.

And lucky that we still have it. The Kiwanis Club took it over. For a little while when they were trying to figure out what to do with it after the city had taken hold of it, it actually became a hotel in the 1920s and you could stay there. And they had big bands playing and very romantic and they've sort of brought that back recently with a lot of the bands that are playing there in the park. Amazing. And then they've sort of brought that back recently with a lot of the bands that are playing there in the park Amazing now I often will you know bike in that neighborhood and go by it and there's always some kind of a activity Some kind of an event happening there. Yeah, I think we were lively than it was. Yeah, we might take it for granted

I think again we we all go there in the school trips and then you know, it's a tourist attraction in this city Quite a beautiful building and like nothing else in the city, but I had no idea it was almost demolished. Like I had no idea it needed to be saved. That sound, imagine they tore down Casa Loma. It's just a lot of upkeep and it's quite a complex when you go into the part that goes under the road to the stables that are just north of it.

It's quite a big property to take care of. So the same person that designed Old City Hall designed this, E.J. Lennox. It was built for Sir Henry Pellet, who was involved in the military and also electrical companies and a bunch of other companies. And eventually, I think he was basically a victim of tax. Toronto changed its tax laws all of a sudden.

Like Willie Nelson? Well, a little bit different. They changed their tax laws and he just couldn't afford it anymore and ended up losing so much money. And towards the end of his life, lived in his, I think his gardener's house. His gardener took pity on him and said,

oh, you can come and live over here. And that was it. He passed away and the city took hold of it. Wow, wow, wow, wow. So what's the name of this architect who is responsible for both the old city hall and Casa Loma, numbers 10 and 9 here? E.J. Lennox. He's very popular in the late 19th, early 20th century. It'd be funny if you just kicked out the ten buildings E.J. Lennox designed that we did not demolish. Hey, That might be a great idea for a future show because there's currently one at risk. Which one's at risk?

There's this one that's very close to U of T along I think it's College and it's on the south side. I forget what it was used for recently. I haven't really prepared notes on that one. No, no, but I know because I went to U of T a couple. A couple of, I know exactly, college. Yeah. Okay. So now I can dig into that, but hopefully we can save that one too. Yeah. It looked a lot like another one of his buildings called the Beard Building, which was torn down in the twenties, which was one of the first skyscrapers.

Wow. Okay. Full of knowledge. This is why you're a regular guest on Toronto Mike. Okay. So. Want to know another fun fact about Casa Loma? As many as you can bear me in. This is one I literally I've got a couple of couple

of clients in that neighborhood. So I often bike up that hill and and I go right by the thing and I'm like, this is cool that this is here. Well, during World War Two, it was secretly used to develop radar. So people were down in the in the bowels of it, developing radar to fight the good old Nazis back in World War II.

And it was secret. Nobody was allowed to go down there. It was hush hush. And there's a lot of places like that around the city that performed like that, including a place out in Leeside, which my great aunt worked at, and up to her dying day, wouldn't tell me anything about it. She said, Nope, it's still

not allowed to talk about it. Wow. Well, she took that to the grave. Yeah, she worked at research enterprises limited that also had a testing facility out in Scarborough and they used to fly planes by and see if they could pick it up on radar and test out all the new units. Is radar is that a word that an acronym like that stand for something? I'm trying to remember if radar is one of those words,

I'll have to Google this one. Might, I'm not sure. Well, listen, that's my job. While you're telling me these fun facts, I will Google it. Oh, I have it here. Okay, radio detection and ranging radar. Okay, so the raid rad and radar comes from radio Oh, the dar is detection and ranging so kind of yeah, so that's where the name the word radar comes really cool radio detection and ranging

I got to contribute something to these shows Jay. Oh, it can't be all you. I'm actually surprised I haven't looked it up now like why why didn't I look that up? It's it's such an anagram. It's such an anagram Okay, so now and and a taser. That's another one taser. Maybe tasers a guy's name or taser means something. I think taser actually is another word like that. There's all these words that are like, let's see taser name. So taser is simply an acronym for Tom A. Swift electric rifle. So it's too cool.

Yeah. And SCUBA of course, as everyone knows, it's a sub self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. I didn't actually have to Google that one. Everybody, I love words like that and their origins. Okay. All right. So now we are on number eight Number eight and we're cooking with gas here. You're late. So we're cooking with gas. Here we go. Speaking of gas

This is a gas station. I pass it all the time. I pass this is the joy. Yes So that was it near Windermere and Lake Shore in the mirror Lake Shore. Yeah, it used to be on the north side Right on the northwest corner. uh, right on the north west corner. Yeah. And then one day they picked it up and moved it. I'm glad you picked this one because I, they, they have it surrounded by a chain link fence on the chain link fence on the Martin Goodman trail. But I actually have memories. Do you know what year it was moved? Because I have memories of that gas station being there. Like this is my life. Like the eighties. I went down and took pictures of it just before it was moved to.

It was like late nineties, early two thousands. I thought it was earlier than that. But yeah, I remember this gas station joy being there at the wind and Aaron Bloor. Yeah, they had it on. I mean, when you're in, sorry, when you're in Lake Shore. That's, that's the one. And the company was a, well, it's the only remaining gas station out of the 16 that were in Toronto. And the reason I picked this to go just right after Casa Loma it sort of looks like a little castle. It's a chateau style. Unfortunately it's the only one left but it was nice that they had the foresight to go and save this. The only thing is they haven't really figured out what to

do with it since then. I've talked and tweet about this like it's nice that we saved this but like you know the fence around it is ugly, right? It's like and it's like, oh, I guess it's protecting it But at the same time, what's the point of it if you're just gonna it's like if you have furniture and you wrap it in The plastic I've never understood that like oh like what's the point of the furniture if you can wrap it in the plastic But this is a unique design that these gas stations had and I yet like you said there were there were a bunch of them and now there's one and somebody had the wherewithal to say hey maybe we'll preserve this one because they ain't making any more. Yes definitely they a

few people basically formed a committee and got together and put this towards or forward to council and then they eventually found some funding to move it and save it and they restored it nicely it's just yeah it looks like it's a an animal in a cage. It's just right it's been looks like it's a, an animal in a cage. It's just, it's been there on display for a while. But do you know what the plan is? No, it keeps changing. They keep wanting to have a restaurant in there. Um, they also, there used to be a, right along

the highway there, just as you came into Toronto, there was a, a, a welcome to Toronto sort of a, uh, information bureau station. They wanted to turn it into that maybe where you could get information on Toronto while you stop there. There's a lot of parking there, so you could stop and get some info on Toronto

and go for a ride. Great information. Now, because I don't wanna spoil anything that might come up, are we only, these 10, because this is number eight, all 10 are buildings, right? Yes, they are all buildings. Okay, so then I'm gonna shout out something we preserve

that's very close to where they put this gas station on the Martin Goodman trail of which I'm very familiar with, Jeremy. Okay, I would just like to shout out the lucky lion, okay? So it's because it's kind of off the beaten path. Like I have to, I just, I was biking home from the Blue Jay game with my 10 year old and I took us off the path by the dog park there and I said, hey, let's go see the lucky lion and explain like what was the lucky lion? Like what is it? And because you don't really see it from the Martin Goodman trail. You kind of have to know to go around the corner and see the lucky lion. But I'm glad we saved the lucky lion. I think it looks cool where it is.

