Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Old City Hall: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1689

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

In this 1689th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with the official Toronto historian of the Toronto Mike'd podcast Jeremy Hopkin about Old City Hall. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, Yes We Are Open, Nick Ainis and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1689 of Toronto Miked, 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. Yes, we are open, an award winning podcast from Monaris hosted by FOTM El Grego. Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, join me May 11th at this Sunday at 1.30pm at Christie Pitts, as Sato becomes the first

woman in our country to pitch against a professional men's team. Be there. Recycle MyElectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. Building Toronto Skyline, a podcast and book from Nick Aynes, sponsored by Fusion Corp. Construction Management Inc. And Ridley Funeral Home, Pillars of the Community since 1921. Joining me today, making his quarterly appearance, is the official Toronto historian of the Toronto Mike podcast.

It's Jeremy Hopkins. Hey, good day, Mike. Good day to you. I love that you dress up for these recordings. Describe for the people who are listening via podcast and haven't seen the photo we'll take by Toronto Tree or aren't watching the video that is streaming on live.torontomic.com right now

and will most likely appear on the official YouTube channel of Toronto Miked podcast. What are you wearing? Well, this is my rendition of a 1920s suit, but it could also fit the teens and maybe even 1900 depending on how I how I change it up. Pin stripes. But yeah, I've got pin stripes. I've got a straw boater hat and I've got a few accessories on here that are actually from the 20s. So yeah, it's over 100 years old. It is. It's and speaking of 100. Yeah, it's David Attenborough's 99th birthday today. Is he the guy from Jurassic Park? No, that's his brother.

Okay, I get them confused. Okay, this is the natural the documentaries on nature and stuff. Yes, he's like the first person to film an orangutan in the wild and broadcast it and very famous for his nature documentaries and even still he's a legend. Did the Jurassic Park Edinburgh, he passed away right? I believe he did yes. Okay shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. I have a song for you. Okay. I'm excited to play this and get your reaction but first because I said Ridley Funeral Home, I'm wearing a new shirt from Ridley Funeral Home that was gifted to me by Brad Jones yesterday. And if you could see the back, Jeremy,

do you see the back? Describe it for the listenership. It's a skeleton at the grill. He's grilling up a grilled cheese and there's some flames behind him and it looks pretty sweet. Grilled cheese you'll die for. Yeah, grilled cheese you'll die for.

And this is the official t-shirt of the grilled cheese challenge which is often won by Ridley Funeral Home and I'm excited to be wearing this shirt so thank you to Brad for that. Very cool. We recorded a fresh episode of Life's Undertaking. Brad Jones Jeremy Hopkins also sponsors Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. Oh, very cool. I know you've got one. I do have one of those. But a historian like you could use an extra copy for a friend or a neighbor. Definitely.

I would love to have another copy of the Toronto Maple Leafs history. Will I see you at Christie Pitts on Sunday? I tried last year and I couldn't because of Mother's Day and I think it might happen. Well, what if you do what I do like so bring your bring your wife and your kids to history being made at Christie Pits. Definitely. 1 30 p.m. first pitch is like 2 but 1 30 there's a little ceremony and we're all gonna collect for TMLX 18 beyond the left field fence. What if you bring them and then you do like a late afternoon or evening like dinner? Oh, that could work. Yeah. Like I'm this is what I'm

doing. So I'm giving you my blueprint here because we all have this conflict, but it's a long day. Yes. And you could do an early afternoon. It's going to be a great, great weather day. And again, a y a Sato whose name I've been mispronouncing for the past couple of weeks. I've been saying Sato. But then I saw this wonderful CBC journalist named Megan Fitzpatrick. She did a piece for the national and she calls a Yami Sato.

So once again, put that put that Jeremy in the bucket of words I've mispronounced, okay? To Sato to Sato. And now I've corrected myself. So Sato's pitching for the Maple Leafs of baseball and I would love to see you there. Well, that would be really cool to see. We'll try to make it happen.

Okay, that sounds like it's at 60%. So I'm gonna keep budging you to get you out there. I always have to check with my wife. Okay so here's a fun fact and then I got to play the song get your reaction and then we're gonna dive into the the the ongoing history of old City Hall. Yes. I'm so jazzed for this I even pulled a little music to set the mood. Landmark of Toronto. I can't wait, but here's a fun fact. So Snow was here earlier this week. Oh yes.

I watched that on the live stream. Okay. So Snow, Informer, he was here with his, uh, his manager of sorts, I suppose, who is an FOTM named Paul Farberman. So the owner of the Toronto Made Believes listens to this episode. His name is Keith Stein. Keith hears his episode and then he reaches out to me and he wants to feel me out. Like, what do you think about Informer being like the song of Toronto Maple

Leafs baseball in 2025? Oh, wow. So I'm, we're chatting about this and then I'm like, well, let me talk to Paul. Who's an FOTM. Paul was at the hockey Leafs game last night. Did you watch that? I did not. So you're not a Leafs fan for hockey, only baseball? What's going on there? Uh, I don't know. I just, I was really busy preparing my notes for this yesterday. So.

Okay. Okay. You know what? Everyone has their priorities. Yeah. People wonder why I'm not like glued to like an F1 race or something. It would be the time to do it because of the playoffs and because they've been doing so well, it seems like they actually have a chance. But we're up to nothing in the second round. But so Paul was at that game last night and it was great.