Yeah. They kept expanding the Gardner and also the the Queen Elizabeth and so that's the entrance to the the QE right and It used to be right smack dab in the middle of the two lanes of the highway So you you know you could basically run into it But I think it got some damage over the years from salt and that number of things and they also wanted to expand the road So they moved it over and it was nice that they saved it there in the park So if people are looking for it, it's nice that they saved it there in the park. So if people are looking for it, it's like just a little bit east of the Humber Bay Bridge and then drop a little, go a little north, but don't go so north at your lake shore.

It's kind of nestled in there. Now that you know to look for it, you can actually see from the Humber Bay Bridge, you can see the top of it amongst the bushes and the trees and stuff like that. So go say hi to the lucky lion next time you're biking the Mardin Goodman Trail just east of the Humber Bay Bridge, which of course crosses the Humber River. There's a lot of neat monuments and buildings along that whole stretch of the bike path.

That's a future episode, Jeremy. We gotta pace ourselves here. Okay, so that was number eight, right? You got any more fun facts? I love it. Joy was the name of this company, right? Joy Oil Company. They were a discount brand and they tried to undercut

a lot of the other- Standard oil. Companies that they called the Big Bad Wolf. And they actually had advertisements with Snow White and the seven dwarfs and the pigs and the Big Bad Wolf coming for them. This also makes a brief appearance in David Cronenberg's Crash.

Oh. When you see someone skidding out and they go through a gas station, it's this gas station. And if car accidents make you horny, that's your movie, right? It's quite the movie, yeah. James Spader, right?

I'm trying to remember now. Yes, yes. I've seen Crash, it's been a while. Okay. All right. There you go, that's about all I have on that one. Anytime you can drop the name David Cronenberg in a Jeremy Hopkins episode of Toronto Mike,

I'm a happy guy. He's in Star Trek now too, in Discovery. He plays an omnipotent person that just shows up every once in a while and tells people what to do. That makes sense. I will shout out Dana Levinson, who had a small role in that very Star Trek series you're referring to right there. They do film it here in Toronto. And they recently filmed at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.

And yeah, it was kind of cool seeing that in there. Love it, J-Ho. Lots of Star Trek. I can call you J-Ho, right? Yeah, sure. Oh, yeah, because that the new City Hall has been used as like a futuristic building in Star Trek, right? Yeah, that goes back to the original Star Trek. Oh no, next gen, next gen. But they did have it in a comic book as well, I think earlier. Yeah, it's funny when you watch a movie and then suddenly to show some futuristic time,

they're like, okay, there's Nathan Phillips Square in the new City Hall. Yeah, it was groundbreaking architecture. And even now it still has a unique look that fits into any sci-fi. They're not demolishing that one, are they, Jeremy? No, there's no plans to demolish it. You can actually go visit the observation deck on top. The doors open this year. I mean, that's a fun fact. OK, now a couple of things.

So we did the first time you visited, we did the 10 Toronto buildings we did demolish. We talked about Maple Leaf Stadium, all these great buildings we demolished, but we shouldn't have demolished in our humble opinion. And now we're talking about the 10 buildings that we saved that we did not demolish, but we're at risk of being demolished. And now we're gonna just do number seven in a moment,

but we could do an episode where it's 10 buildings currently at risk. These are 10 right now that could be demolished if we don't take some sort of action. For sure, including one that has an anniversary today. Ontario Place was open today in 1971. Love it. Okay, there's a great one. That one, the Science Centre, there's a whole bunch we could do. but okay, there's a great one. That one, the Science Center, there's a whole bunch we could do on. Raymond Moriyama's Japanese Cultural Center,

the original one, it's under attack right now too. What about McLaughlin Planetarium? Planetarium. Say it again. Planetarium. Planetarium. With an M? Yeah.

You know what? I don't know what this is. Will somebody diagnose me if there's any speech therapists or linguistics? But anyway, McLaughlin Planetarium, is that at risk? It is at risk. They do. They have plans to replace it. And U of T wants to build a new building there, a new studies building there. So it's just it just hasn't gelled yet. I don't know why if it's funding or it's just getting the construction range. Can't we bring back a Laser Floyd or something? I loved my visit.

You know, you talked about we all visited Casa Loma in Grayskull, but we all visited the McLaughlin Planetarium as well. And I loved those visits. Oh, definitely, me too. And it just gave you this feeling of the universe and the spooky music and all of that, the whole mood of it, it just, it set a tone.

That's why our generation is the best, right Jeremy? I think so, yeah. And my generation keeps getting changed. Like they say it's, I'm a millennial one day and the next day I'm something else. Well, hey, what's your birth year? I'll tell you, because my wife is a cusp too. There's a cusp period.

But what is your birth year? 1977. You're gen X. Oh, okay. But people keep telling me now I'm a zeniel, which is like in between the two. Well, you're kind of in the cusp now I'm a zennial, which is like in between. Well, you're kind of in the cause. I think 77 to 81, 82, you're kind of a cuspy where you kind of can, you can relate to the gen X and you can relate to millennials. You are in the middle. You can call it zennial.

My wife is 81 and she's in that. Yeah, there you go. She's in that cuspy period. 83. You don't know your wife's age. Sorry. He's in that cusp period. 83. You don't know your wife's age. She keeps changing that birth year. I know what's going on there. Miss Hopkins, your secret is safe with me. I'm in trouble now. It's forever recorded.

I mixed it up. I'm not fixing that in post, okay? Thank you. You're no Ed Keenan. All right, let's move on to number seven. Okay, number seven. Should I get a voiceover person to record the numbers so it sounds bigger? Number seven. Or I get a voiceover person to record the numbers so it sounds bigger?

Number seven. Or you could do it. Here we go. This is the Campbell House. If you go to University and Queen on the northwest corner, this is sitting there, but it originally was over at Adelaide and Frederick. And this was the home of Chief Justice.

I think I said the cheese boutique. I was like, no, I think they moved from Wintemere and South Kingsway. The Chief Justice of Upper Canada, before this was Ontario, Sir William Campbell. So the Law Society and the City of Toronto got together, I believe, and picked it up and moved it one day, as is.

They didn't disassemble any of it. They just lifted it up and carted it over. I love it when they do that. Like that's cool, right? Where you just kind of pick up a place and I'm not gonna name a place that came up pretty recently it came up. I believe it came up with Adam Bunch I think.

By the way, what did you think of the Adam Bunch episode? I thought it was great. You guys hit it off. It was pretty cool. Well, we hit it off, but you and I have hit it off too. But I don't, so I'm gonna hold on to a couple of buildings to see if they make your top 10 before I spoil them. But I do like that, pick up the house

and drop it somewhere else. Yeah, it's a tricky operation to do. You have to find a moving company that's experienced with it. I've seen companies even move lighthouses and I just, I couldn't believe it that they move something like that without toppling it. One house up in Markham near Markham Road,

just north of Steeles. Unfortunately, something happened and they weren't able to do that and the whole house fell apart. We were kind of upset about seeing that. Well, that's the risk. I envision like a big flatbed truck or something that's got a house on it and then it just crashes down.

It's like, oh, oops. There's one house in Scarborough that I know about where Jim Carrey used to live and his dad worked at this company called Titan Wheel. And that was another case where they wanted to rip the building down, but they decided to save it. And instead of picking it up, they actually constructed a bit of a railroad and put the tracks through the windows in the basement, picked it up, moved it there. And it became a house for the maintenance person who was Jim Carrey's dad.

Wow. Wow. Okay. That's, you know, any house that Jim Carrey lived in becomes a historical site. Yeah. I say. Okay. Very cool. Campbell House. Yeah. This is the Campbell House. So how close did it become? Like this was a, we're going to demolish this and people just rose up. They had rallies. What happened? This one didn't really have that much of a rally

and protest, but it was in obscurity. It was a factory for a number of years and it was just sort of huddled there in industry and nobody really knew that much about it. And people just got together. The law society has big pockets as well. And there you go. Yeah, I bet you they got deep pockets.

Okay. amazing. Love the fun facts. In 1974, the Queen Elizabeth opened this as a museum and it's a museum. I think it's open this year for doors open, but I'm not sure. Well, it's celebrating its 50th anniversary as a museum. Oh, there you go.

I only know that because I know everything's turning 50. That's from 1974. Yeah, and that was in June 28th. You know what's funny? That's the day after, well, TMLX 15 is June 27th for a reason. That is the, that's a historical fact. You got a big space.

What happened on that day in 1974. Shout out to St. Joseph's Health Center, which still stands. Nice. It still stands thanks to the Ballard Wing, okay? The one good thing Harold Ballard did for this city. Okay, love it. Love it.

There you go. All right, number six. Well, it would seem that this photo has fallen off. Oh! It's a dark photo. It was at night it was taken. Oh, but look, I drew it on the back. Okay.

This is the Canadian Pacific Roundhouse that used to be, or that is still in Toronto at the foot of John Street. It was called the John Street Roundhouse by a lot of people. And I actually knew some people who worked at this building back in the day, repairing locomotives and getting them ready for riding on the rails. Amazing.

It was built in 1929 and up to 31, but it also, sorry. Is that your artist's rendering? Bad drawing. It's not bad. Did you draw that? It's pretty bad. It's pretty good. Better than I could do.

I just did it quick because I was like, oh my God, the photo's gone, where'd it go? But it's now the Toronto. CQR Roundhouse. The centre, two of the stalls are now the Toronto Railway Museum. It was also home to Leon's and Steamless O'Berry, but that

originally wasn't the intent. When people came forward they wanted a full railway museum and all these stalls were supposed to be filled with locomotives and cars and all that sort of thing. Sadly little by little they got whittled down to only two stalls in the roundhouse and they also built a parking lot underneath so certain railway locomotives you're not even able to park there anymore because there's weight restrictions now. So it's yeah it's kind of I think they're just like me they're just celebrating what has been given to them and that it's actually still there because real estate in downtown Toronto is very valuable. But the brewery is still there, the brewery is there right? Oh yeah the brewery is there but originally it was just supposed to be all a railway museum that was enclosed over

the top. Gotcha. Okay. Now, for those, you know, if you've ever been to a baseball game at the dome, then you've probably, you've definitely seen this. This is right across the street from the dome there at Bremner. Yeah. And it's also open for Doors Open Toronto.

You can go and check it out and they have a lot of the history and quite a few things out in the park that you can go and check it out and they have a lot of the history and quite a few things out in the park that you can go on and there's even a little train ride that you can bring kids on and the whole family. Yeah, because they definitely have the old railway cars and stuff outside, right? Yeah. Yeah, definitely there. There's a popular restaurant, people going like up north, I guess, Highway 11, I guess it's off of Webbers, right?

You know Webbers, right? Or is it W Weber's? I always had that mixed up. But bottom line is, I remember this is going back to the eighties now, I'm sure it's still the case. But when my buddy had a cottage in Huntsville and we would stop at Weber's or Weber's, depending on which way you lean. And you could eat in these old rail cars. I remember that was a cool thing. They had a whole bunch of old rail cars You could eat your fries and burgers. Yeah, I used to go to To a couple places. There was one down. Oh boy, where was that down on Lakeshore very close to

Fairly close to the dawn and there was a bunch of railway cars there and you sort of traveled through that but there was also a couple up in Leaside and there was a Leaside, a Canadian Pacific run Leaside restaurant that was inside of these old business cars and the old railway station which just recently was torn down. Right. Yeah. So there was a few things like that around but little by little they've even those have disappeared. They're disappearing. That's why we're going to raise awareness here. All right, Jeremy Hopkin, let's review number five. Number five, the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre. Oh, very good. OK, very good.