But OK, so I've connected Keith and Paul and there may be an exciting announcement being made tonight regarding this. And snow may be in attendance. I'm going to be there. This is an event happening at a Craft brewery that's not Great Lakes beer. Okay, we're loyal to Great Lakes here. Here's some fresh Great Lakes beer for you, Jeremy Thank you so much. I heard that snow might you were talking about trying to get him to throw out the first Well, you can't actually he has a his a his child's mother oh passed away. Oh, no

years ago snow has remarried since then but I believe there's a beautiful little visit to the grave on Mother's Day and That's a higher priority So that makes sense, right? That makes sense. Yeah, but I think I'm gonna see snow tonight But I actually want to play this song for you get your reaction and dive into old city hall. So this is put together by Rob Bruce. Do you know Rob Bruce? I definitely know Rob Bruce. He's the original keyboardist of the spoons, not the original. You've blown it over the second one. Second, he came in as a 15 year old phenom to...

The original keyboardist designed the logo for the Sopranos. Right on. I remember Rob talking about that. Yeah, you see these fun facts all mulled together. Okay, so Rob sent this over. He's been working with AI on different things. You might have heard this from Rob Pruss in a previous episode. Shout out to Redleaf funeral home. Pillars of the community since 1921.

And J Ho, this one is for you. Oh, cool. It's time for some Toronto time traveling with Jeremy Hockin. He's the official Toronto historian for the Toronto Mic podcast He'll take us to places we've never seen before In Toronto, this is our town, this is our past And with Jeremy here, what an Ontario- area, area, area, oh, blast. And he always wears a nice hat.

What do you think, Jeremy? That's cool. Oh man. You want that to introduce you, you come over here for quarterly episodes. For those who are new to Toronto Mike and the Jeremy Hopkin experience, once every quarter Jeremy visits and we kind of uncover a part of Toronto's history today's old City Hall.

What if that is played for every single Jeremy Hopkins episode of Toronto Mike? That might be pretty cool. I'm just gonna have to wear a hat every time though aren't I? There's worse things. We expect a hat anyways. So thank you Rob Proust for putting that together. Thank you so much, Rob It was really nice of thinking of me like that and in coming up with a song. That's cool Rob's gonna be watching the video hoping you tear up any tears there Jeremy No, no tears just um Yeah, just I appreciate it. That's so cool And because once we start talking old City Hall, which is in a moment here, we're gonna cook with gas

I'm gonna play a couple more Rob Bruce AI Creations, okay, for example in Toronto skyline It's a podcast and book from Nick Iini sponsored by a fusion court construction management There's a Rob Bruce He's kind of like the orchestrator. He works with the AI algorithm, the bots, I suppose. And he puts that together. And here's one more.

Yes, we are open. Yes, we are open. An award-winning podcast only from Onaris. Yes, we are open, an award-winning podcast, only from Monaris. Yes we are open, yes we are open, hosted by Al Greggo. He's an F-O-T-M. And yes we are open, are we open? Yes we are. Yeah! open are we open yes we are yeah

Al Grego will be returning soon to Toronto mic to kick out jams related to season 8 of yes we are open he went to Regina Saskatchewan. Jeremy have you ever been to Regina? I have not. I haven't been further west than probably Sault Ste. Marie. Well okay. I need to see this country.

You know I've only twice. No that's not true Because I went to my wife's brother's wedding in Edmonton. I'm gonna say three I've made three trips West of Ontario. Oh in my life in 98. I went to Vancouver and Whistler with my first wife that was during the Noggino Olympics Okay, and Ross Rebecca Bagliatti was the big deal in Whistler at the time. He won gold in snowboarding and then the medal was taken away because he had cannabis in his system and then they reversed that.

It was quite a thing. Then I think it was, whoo, yeah, I guess I went to my brother-in-law's wedding in Edmonton. So we flew to Calgary and we spent time in Calgary and then we drove to Edmonton and I did that trip with Monica, my wife. And then there was another family trip to BC that was just pre-pandemic, maybe 2019, where we did Victoria and we did the Vancouver and we did Whistler and we did the whole, that whole area and that was fantastic. So I've made precisely three trips west of Ontario.

There you go. Cool. Well, it's always a good show to listen to. Al really brings out the heart of the people that are that are out there. And yeah, I get to in touch with people that you normally wouldn't have met. He got to the heart of Gloria Walshh who's the manager of Creative Kids, a charitable organization dedicated to removing financial barriers for Saskatchewan children aged 4 to 19 to participate in arts and culture. Very cool. Very cool. All right, one more song courtesy of Rob Bruce and then the floor is yours okay to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past we

need to do it today that means we need recycle my electronics dot CA today Here I pulled a little music to set us up for the City Hall chat here. This is Arthur Collins. Have you ever heard that name before? I have heard of Arthur Collins. I don't know much about Arthur Collins, but I have heard the name. Definitely. You're a step ahead of me. So Arthur Collins, this song is called I'd Leave My Happy Home for You. This is from 1899 okay and the audio as you can imagine is going to be pretty potato on this. I'm They'd like a dark evening to go And keep on in the road till tonight they take a toll

Then he said, please take me with you When you go for a party Might be home for you You and I Somewhere in their j-ho there's a song, you have to trust me on this one, okay? Well, that would be before flat records. That's probably from a cylinder record. So it's, yeah, it's called a Berliner. Is that what it's called? Yeah.

Berliner, Emil Berliner was the inventor of the gramophone and he eventually went on to make other bigger and better things and came up with the flat disc phone or gramophone. But, um, yeah, for this is Berliner. Yeah. It would be an early, an early flat disc actually. And one more and then I promise I'm gonna shut up because people are sick of my voice. But there's a gentleman named George J. Gaskin. Have you ever heard this name? No, I haven't.