This is amazing that this survived because it was in obscurity for so long. But the it was built in 1913. It's now the last surviving pair of Edwardian stack theatres in the whole world. So it's a the last surviving pair of Edwardian stack theaters in the whole world. So it's a World Heritage Site, it's also, yeah, North America Heritage Site all over. But this was Marcus Lowe's flagship theater and in both there was, well, after a while the movies took off and vaudeville wasn't so much popular anymore so they actually closed off the top floor for years and just had the theater open on

the main floor and in 1928 is when the the upper theater closed it's beautiful today oh yeah they've done an incredible amount of restoration on this building and it just brought it right back to how it was a lot of people had consultation in it I think even Milton Berle came by to say he... Hung like a horse, you know this, right? Yeah. Is that in your cards? No, no, that's not in the cards. I just remember that one. But he, as a kid, used to perform at Vaudeville houses and this was one of the ones he performed in. So he came by to give his two cents and check it out. So he was in the press. The Ontario Heritage Trust still runs it today as a theatre and has a lot of tours going on there for doors open and all that sort

of thing. Well, I've seen a bunch of stuff there, but I want to shout out the Conan O'Brien taping I was at at that location. You were there. In 2003, I think it was. I watched that on TV. Yeah. I was at the one with Adam Sandler as the, uh, the primary guest and Stomp and Tom Connors. He actually ticks me off because Stomp and Tom

did the hockey song, but he talked about, I remember he talked about the, the finals. I'm trying to remember now at the time, I think the finals he, in his song was Detroit and Toronto for the Stanley cup or something. But it was at a time when we were in the, the same conference and I felt like it should be historically possible.

Like it should be a possible final. Uh, was like, Stomp and Tom, that's impossible. They would meet in the conference final. Oh man, he, yeah, Stomp and Tom was a character. Well now we need to shout out FOTM Duncan Fremlin, Banjo Dunk, who continues to keep the spirit of Stomp and Tom alive with his live shows. So shout out to Banjo Dunk. Oh, cool. Yeah, keeping it alive. That's what you're doing, too. You're keeping it alive. So I didn't realize we came close to destroying that beautiful building on Yonge Street. Yeah, there's there's always some risk of that happening. But some forward thinking people got ahold of it and

just made it amazing. Also, I'll shout out Cynthia Dale, you know, the Cynthia Dale who went to my high school shortly before I got there. And her one woman show I saw there. So I think that might be the last time I was in that building. But every time I'm in that building, I'm thinking to myself, God, this is a gorgeous building. I'm glad we didn't demolish it.

That's what I'm thinking. Same here. That's right. All right, my friend, we're doing great here. Cool. You ready to show me number four on the list of Toronto buildings we did not demolish. This is a feel good episode. Yeah. I had to make up for the last episode because I felt bad after it. This is a good or him and words. Now this is of course multiple buildings, but it was founded in 1869, a little further west, but by like, sorry.

Someone named Gooderman? Maybe someone named Wirtz? Gooderham and Wirtz, yeah. It was James Wirtz and his brother-in-law William Gooderham. Quick, I'm going to interrupt for a stupid tangent, but I was the captain of my W5H team in grade school and we did very well actually. I'm here patting a stupid tangent, but I was the captain of my W5H team in grade school, and we did very well, actually. I'm here patting myself in the back.

We did very well, but one of the questions I was asked, I remember they said, "'Who invented Rolls Royce?' or something like that. And my answer was, Mr. Rolls and Mr. Royce. And the judge gave it to me. Oh my God, that's amazing. Which was just me not having a clue, but realizing that's my best go here is that this is someone named Rolls and Royce. And I got it right so there back to you.

It very easily could have been just his first name right? Roy and Rolls. Cars Roll. Right so it's like but I had no other play because I didn't know. I said Mr. Rolls and Mr. Royce and he had a moment of like I I guess I have to accept that you don't need the first name. So there you go. So ghost stories surrounding this place because of Mr. Warts his wife passing away in childbirth. So he was so distraught. He actually flung himself into the windmill well and died. So after that, it's a hell of a way to go. It is. And yeah, it was some, there's some ghost stories surrounding that, but Hiram Walker eventually merged with them. And also

a gentleman by the name of, by the name of Harry Hatch bought it one year and he was very much into horse racing and he actually had a covered racetrack so that he could train his horses all winter round and that was in Scarborough so he would do that and also bet on yeah bet on horses. How long ago is that? That's uh... 1923. Okay because I happen to know Peter Gross made big money on that race. Oh my god he looks a lot younger than he is. He's a vampire. So say Gooder, so if you're talking to just an average Joe, which is me by the way,

Gooder Ham and Ward's, I think of the distillery district. Oh, sorry, yes. It is the distillery district now. They saved it and it was for a while there, they weren't sure what was gonna happen with it because they thought there's such a cool collection here of all areas of buildings because it started in the 18, um,

18 thirties, but also it just, every year they would build on it. So there's some places there that are some buildings there that are from the 18 fifties, the big stone building that's there on the south side is one of the older ones. It completely went on fire, but because it's built in out of stone, they just rebuilt it again in

record time. Why didn't Buffalo do that? Like, like why didn't they's built in out of stone they just rebuilt it again in record time. See why didn't Buffalo do that? Like why didn't they just build everything out of stone? Irv Weinstein would have had a lot less to report on. Well you know before he'd ask do you know

where your children are he'd be like fire. Do you know how many fires we have tonight? Yep. Pretty much. All right here's some earlier in this excellent episode of Toronto Miked with Jeremy Hopkins,

the official Toronto Mic'd historian, we talked about Old City Hall and I shared the fun fact that I got married there. So I'm now here to tell you, Jeremy Hopkins, I got married at the distillery district. So two of your 10 buildings, yeah, at the Arda gallery. That was about 11 years ago. That's so cool. Two marriage places. Amazing. She's almost, am I? Oh, is it? Yeah, it'll be 11 years in June. Oh, congratulations. Thank you very much. Very nice. It's a great place to get married. It's a beautiful place. They've done a really good job of making it a nice place to be. Very photogenic. There's lots of great photos from that day and I'm glad we didn't demolish because that distillery district is beautiful in the 90s

Just after well in the close down in the 80s, I guess good or him in words But in the 90s, I used to just wander around this place It wasn't really hard to get into and take photos and just check it out And when they restored it, I took some shots the opening year, which I can't believe was like 20 years ago now and But I also remember just seeing it in movies, like the very first X-Men movie. Okay. You look at the Auschwitz camp or wherever it is

where Magneto is as a kid, he grabs the fence with his magnetic powers and they knock him in the head. Right. That's right in the main drag in the distillery district. They just made it look like a prison. Here's a future episode for you. It's Toronto, great film locations in Toronto, like big scenes and big movies, and this is where it was filmed.