So George J. Gaskin had a song called Break the News to Mother. Also kind of, I don't know what the term would be, ripped from a Berliner, but this song goes all the way back again to 1899. So let's hear a little Gaskin. Oh, that's fantastic! Boy, in the garbage there was three of them, the battled. The boys were bluer fighting, the noble flight was near. And the cry for their way captain, good boy now to lay him down, who will volunteer to save his property. I will a young boy down, I will bring him back all right, and try to let me disturb the fight. So break the news to mother that you're spending Mother's Day at Christie Pitts, TMLX 18, 130 beyond the left field fence at Christie Pitts there. Talk to me, Jeremy Hopkins, about Old City Hall.

Well, I know some of the reasons why you're playing this music is because it opened in 1899. And wanted to set the mood. Thanks for setting the mood for that. And now it's a vacant place and most of the courtrooms and services were moved to new purpose-built courthouse at 10 Armory Street and then after that the municipal courthouse is left just this year to St. Lawrence Market North which actually opens has a grand opening this weekend the brand new building at St. Lawrence North, um, on Saturday. They're gonna have a celebration there, bands, uh, food,

lot, lots of vendors and stuff. So that's one of the things I wanted to bring up is that, yeah, some of the services went there and it turned out that that's where the very first city hall was, right in that block. Um, it was in the market building, the old market building that was there, sort of a temporary location until they could build the second City Hall, which is on Front Street, on the south side of Front Street, which is now St. Lawrence Market. So the Market Gallery and the front of St. Lawrence Market are remnants of that second one. They soon outgrew that and then they needed to build a new City Hall and they got the idea to build old city hall.

Well what we call old city hall. Right. Which was new to them. Yeah. Brand new expanded services on one side it would be basically the county buildings and the other side would be municipal. So it's sort of divided in half bringing the two together. Okay.

So just I and again we don't actually chat before these episodes so I don't know how you want to structure this but did you want to talk a little more about the fact that there are rumors that Queens Park needs extensive renovations? Yes actually that was coming up at the very end. Why don't you, you're the host and now I'm the co-host reacting to everything you say. So go ahead. I typically do things chronologically.

I try to start about the beginning and go to the end. So this thing is opened in 1899. Yes, 1899. And let's see how I was going to do this chronologically. Let me stay out of your way. I've got notes of my- You're the historian here. I'm just a bum with a podcast.

So I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about everyone just thinks old city halls always been there. But before then, there was over 50 buildings in that little area that were all sort of wooden buildings. But there was also a large foundry on one side of it that made up the bulk of the property. And eventually those were expropriated and became the city hall grounds. Historically, everyone talks about just across the street from it is the ward which is a sort of an entry point to Toronto. A lot of people coming to Toronto, new immigrants would live in this area. It was kind of run down and

the fact that they were building the City Hall right next to it, they were very in touch with what was going on in that area. So when Lennox, when the city was building this place, I don't know if that had any impact on it, but it certainly did later on. And to be clear, when you refer to Ward, you're not referring to Andrew Ward, who is on the live stream, live.torontomike.com. And he loves that opening theme from Rob Bruce.

He says, we have to play that every time you're on. Oh, very cool. Yes, definitely. Okay, because we gotta be clear, when you say Ward on Toronto Mike, people think about Ward-O. Well, we were all divided up into wards and they were all named after St. Patrick's Ward

and all these different wards. And that was one of them. Okay, I love that. I love all these little tidbits about Toronto's history. Yeah, me too. Okay. I love that. I love all these little tidbits about the Toronto's history. Yeah, me too. I had just, um, hopefully I remember them all and then we were just hit them here.

Well, shout out to the saints. Okay. Uh, any, uh, what's the good money on who's going to be that new Pope? I hear they're, uh, they're blowing smoke already over there. So any, uh, guesses? I've, I've already seen Trump in the outfit, so

he, it's going to be him, right? My wife tells me, cause I get all the Filipino news from my wife, she tells me that one of the potential frontrunners is a, anyways for a Catholic, a rather progressive person from the Philippines. Oh wow. So it'll be interesting. Apparently he's one of the favorites. So all the Philippines is excited that we may have a Filipino pope.

Well, there you go. That's incredible. And they are trying to convey that image of being a little more progressive and also take into account the history that they're trying to make amends for. So having someone of a different, I guess, color or different, you know, background. It does fit and it does make them more adaptable to what is going on. So before we get back to Old City Hall, an expression I still use when somebody asks me like, I don't know, does Jeremy Hopkins know his Toronto history? I'll look at them and I'll say, is the Pope Polish? Like I use that as an expression.

Meanwhile, the Pope hasn't Like I use that as an expression. Meanwhile, the Pope hasn't been Polish for a long time now. John Paul was there for years. He was there for pretty much our whole childhood, right? Well, I went to Catholic schools and we had like a photo of the guy and he's the only Pope I knew until he passed away. So is the Pope Polish? No longer works as intended, but I refuse to change. And everyone thought the Pope mobile was cool and or strange at least. One question about so every I have a question this kind of a silly question

maybe you don't even know the answer but the most recent Pope was from Argentina right? Yes. Now you know we're all one race the human race here and the whole idea of race is like a human construct, right? But so would he be would you refer to somebody from Argentina as a person of color because they're Hispanic That is I'm like, I know so this is all food for thought you don't necessarily because there's there is a big mix of colors Down there as well. So but I'm wondering if we've ever had a pope who wasn't a white dude. No, I don't think we have I know there's been some positions close too, but I'm not up on my popes though. It's a lot of Italians,

okay, here's how it worked. There was a lot of Italians and a guy from Poland and then the guy from Germany who quit, you know, because he's like, I'm going to retire and we're like, popes don't retire. And he's like, watch me. And then there's the guy from Argentina. And now we'll see what happens. but it'd be wild if a person of color somebody from the Philippines became Pope and you know I don't have a I don't care I escaped the cult long ago, but It's always interesting What's colors is smoke gonna be that the whole I watched conclave that even before I watched that movie conclave

It's always interesting the great deal about Old City Hall. So for Old City Hall they actually had a design competition and this gentleman named Edward James Lennox won the competition in 1886 so this is a good ten years sorry 13 years before it was built. City Hall wanted a grand municipal hall and he delivered he had these grand plans of what he was going to build there. They didn't like it later on though when they had to pay for it but but we'll get onto that a little later. So after he won the competition, he basically went on this journey across America to see where some of the best architecture was and sort of drew upon that experience to influence what he was going to do at Old City Hall. And Edward James Lennox, just so we understand, he's a

Torontonian, right? Yeah, born in born here. And he was the son of Irish immigrants who came here from the old country. And yeah, he was definitely his heart was here. He is prolific in building in this area. Even during City Hall, he did build other projects at the same time and was having those going as he was having the issues with City Hall all through those years. Okay, so now we have a location.

Yeah, right at Bay and well it was called Trolley back then. North of Queen Street it was called Trolley, south was Bay. Then they joined the two together and it all became Bay Street. Just north of Queen Street between Albert and James. Of course, northwest corner of Bay and Queen. We've got our location. Now we have the architect that's going to design this thing, Edward James Lennox. We're off to the races here. So because of his being prolific in Toronto, he was nicknamed at one point the builder of Toronto. He was a very talented artist when he was a kid and basically pushed his parents to let him get into architecture.

And it was a much more artistic or artistic craft then because you're drafting a lot by hand. You're you're basically at the time period too. There's a lot more floral and decorative pieces in these works and sculpture. So you had buildings of stone and wood and things that were more a little more attached to well less refined that we have today with a lot of the steel in the glass. So he was inspired mainly by this American architect named Henry Hobson

Richardson and that was a focus for his style which they actually eventually called the Richardson Romanesque revival style. We call that triple R. Triple R. Right on. And just for the listenership, my job is to throw Jeremy Hopkins off his game here because he comes very well prepared. He missed the Leafs game last night. Shout out to, by the way, shout out to Joseph Wall if he's listening. We're very proud of you, Jay Wall. But you know,

my job here is to let Hopkins cook, but don't let him get too comfortable. Well yeah, because it can become boring very quickly. Mike brings the fun to the game. I like flavor-flav, okay? I'm the hype man, you're Chuck D, you're dropping the science with defiance. Yes, for sure. Now where was I? Where the hell was I? So his main inspiration was the Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It looks very close to his original plans, which changed as they built the building and found out some of the limitations and as the city council had their word and what they wanted. Things did change over time. One of the biggest changes

was he was originally planning to have the tower in the middle of the building, but then when they saw the position of where it would be in relation to Bay Street, he shifted it over so that it would be straight in the middle of Bay Street. And on my way over here, and actually every time I go on the Gardiner, I make sure to take a quick look over at the Scotiabank Arena, because you can see it right straight up the street. And you can probably see it from the lake if you really tried. You got to make sure it's still there. Yeah, you got to make sure it's still there. We call this the clock tower. Yeah, the clock tower of it.

Some people call it Big Ben. And yeah, it's very striking. People call it Big Ben? It has been nicknamed Big Ben from time to time. I feel like we need to be more original, I feel. There's a lot of influence from overseas in everything. Our street names are at that time period. Oh, I'm sure.

But now, youngsters, not youngsters, but like Gen X, you say Big Ben, they're gonna think of the horse that Ian Miller rode in how many Olympics? 12 or something? Yeah, for sure. I mean, how old was that poor horse? Forget Ian Miller, who was probably winning Olympic medals

at like 70 years old or something. But that Big Ben, he rode Big Ben for a long time. Wow. Ian Miller, who was probably winning Olympic medals at like 70 years old or something. But that Big Ben would, he rode Big Ben for a long time. Wow. That's funny. You know, I'm more than, I'm an equestrian historian. So ask me any horse, that's from Peter Gross, who has a great podcast called Down the Stretch. Shout out to FOTM Hall of Famer Peter Gross.

So they didn't keep renaming new horses that name and just put a little tick beside it. You know what, like Snowball 2. Yeah. Right, you just, that's not a bad idea. Nice. That's why you're here. Okay, sorry to interrupt, but you have the clock tower. So the clock tower is part of the original,

I wanna make sure, I wanna know like, well, we'll walk through this, but some parts maybe, I mean, the Cenotaph, for example, when we get to that, I know that's not there in 1899. mean, the Cenotaph, for example, when we get to that, I know that's not there in 1899. No, the Cenotaph was added in 1925 after the Great War. They actually were setting up Cenotaphs there, sort of makeshift ones for several years before that official one was built.

But it's become kind of a spiritual heart every Remembrance Day of Toronto. That's where the main ceremonies for the City of Toronto take place for Remembrance Day, which now includes remembrances for all wars that have been fought since the Great War. Love it. Now, at some point when we get to, you know, great cenotaphs of Toronto, I just want to shout out, so I'll just take a moment here, but there was a legion

north of Lakeshore on Eighth Street in New Toronto. And of course, like many things, it got razed because I think they're gonna put up, I don't know, townhouses or condos, who knows? Some development is coming there. But they didn't destroy the Cenotaph. They moved the Cenotaph to Colonel Samuel Smith Park. It's pretty close to Lakeshore just before, what's that street called there?