Oh, I would love to do something like that. That's a great theme. Maybe that's the next one. Oh, if you want, sure. I'll start gathering up the info. Okay. I feel like we have all our on-air meetings, sorry sorry all our off-air meetings on air, which I quite like sweet amazing gooderham and words And they recently like maybe recently like ten years ago or maybe five years ago. They reintroduced a Whiskey for gooderham and words They gave it the gooderham awards name and and you can actually buy gooderham and words brew now

Even though it's made by another company. Okay, because I see on your card here it says Canadian Rye Whiskey. Yeah. I think they still make that. Yeah, Canadian Rye Whiskey. Staring right at it. I have it on video. For a number of years they made Canadian Club there.

There used to be that big sign up for years. Amazing. While we're talking about history, we're going to go to number three in a moment here. But many times on this program, I have mentioned my neighbor Bojana and she's still going strong. You were late, so I had a long chat with her. She's 88 years young and she's just fit and she had me feel her bicep today to show me how strong she was. Wow.

But forever I've been referring to her as a woman of Polish descent who immigrated from Poland and I found out today I was in her basement and I was asking her some questions about some stuff and she, it turns out she was raised on a farm, not in Poland, she was raised in Croatia. So I feel now like this is like we, everything has changed. I've altered the history of this podcast that Bojana is Croatian, not Polish. So my apologies to everyone I've altered the history of this podcast that Bojana is Croatian, not Polish. So my apologies to everyone I've offended with this mistake I've made for the last decade. But having you as the official Toronto Mike historian is not a mistake.

And now we're going to look at number three. Sweet. This is St. Lawrence Hall. It's on, doors open pretty much every year, but it's still a fun place to go and just check out this beautiful architecture on the inside. It was a meeting hall ever since it began. A lot of politicians went there to do debates and just have meetings and meet with the public. It was very important for that matter to the point where it became the endpoint of the very first streetcar that we had in Toronto. The very first streetcar started from Yorkville Town Hall, went all the way down Yonge Street, made a turn and came to this building. And we were actually going to demolish that beautiful

building. And look at what the top, what we've got going on. I don't know the proper names for these things because I'm just a caveman. These words confuse me. I guess we can just say clock tower or cupola. Whatever the hell that is, it's cool. A lot of Roman pillars around it. Yeah, it's just very beautiful. William Thomas was the architect. It's built in the Italian Renaissance style. He was very influenced by that style.

And the National Ballet from the 1870s called it home. And by the 1960s, it was looking a little rough, just as everything else in in Toronto was because of all the coal and all that stuff. And they actually decided in 1967 to do this, fix it as a centennial project. So they did. And which means getting a power washer more than a power washer. They wanted to they wanted to do some right fixing the inside But yeah, it could have used a good power washing I don't think they had power washers back then just did they they had an elephant would blast the water at the wall. Yep

So unfortunately when they were doing the best thing for this and trying to restore it they collapsed half of it. Oh The whole somebody lost a job that day. This whole East wing here just fell. It just went. Imagine when you're doing it and you see it coming down, how do you feel? You're like, oh snap. At least nobody was in the building at the time,

nobody got hurt, but they're looking at the pieces like, should we just demolish it now? And no, they pushed through and they got some extra funding. They just, and they were determined to do it and they restored it. They tried to I guess they picked up as many of the sculptures and the things that they could salvage and built a new building. But you don't even notice it today. It just looks like it's all old.

I referenced this last time you were here, but I spent because I used to work for a German software company. I spent a lot of time in Frankfurt and they got ravaged during World War Two Frankfurt and they rebuilt to look like it looked like it. So it's like we're just going to rebuild these buildings. So they're not the same building, but they look exactly like they would have looked in 1942. Yeah, they had some good records and some plans still saved over. So they were half of St. Lawrence Hall or whatever is demolished, you can just recreate it. But I do have a fun fact from the live stream. We're live at live.torontomike.com. Canada Kev says,

in the 1980s, his high school semi-formal was at St. Lawrence Hall. Oh, beautiful. He says, the drunk teenagers were not admiring the building like we all are right now. It was probably pretty dark. You couldn't really see much of it when you were in there, I'm guessing. I don't know. Canada Kev, we need more, we need, probably has no memory of this night knowing Canada Kev, okay. I didn't know they did formals in that building.

I thought it was reserved for just, you know, shows. Okay, speaking of, because, you know, we need Robert Lawson to check that Canada Kev was there, but, uh, but earlier today I made a appearance on humble and Fred's podcast and I was asking them because I had talked to John Gallagher yesterday, John Gallagher, great episode of Toronto mic'd. I phoned him in Halifax. I recorded the whole thing and John tells a story about Labatt Brewing Company giving each member of the morning show 20,000 Canadian dollars if they didn't say the word Molson for a year. So Labatt said, here's 20,000 John Gallagher, so long as you don't say the word Molson on

Q107 for an entire year. John just told the story. So I shared the story in Humble and Fred and I asked Humble and Fred the obvious question, which is, did you ever receive money to do something like that on the air? Like kind of like a, a payola thing, kind of like a legal payola, if you will. And Humble and Fred said no, and they don't believe John Gallagher did either. So now I know, I know this is, well, this is just now, um, there, uh, John Gallagher did either. So now I know, I know. So this is, well, this is just now, um, there, John Gallagher said everyone on the morning team. So Scruff Connors was the morning show guy.

He is no longer with us. So that secret went to the grave, uh, shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. But there's a couple more Jeff Chalmers, I believe a woman named Donna Saker, who are still with us, still alive and well, and can confirm or deny that the John Gallagher story. So now I'm going to do a little investigative reporting, get a hold of a Donna Saker or Jeff and find out, did you get 20,000 is John telling the truth here? So I'm going to try to corroborate the story, but just speaking of things. So Canada, Kev says it was ornate in very old-fashioned. He remembered a lot of tall windows with white curtains in the ballroom.

And that's it, yeah. So his memories are hazy from a good night in the 80s, but he does remember enough that he's got back up. He said his wife was there and she can confirm this. Cool, well, I wasn't calling him a liar, but. No, no, no, no. That's amazing. No, Canada Kev, by the way, might be next to Peter Gross, might be the most honest man

I've encountered. So can you volunteer as lots of information, right? He does not embellish or lie. And John, by the way, too, is because I've known John Gallagher for a long time. He does embellish, but he doesn't lie. Like I believe he might make 10,000, 20,000, but the story would be a true story. Like he wouldn't just invent a story that he got money from LeBat for not saying Molson. The bones are good.

Yeah, the bones will be intact. So, you know, this did happen, I believe, but I got to find out if it was $20,000 because that story blew my mind. I've never heard anything like it. If you find out it's true, are you going to go to Great Lakes Brewery and say, Hey guys, you're lacking in your game. You should have thrown me a bit more money. Your independent craft brewery income ignorance is showing. OK, OK.

But let us see here. Oh, any more fun facts about St. Lawrence? St. Lawrence Hall. A lot of people think when you say St. Lawrence Hall that it's St. Lawrence Market, but it's not. It's just St. Lawrence Market is A lot of people think when you say St. Lawrence Hall that it's a St. Lawrence Market, but it's not. It's just St. Lawrence Market is just south of there and St. Lawrence Market was originally the Toronto's

City Hall basically before Old City Hall. But they were never gonna demolish that building, were they? Or am I stealing your thunder for the time being? They've only kept the front of it really, but a lot of it has been demolished. That's a big move. I noticed that move where you keep the front wall kind of stays intact. I see that in a bunch of places. That's happening in so many places. The facades of places is rampant and I find so much charm on the interiors.

I really wish they wouldn't do that. But it's better than blowing it all up. At least you keep the outer shell in some regard. Yeah. The thing is, though, if I saw a modern office building inside of this building, it just it's just not the same. Well, it's like when you go to a hockey game at the Scotiabank Arena, right? Like it's like the old post office facade and then you're inside and it's like, oh, OK.

This is this is modern. OK it's like, oh, okay. This is modern, okay. All right, Jeremy, amazing. Are you ready for, again, the penultimate? This is the penultimate building that Toronto did not demolish, but it was a close call possibly. Yeah, well, this could have been a close call because it's just a log cabin.

I was gonna ask you, that's the one I was gonna ask you about because I talked to Adam Bunch about this one. This is a scatting cabin. It was built in 1794 It's the oldest building still standing in Toronto There's one building in Scarborough on the guild in grounds that people were thinking maybe was a little bit older It was the Osterhout cabin. That was a surveyors cabin, but even if it was his they're not sure So it's a little bit of a mystery Well, I need to interrupt with all the wedding stories,

which is FOTM Hall of Famer, Cam Gordon got married at the Guild last summer and I was there and there's a lot of cool stuff going on there. It's a beautiful place and they've done a lot of work around the grounds there. The Guild park is just incredible. So tell me, I mean, I'm sure this is in your notes,

but where was the scatting cabin before it was relocated to the C&E grounds? It was on Queen, just off Queen Street, near the banks of the Don River. And in 1879, the York pioneers got an idea of moving it and they brought it to the Industrial Exhibition Grounds, which is now the C&E. And it's been there ever since 1879 on the same spot. So there's some shots where you can see all of these buildings in behind that were at the CNE back in the day, like the Crystal Palace, long gone,

but the cabin's still there. Yeah, another location I bike by often on the CNE grounds there, not far from the Banshell, which I would just put this into the universe, that if you are an FOTM, who would like to see Cypress Hill at the Toronto Festival of Beer, this is at the C&E band shell. I don't have the dates in front of me right now.

You can Google it. Just send a note to Mike at torontomike.com. So I know you want to go because I'm going to try to see if I can get some FOTM's complimentary tickets to see Cypress Hill at Banshell, which I think would be very cool. And then you can see the scatting cabin for yourself. Yeah, there's a few monuments around there too. There's a monument to Fort Rouille, which was the fort, the French fort that was here before Fort York that the French abandoned before the English came in. And a few other, yeah, the Banshell and a few other cool little spots there.

before the English came in. And a few other, yeah, the band shell and a few other cool little spots there. Amazing. And you can see where I used to manage the pop-a-ball for Ardo Godaro, who would scare the shit out of me. And last October, I did an episode of Ardo and His Son. And I've been at peace with the world ever since. Life is now good.

I've faced my fears in the eyes and I live to tell the tale. Nice. And recently they had some dry rot happening in some of the bottom beam, some, some pretty bad rots discovered in 2022. They've since restored it and it's open again this year for doors open. Scatting cabin. Yeah. Scatting cabin. Not my papa ball. Not the papa ball. Not the papa ball. I'm glad that was the one I had a mental note to ask you about, scatting cabin.

Did it come close to demolition? But that's another one where they moved the whole thing. So that's quite a journey that cabin took. It was moved by horse and wagon and they partially disassembled it. I think they took the roof off and then moved it in two pieces or something like that. So here's a question.

If you dismantle a cabin log by log and then reassemble it at a new location, is it still the original cabin? I don't know. That's a philosophical question that you can ponder when you think about the sound of one hand clapping. It's also, you know, it's another thing about good bones where a lot of times it's just the frame that's left over and they've had to replace the whole outside and it's not quite the same but it has the flavor. One more wedding story for you which is that

Canada Kev's friend got married at the right beside the cabin at the Bandshell on the CNE Grand so a lot of these buildings are tied to either FOTM or FOTM adjacent weddings or TM weddings we'll leave the F-O out of it. So amazing, amazing contributions on the live stream. Heavy lifting by Basement Dweller and Canada Kev today, but they're kicking ass. I'm glad you guys can make it out, even though I was so late.

I'm recording the video too. So if you're hearing this, you're like, I never saw it. I wasn't on the live stream. I promised to put this on the Toronto Mike YouTube channel so people can check this out. I've had my head so buried in Leeside Aerodrome stuff lately. I've been neglecting my promotions. I even had a video almost ready for this and I didn't do it. I noticed you're losing steam here. But for the next one about the, I don't know, movie locations or whatever we're gonna do Toronto. Yeah, that one.

I've got some cooking in my head already that I want to. Yeah, me too. That I want to blurt out. I've been thinking too. So I'm excited about that one. All right. We'll pick a nice date in the next quarter. Make it a quarterly visit from Jeremy Hopkins. We have one to go. Thanks again for letting me come early to promote Doors Open.

That's, it was very nice. Okay. So remind everybody before we kick out this, we're kicking this out now. we're kicking out the last building that Toronto did not demolish, but was considering demolishing. Please, one more time, where and when should FOTM show up to see what you've curated for Doors Open Toronto? Well, on May 25th and 26th,

I'm going to be at Motorista Studio, and basically we're behind the red doors that you see on Commercial Road. If you go on the south side of Commercial Road and come inside, you'll see a gallery. This is a little memento that we're gonna be handing out to everybody. And this is a little taste of what's there at Motorista

and on the back. Look at this, look at the great work you're doing. There's a car that we have that's a bit of a mascot now. It's in a lot of our events, it's a 1947 Cadillac Fleet Line. And it turns out this was only a block away from my house for years and I didn't know. And I checked it out and I'm like, is this the car that I knew back in 2007? It's the exact same car. Wow. And Motorista Studio? Yeah, Motorista Studio.