It's like, I think, Riley, we're almost across the street. To be honest, we're across the street from Ridley Funeral Home, no joke. And this Sanotaph location is amazing. And for the West Enders who don't wanna go to Queen Street to go to the Sanotaph at Old City Hall, this has become a wonderful place to collect every November 11th.

Very nice. Usually I go down to Old City Hall to celebrate. Sure. Well, not celebrate, but honor the past. Last year, though, I ended up going to Mount Pleasant Cemetery where there's a memorial to Billy Parker, I think it is Billy Bishop. I'm not sure, but yeah, with a lot of the aviation people. Well, you're big on the aviation from your work. Is it Leaside? Yeah, lately I've been doing a lot of gigs out in Leaside talking about the history of that being basically the Pearson of its day, and I've been, yeah, hosting a few, well, talking to a few groups in there, like I've been hosting a few, well talking to a few groups in there, like some investors groups and stuff. So it's been busy lately, at least with that. Well, I've been there on a doors open Toronto, I biked over and I saw what was going on there and I learned a great deal that day. I'm still

amazed that you showed up that day. I was just like, Oh my God, Mike's here. And we had to get a shot beside a black car, of course. Well, it does look better in the shade. Yes. That's my two cents. We were in the bright, bright light. Now, please continue on the clock tower because I do have a question about the clock tower. Yeah, okay.

Let me just see here what we got. Well, I gotta just- Well, I'm not fixing this in post, J-Ho. Are you new to trotting? No, it's okay. It's okay. My phone just messed up on me. This is why you gotta memorize your notes. Well, with the... Well, I memorized some of it, but there's so many dates. Oh yeah, we'll put it on cue cards or whatever, just over here. So it looks like you're looking

at me and then me and Ryan. I could come in here and just do a general of like, oh yeah, and then this was built. I don't know really what time it was. I don't know what day, but it's good to get the dates in there if I can. And I'm hoping people will tune in because they want a deep dive into the ongoing history of Old City Hall. Right on. And when we get to 1996 we can talk about a great event that happened at Old City Hall which was my first marriage. I actually have that in my notes, too. So please continue. Spoiler alert. So the clock tower is 350 feet tall.

It's it was the tallest structure in Canada for 18 years. Really? From 1899 until 1917. Was it the Royal the Royal York Hotel beats it? What beats? I think Parliament actually may have beat this, but I haven't looked it up though. But yeah, 1917 sounds about right from when it burnt down and then was rebuilt. But yeah, in Canada, it was the tallest. So that kind of I listened to your podcasts with Nick Ainiis, and you were talking about the CN Tower. This was the CN Tower of its

day in Toronto because it was the tallest and until they started to to build on Yonge Street. Now that's a mind blow. Yeah, I just I couldn't believe it. When I was looking up all my facts, I re-looked and I was like I knew this but I didn't realize it was for so many years like 18, 19, like that's almost 20 years it was the tallest. And you can definitely see it in a lot of the old photographs of Toronto. It's, it's sticking out apart from the church steeples, which were the tallest before it's, it just sticks out like a sore thumb. Well, just like the CN tower does today, I guess not a sore thumb, but it's, it's iconic. Like you said, it's you can tell your position from anywhere in the city. It's there.

It's been there your whole life. It's funny because I was a very young man in 1899. So I'm telling you, it's wild to think of this city and it's a long time ago, but it's not really like, I still think the 90s were like 10 years ago, right? So we're only a hundred years from that. Yes. So the idea that the clock tower at old city hall was, you know, the tallest structure in the country is a mind blow. It is. Yeah. Well, I'm glad that I brought a mind blow to the place.

I expect more. I'm going to give you a few more. So there's 280 steps to go to the top if you want to. I haven't been to the top yet. I would love somebody to take me on a tour there and get to the top and check it out for myself. So if anybody's listening that can arrange that do it. Other than that it's the clocks and the bells inside. They actually weren't there when the building was completed in 1899. That didn't happen until late 1900 when they were finally delivered and installed. So for some time you see the

clock with nothing in it it's just a gaping hole. I have a question from the live stream. Yeah. The clock was automated in 1950. Yes it was. Yes. So before then how did it keep time? Like was there the question from from Andrew is is someone on deck to make sure it's on time? Like I don't know if it's not automated. How is it keeping time? well there there was actually quite a few people living in the building and It would be somebody's job to to mind it and to reset it. So and yeah to be able to Like everything back then was set by hand, like even train stations all across the country, you'd had,

eventually you had standard time, but you'd also have railroad time, which was set by the railroad, and basically people did it manually. I think that's a second mind blow. Very cool. Let me see here. The clock room has three large bells.

Two of them are small quarter bells that strike every half hour. And there's a bell called a burden bell which strikes every hour. So it's got a bit of a deeper tone. Can I ask you about if you dig into the history you learn that there were going to be these gargoyles. Yes, I'm digging into that as well. Okay, I'll stand back. You know what?

Maybe I'll step away from the mic and let you do your thing. No, it's okay. At first I was going to talk, I think, about the sort of what it was built out of in the construction. Let's just see here. Oh yeah, the construction. So from the beginning this building had problems. We've already talked about how they kept adapting as things went and as things went and Lennox was good at adapting and making the building still flow and feel natural even though there were these changes. From the beginning though he had problems with his contracting firm called Elliot and Neeson or Nealon. He just didn't like them and they kept doing things that he he wasn't approving of. One of the things they did was hire people from outside of the Toronto area, which looks very bad, especially when you have people next door almost starving in the ward.