Okay, it's 25 Commercial Road by the way. It's an event venue. Basically, they're diverse in the type of events they have there. They've had weddings there. They've had all about the events. It's just it basically anything, but it has a nice rustic feel on the inside that almost looks like an airplane hanger from back in the day. Yeah, it looks gorgeous. Okay, motorist, a studio dot ca. if you want to learn more about that leaside aerodrome. Okay, amazing. I'm Impressed by your work there handy some of these here I got a doors open map for you and one of our our brochures and all that kind of stuff You can have those I've got extra if you want to hand out any in the car Yeah

Well amazing. This is all excellent stuff. I got the event map for doors open. This is coming up May 25 and 26. We're recording right now on May 22, so we're going to get this news out to the FOTM's ASAP. You should put a note in the FOTM WhatsApp group. Make sure everybody knows what's going on there. Oh, yeah, for sure. All right. I see Basement D dwellers already seen how we can get there via public transit. Yeah. Unfortunately, we don't have the cross town ready yet for you, but they were evergreen

statement. They were actually planning to build a streetcar out to the aerodrome back in 1917 and it never gelled because the war ended. But finally we might have one. Hopefully the next war doesn't end. I hope there's no other world war. Well, I have a feeling if we have another world war, it'll have an ending for all of us. There you go. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home.

That's when the raccoons take over because they're the next sentient being that's going to rise up, right? Oh, well, they're already smarter than we are. So it's already happened. It's like, forget, I always see a planet of the apes and I'm like, what are you talking about? It's a planet of the raccoons. Are we smarter than we are. So it's already happened. It's like, forget, I always say, I have a planet of the apes and I'm like, what are you talking about? It's a planet of the raccoons.

Okay, they're way smarter than these guys. At least we're friends with them. We put them on t-shirts and stuff. Maybe they'll think we're okay and they'll keep us as pets. Raccoon Nation. Yeah, who's the boss? That's what I say.

Who's the boss? And by the way, who's the boss? And this has been covered by communities. So I feel like I'm stealing a bit from them, but I always thought that was a ridiculous question. Angela's the boss. She literally paid Tony. Like Tony was an employee of Angela.

Who's the boss? I think it's Angela Bauer. But he was the boss of her heart though, right? So. Oh yeah. I know who, you know who's the boss of my heart was that Samantha Maselli. I think we were about the same age.

Samantha. And an early crush for me when I wasn't crushing on not so age appropriate Daisy Duke. Oh yes. Daisy Duke was an older woman, but I was very enamored with Daisy Duke where I had sheets bought at the byway on a net just east of Jane. There was a byway and that's where I had Dukes of Hazard Sheets and on that pillowcase one side was like Bo and Luke and the other side was Daisy Duke. I always slept on Daisy. If I had that today and maybe I gotta see if I had that today I'd still be my wife would be oh you gotta sleep on that Daisy Duke I'm like yes I do I need to sleep in. We loved watching that show with my dad

because he found Roscoe Peacole Train just hilarious. Roscoe Peacole Train, what? Pumper suit is coming at you. He had Flash. Just loved it, loved it. Yeah, Roscoe Peacole Train was great. Flash was the name of the hound dog. And Cooter, the tow truck driver.

And just, and every once in a while, they'd have a musical guest and yeah all over good times in the 80s. Oh amazing, Boss Hogg of course was a great villain if you will and I mean I teased the fact that Rob Pruss and Bob O'Lett are going to be in the basement on Sunday for the next toast. Oh I love toast. For many manyast is great. And I called them Coy and Vance for a long time because the original Toast members were the aforementioned Cam Gordon and Stu Stone. Yep. Right there.

And he's hiding in the bushes of Robert Lawson, by the way. But you know, of course, Coy and Vance, when they had the contract dispute with Bo and Luke and the cousins showed up, not as popular. No, no, not at all. It just wasn't the same after that. This also introduces an interesting topic about being, what's the term, there was a hybrid, LL Cool J and a country musician

had a song called Accidental Racist. And the country musician sang about wearing his Leonard Skinner T-shirt, which had the Confederate flag on it. And how he didn't know it was just something in the south that they kind of pumped up as a southern US thing and he had this Lennon Skinner thing and I always think about the fact that yeah I played with a General Lee with a confederate flag on the roof. I didn't know what that was.

I had a General Lee big wheels as well and we got some nice shots of that. You lived the life Jeremy Hopkins. I envy you. I love the big wheels as well and we got some nice shots of that. Dude, you lived the life. Jeremy Hopkins, I envy you. I love the big wheels. Speaking of the cars that were just a block away, we had a guy with a General Lee on the next street over and every once in a while he'd blow by with it and we'd go like, we'd run out. He probably had the horn going. He had the horn and everything and he'd blast that for us and we loved it. I bet you he had the Confederate flag on that roof too. Yeah, they all do.

Pretty much. They all did. Now they paint it over. Even though I still have the diecast one Confederate flag on the front. But back then it was more of an aura of like, oh, the old south and like there was sort of a, you know, everyone reminiscing about it, but they neglected the whole slavery thing. Well, I never learned it. I don't know about you, but they neglected the whole slavery thing. I don't know about you, but in my grade school, we didn't have, in the history classes, we didn't go

through the minutiae. We knew about the Civil War and slavery and stuff, but we didn't talk about what the Confederate flag was. I don't know. I missed it anyways. A lot of the symbols are being ripped down now by people that are very offended by everything. a lot of the symbols are being ripped down now by people that are very offended by everything and a lot of the statues are going the way of the dinosaurs. So it's yeah, it's people are turning over a new leaf and trying to rid themselves of these negative symbols. Well, hopefully we don't turn on the wonderful lions and get rid of the lucky lion that I talked about earlier. But and speaking of things we didn't get rid of, we have one more to go, right, Jeremy? Yeah, the number one. This is the number one Toronto building that we did not demolish.

So pat ourselves on the back. What is this one, Jeremy? This one is currently known as College Park. OK, I guess. And it might not seem like a number one. It's not like the number one on any list, but. Except yours. Except mine. It's number one today just one on any list, but. Except yours. Except mine.

It's number one today just because of something I brought today to show you. Oh wow. Wow. And this was originally Eaton's College Street Store. And it was going to be much bigger than it is today. Today it's only this part below the line. Right.