And he disapproved of that. And they also wanted more money than the local workers, too. So that was pushing his budget up. So he. Oh, and there was a recession on when they started building. So this was also key to it. So because of his disapproval, that the company, Elliot and Leeson actually filed a restraining order against him because he kept coming there and telling them what to do to the point where they eventually walled up the place and wouldn't let him in. Wow.

He, uh, he got the police on his side and he had city council on his side at the time. And they basically forced their way in and kicked them out and got rid of this company and moved on to another, uh, another, uh, another company. But just to hear that it was that dramatic with old City Hall, that was one thing that just struck me. I was like, wow, I didn't know all this happened. Okay, how long did it take to build Old City Hall? It took from 1899 to 1999. Okay, so. Ten years.

Roughly ten years. Because you know, they built Maple Leaf Gardens in like a week. Yeah, Snow didn't seem to think so though. Snow was saying it was five years or something like that. I was going to, you know, you can only correct snow so many times. I didn't want to Robert Lawson though, Lawson him and have him come after me though.

So during the Great Depression, yes, it was like six months or something. Am I wrong about that for Maple Leaf Garden? Something like that. It was incredibly fast. Yes. Okay. But it took 10 years for, uh, and now is this a good time to bring up the budget? Like he goes way over budget, right? Oh, yes, eventually he does. And he also it's in my notes later on to the end of his involvement with it. But he he was that much over budget and he submitted the bill in 1907. And it was ridiculously high for what they thought

it should be. And he sued them, they sued back, and it was just legal battles right up until about 1912 when he finally settled for $60,000, which was far lower than the 280 whatever he wanted still that was owed to him. So he really didn't make any money on that after all. But he just wanted them to drop

all the other legal proceedings that were also following it too. There was some other wranglings there that he didn't wanna be involved in anymore. The total cost for building Old City Hall, I understand was in, you know, money at the time, it was $2.5 million, which if you use your inflation calculator

is about $53 million today. Sounds like a bargain to me. Yeah. Well, compared to what we do now, yes. I'm not sure I can like, I can't even like lower this basement so people won't hit their head in the TMDS studio for that kind of money. Well, even when you think about the time factor today, that's really not long compared to some of the projects.

Like look at Metrolinx Crosstown. You said it, buddy. And the new North Market took 15. But that had some architectural problems where they were finding some ancient sewers and stuff they had to deal with. And again, if I step on your feet, I apologize. I was reading about how the councilors, Toronto counselors Toronto counselors were so upset at how long it took to build And how expensive it was cost overruns they refused to put up a plaque to commemorate?

EJ Lennox at Lennox as the architect they were gonna put up this plaque in 1899 and they basically said We're not doing that because they were pissed off. And then Lennox, I say Lennox had a stonemason sign his name. Yes. Beneath the end. Again, you can pick it up from here, but I think this is a fun fact too. Oh yeah, for sure. It was also in there. If you go to the the northwest corner and you look up just under the eaves, you can see there's faces, grotesques and some patterns but then all of a sudden there's an E and then you go a few more and then there's a J and then all around the building it says E J Lennox Architect all spelled out. He did it discreetly so they wouldn't notice. And it really wasn't noticed until much later by that's funny by a there's a journalist from I forget which journal it was, but he noticed it and brought it up and it caused a bit of a stir with with council and everyone wanted to get angry at him. But they backed him up and said, no, no, that's

that's the way they do it in Europe. And nobody will notice really like it took a long time for even me to notice and that's one thing about the old City Hall unless you have some time to just sit there and really absorb what's there people just breeze by it and don't notice there's just so much to see in that building it's entertaining all right but you those those gargoyles I don't know if you have that coming up next yes the gargoyles I have coming up and also also he Made grotesque of a lot of the the people he didn't like in City Council apparently

It's been said by a lot of people that he kind of yeah made all of these grotesque that scare away evil spirits But he made them look like the people he didn't like and they all had silly faces But you see when you go up the center staircase off Queen Street, you see his face in one of the grotesques in the middle. And he looks calm and collected and everything around him looks crazy. I love the term grotesques. Yeah, there's grotesques and there's so many little individual things like that. And they're they're not gargoyles where they project from the building.

They just have an illustration sort of set into the building. Amazing. I love the building it's just I got a chance the other day to just sit there and really absorb it. I brought a telephoto lens and zoomed in on all this. Even the stuff I thought I knew I there's just so much more when you when you have a zoom lens. Little grotesque hidden in the corner of windows and places you wouldn't expect. And one thing he does with the building to he plays with the asymmetry of it. It's not just like a colonial building where everything's straight formed and duplicate on

both sides where you could put a mirror in the middle and it would be the exact same on both sides. He he sort of plays with that asymmetry even this even though it looks like a very formal building that sort of has a medieval feel to it, it has a lot of playful elements in it too, like that. A very, very special building. Yeah, definitely. It's a work of art in the middle of the city and really people should just absorb it as much as they can. And possibly future home of the TMDS studio.

That would be incredible. We'll discuss that at the end. Okay. All right. So did we talk about the four gargoyles, easy for you to say, that were part of the clock tower when they were constructing? No, we haven't talked about those guys yet. They're about 2000. I'm trying to rush you into gargoyle chat. No problem. They're very cool. Originally they weighed about 2,000 pounds each and they work on sort of a cantilever system like a cantilever balcony where a lot of the what you

don't see the you know it's only the tip of the iceberg that goes into the the actual building. So originally those were made out of sandstone and let me just see here. And it was from New Brunswick. So they shipped a lot of this in, had it carved, put it up there. And they look great. And there's a lot of other gargoyles too that are inset a little more over the roof.

So you've got the four main ones over the city hall or over the clock tower. By the 1920s, these started to chip away with our Canadian winters. They didn't realize that the material, it is very strong and it's it does take a lot of wear. But with the frequent cold and hot, cold, hot, they started to just chip away and fall off until in the 1920s, a jaw from one of these fell off and actually went through the roof nearly killing a man that was working inside named James Marshall. He was lucky there was a beam above his head the piece hit the beam and bounced in and he survived but ever since then they were just like yeah we should really get rid of these gargoyles. Well, if they're sandstone carvings, yes, I'm not surprised they don't last long

in our weather system exactly. And you'll see even some of the wear on some of the more exposed parts where there are grotesque, there's some lions that I'd noticed the other day. Their whole face is gone now because of that. And we did have a lot of acid rain here as well until we reduced our factories factories that were here and that that probably had an effect as well. You and I are similar vintage. We came of age in the great acid rain panic. So much smog down here there was a lot more factories in the

downtown core that would generate the smog. Also you had Hearn which that would just generate so much. Wait, Hearn? Kevin Hearn? What did he do? Also, you had Hearn, which that would just generate so much. Wait, Hearn, Kevin Hearn, what did he do? I don't know, the Hearn generating station, not Kevin Hearn, no. Not Kevin Hearn, he's a sweetheart. He wouldn't mess with these gargoyles. So they remove these gargoyles that were part of the clock tower anyway.

At first they didn't remove them. They stayed up there the whole 1920s and most of the 30s because they said well it's very unlikely something like that'll happen again. They stabilized what they could. The good old days. Yeah the good old days. What are the odds that happens again. There was a lot of rot in the roof as well that they fixed the beams that were holding up the roof. By the 19 like seen late 1920s. They replaced the entire terracotta roof So you'll see old postcards of City Hall It looks like it has a red roof and you're like, oh they just colored it badly but no it was red terracotta interesting and that's probably why the the actual gargoyle got through the roof because You could get through that better than it could if it was a copper like it is today, right? so

Yeah, pieces kept falling off. They kept, you know, having near misses with people on the ground. And eventually in 1938 or 39, they finally decided to lob them off because it was just, and that's how you and I probably remember them because it just for our whole childhood

and our whole almost adult life, they didn't have those gargoyles up there until the 1990s. They started talking about bringing them back again. And in 2002, they finally crafted new gargoyles up there. They're sort of based on the originals. But these ones are sort of a light bronze. Okay, so they saw photos of the original and tried to duplicate that appearance? Yeah, well, they gave sort of a general idea of it. It doesn't have a lot of the details that the original ones had. And they said, well, if we don't have a good photo of it, we don't want to fake it and make it look stupid. So they sort of they made something based on it that that did have a good look.

Also, they had the Peace Tower in Ottawa as like a blueprint for what these gargoyles could be like. Oh, yes. Yeah, that's very very close to the type of feel to yes. Okay, so you got grotesques you got gargoyles All this going on. Yeah now 1899 is a long time ago, but it's called old City Hall for a reason and again if we're at a turn you tell me Oh, no, it's okay. But so the obviously this is built as city hall. So this is where municipal government would have their happenings.

But then. Yeah, municipal was on one side and county was on the other. Okay, okay, okay. So did we just simply outgrow it? Like what happened that we needed a new city hall? Yeah, we did outgrow it. There were offices starting to spring up all over the city that were taking the overflow

and also Modernism took hold people wanted something that didn't look so dated and okay Well, okay Well, they accomplished that because is there any starker difference between old City Hall and new City Hall in terms of architecture? It's night and day. It's it's very futuristic compared to old city hall. Yes. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a reason they use it in like Star Trek and stuff. Oh, yeah. It was appeared in Next Generation and I think a comic book or two of Star Trek and and even in Oh, what is it?

Resident Evil. It's like Raccoon City's City Hall. It's in the middle of it. So, yeah, it does play a lot of futuristic sort of roles that way When we if again, I want to tell the listenership every quarter Jho Jeremy Hopkins comes over and we talk about something regarding Toronto history and I learn a great deal from Jeremy and that's why every quarter I make time for him, but one episode we did that I loved was buildings we saved like Buildings that were going to be destroyed, but were saved and we still have them today.

And we did that because we were so depressed by the previous episode, which was buildings we destroyed, but shouldn't have destroyed. Yes. So can you speak to the fact that old city hall is still there because there is a alternate scenario where old City Hall is destroyed when new City Hall is opened. When the Eaton Center development took hold they had even grander ideas. They

wanted to take up the whole city block all the way over to Bay Street. So they proposed well we can keep the tower maybe and or maybe we, you know, maybe we can keep the memorial or the the Senate half and maybe the clock tower and maybe the clock tower. And they had a bunch of different proposals, which people weren't too happy with. City Council at one point, I've found some newspaper reports where it actually they actually agreed to have it demolished. But it never went through because a very strong group formed called the Friends of Old City Hall. Hey. And they rebelled against this and they had enough.