They were going to build a full skyscraper and this was only one quarter of it in the line. Right. There were they were going to build a full skyscraper, and this was only one quarter of it in the corner. So they were going all the way like they were originally going to do a city block and have a skyscraper out the top. Great Depression hits kills the plans. They're like, no, we can't do it. It won't be in our budget. So they just made the store part.

And this one story extension that went all the way over to the next road yeah and over on this way but this eventually was demolished that was eventually demolished so oh you brought something I don't know if you want me to know if you want to hold it like I can hold it like this but one day I was what am I looking at Jeremy Hopkins I was at an I was on an online auction and I checked out some stuff on it because they had some Leeside aerodrome things in it and it was a an estate sale where the person used to work at Canada wire cable and Leeside and they had a bunch of promotional things and history of the area but then there was this thing there they had no idea what the

heck it was and I just kept looking at it and looking at it and thinking, I know that that pattern from somewhere, this pattern, it's got to be something. And I just kept thinking and thinking about it. It's art deco. It's got this look. And I went, that's from the Eaton's College Street Store. What? These are rosettes from the store windows. Jeremy, I'm just processing everything, maybe for the people listening to us, again, we're gonna name all the ways they could be listening to us. They could be on a walk,

they could be on a bike ride, they could be on a run, they could be working out, they could be making dinner, they could be in the car dropping their kids off at school, they could be on a road trip. I'll stop right there. But what the heck? Describe it. So this is like a, it's a circle. It's a, it's a circle. It's got some heft to it. That's a decorative. I think it's bronze. I'm not sure maybe Rosette that would decorate they have these all the way around the windows The sales windows at the old Eaton's College Street Store so when you were going up to look at things in the display windows these would decorate all the way around and the

The part of the store that they built only one story, it came down in the 1970s when they came up with the College Park sort of living arrangement, well, living and retail. Oh, I'll take that back. Absolutely. Yeah, they came up and they basically tore these one story parts that were supposed

to be another part of the skyscraper. They tore them down and then people took mementos like this and it eventually ended up with you like that is a wild it found its way into his hands and he made this pedestal for it to look as a like a decoration on the table. But it's really impractical. It's it's actually kind of annoying to have around. But yeah, I actually got a piece of this building. So I'd like to keep little mementos like this. And I'm in an apartment, so I can't keep as much as I used to be able to keep. But it's one of the things that I have in my collection that I just thought I'd actually bring a piece of one of these buildings that was saved,

but partially torn down because of it just wasn't built to its ultimate what it should have been. That's a wild picture there. This is that explains why this was your closer and I just think you need to hold up for the photo you're going to take by the tree. You're going to you're going to you're going to hold one of them up or something in your hand for the tree. Okay, I'll hold it up for the tree.

We need to see that. And I got to say you're two for two We could use you on the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. Great. Okay. I thought it was getting a little awkward there with this thing cuz But I'm glad that you're you know, I'm glad you like it. You kidding me You I'm digging it big time here and I can't wait for your next appearance and I want to thank you for I know you were late because a bunch of stuff going on, but we got the most amazing hour out of you. And I can't wait for your next appearance on Toronto Mike.

Oh, incredible. Thank you so much, Mike. I had a great time. Kev wants to show you his grandfather's ring that Eden's gave him because he, Timothy Eden gave this ring to all employees who fought in World War II. Oh, amazing.

Solid gold. How about we do this at TMLX15, Kev? I would love to see that. So Canada Kev bring, by the way, now a bunch of guys are going to come to rob Canada Kev when they find out he has a solid gold ring on him here. So maybe we should be a bit more discreet, but you guys can chat it up in person on June 27 at Great Lakes Brewery. Everyone's invited, no need to RSVP, no need to buy a ticket because I'm not selling tickets. He says for sure he's gonna bring his

grandfather's gold ring, solid gold. It's gonna be amazing to see that. Well you can maybe, you guys, to look at it and then just run away with it. Well, the last TML-X, I got to see one of the screen used guns from a Christmas story. The BB gun. There's always something cool. Red Rider, right? There's always something cool at TML-X, yeah. Oh, yeah, it was a Red Rider BB gun with the time, the thing that tells time in the stock and all that.

You never know what's gonna happen. Absolutely. And again, I hope to see everybody on June 27th for TMLX15. Can't wait to see that, Kev. Thank you. And that brings us to the end of our 1492nd show. Again, 1492. You can follow me. I'm all over the place as Toronto Mike on Twitter, BlueSky, etc. So Jeremy, where are a couple of places we can follow you? You're great on social media.

Well, you can follow me on basically Jeremy Hopkins on a lot of social medias or Hopkins Design. I'm also managing a few sites as well, like I'm on the Motorista site, I'm on Vintage Toronto, I'm sort of trying to spread myself everywhere in Toronto history. So there you go The more J Ho the better for all of us here in this fine city Sweet much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery Palma pasta don't leave about your lasagna. Thank you sir recycle my electronics dot CA Raymond James Canada the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team. I'm not kidding, I'm throwing out the first pitch on June 2nd.

That's happening. I think that ceremony starts at 1.45pm June 2nd. I think even Lieve Fumpka is going to try to make it out if she's up to it. This is going to be a big event right there. Can you imagine? I haven't seen her since Teal Malik's 14. Nobody, although I was going to say nobody has, but I actually did because I dropped off my box out of the wire DVDs for her to watch and I did see her. So I'm one of the lucky ones. I wish her all the best.

And I feel bad to say, yeah, good. I have something, so Minaris and then Ridley Funeral Home. See you all. I got a busy week. I wanna get this right. So tomorrow, this is kind of fascinating, I found out that my neighbor, not my next door neighbor, but my neighbor just down the street, is the kid who interviewed John Lennon. This is a young man, his name is Jerry Levitan, and he spoke to, when he

was a young man, I think he was like, I don't know, 14 years old or something. He interviewed John Lennon when John Lennon was in Toronto. He interviewed him for like 40 minutes and they made a short. When they were at the King Eddie? Yeah, I suppose it has to be. And this actually got him an Oscar nomination. Wow. This animated short.

For the Levin? For, yeah. And they called it, I interviewed the walrus or something. I can't remember the name of this thing. It's got the word walrus in it. That's amazing. But yeah, and he's also like a children's entertainer and he's a lawyer and he's kind of interesting and he's down the street. So he's going to waltz over here.

You have a lot of cool neighbors. Like everybody's pretty close. Yeah. And that's Thursday and then Friday. This is exciting. A honeymoon suite in the basement incredible well their hair fit it's not the 80s of see you all then nice