They had enough pull that it made Eaton's look bad. So Eaton's backed off. Then the city backed off and eventually they saved the whole thing. OK, that's that's great news. OK, so we got to keep doing that. The other building we'll shout out now is the Church of the Holy Trinity. Yes the the Holy Trinity was very opposed to also being torn down so they they also joined the fight and and succeeded. So it's because because for those who don't know who haven't been listening to Jeho here,

they were going to demolish the Church of the Holy Trinity, of course, because they were building the Eaton Centre there. Yes, and even the Eaton Centre sort of went a little bit shady. I'm sure they were scared that both of them were going to burn down, because mysteriously the old Eaton's warehouses just burned down in the 70s when they were thinking about doing old Eaton's they have the massive mausoleum with the lions either side flanking. And then there's a few John Craig Eaton and a few of the other Eaton family around there. Absolutely. So shout out to the cowboy junkies. We saved the Church of the Holy Trinity. And

we saved old City Hall. So, and if I'm skipping big things you want to dive into, you just say the word and we'll go back. I don't want you to skip anything important, but when New City Hall is built? Yes. Part of Old City Hall was actually used as the place where they showed off the models of the competition for the New City Hall and also the planning committee. And sort of, you know, I guess Old City Hall was sort of crying at that point,

going like, what are you guys doing? Why are you planning this? And yeah, so after that, it just, by 1965, everyone had vacated. And the question came up right away, what do we do with the Old Hall? And eventually, by the 1970s, they decide the province steps in and thinks, well, this will make a good courthouse. And they also find some other uses for it as well. So it continues on. David Crombie at the time was very instrumental in erecting some plaques. And-

Who I invited to come on Toronto Mic'd and politely declined. I'm very surprised cause he's very friendly. He says he's, friendly. He says he's well he says he's too busy but I think he's very active with the elbows up. He he is at a lot of events so I can understand. But I'm still working on it you know who's helping me if that is Banjo Dunk who's very active with the elbows up. I don't think Snow is joining those elbows up meetings but that's

another story for another podcast here. But I wanted to and you weren't there in 1965. Were you? No, no, maybe maybe my spirit. But so I'm trying to think of Toronto and 1965. Right. You know, Sunday, there's nothing open Sunday. It's very kind of. Yeah, it's still very much ruled by some old rules, especially circling the church, where you know, to work on Sunday it was definitely a no-no. So a lot of things shut down, even the transit system, which I can't imagine today. Like it's bad enough that it shuts down at a certain time at night. So in that... Right, yeah, that's kind of wild too. So in that Toronto

in mid sixties here, where you're, you're old city hall, you've outgrown it. So you're building a new one. Yes. Now I just wonder, what is it like when people see this modernist city hall? Because even in 2025, when I look at new city hall at Nathan Phillips Square there, like it still looks kind of futuristic in 2025. I can't imagine what that city hall looked like to people in 1965. Well, I'm sure the kids loved it because they grew up with a lot of space TV and that sort of thing. So it was very futuristic and they loved it. And a lot of people loved it because it was brand new and clean and had all these sharp lines. So it was a new way of thought.

So there wasn't an outcry like this is too modern? Oh no, there was definitely an outcry of that too. I feel like you'd have that outcry in like 1975. Yeah, there's that outcry. But back then there were so many old buildings still around and all of them are like we talked before, covered in coal soot. So people wanted to change.

And it wasn't until that a lot of the people from Save Old City Hall came out and actually started washing the stone and saying, look, it's a beautiful building underneath that people even realized, like, we should save this thing because it just was really it was cramping their style. Yeah. Shuttered the spirit of the West to save this house. OK, so you talked about Nick Aini. And then I talked to the gentleman who built the city who was up there, the iron worker, the young iron worker, Jack Mesley, who helped build CN tower 50 years ago. That was a great show, by the way. Thank you. No, I love talking to Jack

Mesley, who's cousins with Wendy Mesley. So a cousin of an FOTM. And I liked your seventh show with him as well. That was great the Toronto Mike episode So I stole that guest guest from Nick because I'm like Nick. This is a great guest. I'm stealing him from you Okay, but we talked about how bold and what vision this city had Yeah to build the CN tower in the first place and I start so I think about different structures in this city that were bold and visionary of structures We shouldn't overlook the new City Hall. Again, we're getting back to old City Hall. This is the

old City Hall episode, but it's all related, which is that that really was a bold decision to go with that, you know, flying saucers, futuristic, what they call it modernist, but that City Hall in opening in 1965, really progressive for a city like Toronto. And when you see all the other examples that were submitted, they pale in comparison. They're very square, they're very... We got it right. It was just, yeah, it just stood out and people wanted it. And you know, the reason that's called Nathan Phillips Square, right? Because this all happens under Mayor Nathan Phillips. Yes, yes.

Okay, so there you go. So Old City Hall is saved. Now before we talk about, you know, where we're at with Old City Hall and what the future might look like, was there anything else you wanted to touch on? Because I do have another gift for you. We show. Should I do the gift first? Real quick.

What would you like to do first? I want to play one more Rob Proust jingle. Oh, cool. So these again, this is AI. I'm not, I'll be honest with you. I don't like songs sung by AI. Agree. I don't either. I'd rather, I'd rather hear a human being be a little off key. Be real. I'd rather hear that. I'd rather hear your your child.

We're going to have to show this on the camera before we take the picture. This old city hall that. So which child does this? This is show this now and this will tie into this. I hear my daughter, Abigail heard I was doing a thing about old city hall and she built this for Abigail.

OK, this is Abigail. Yeah, very talented person. Abigail now seven years old and. Hey. Okay. This is Abigail. Yeah. Very talented person, Abigail. She's seven years old and... Okay, wow. Did this from her memory. She didn't look at a picture or anything. So I was like... And we know what time she did it.

Just kidding. I got to bring this on Toronto, Mike. This is too cool. Okay. We're going to get that in the photo when we take it by Toronto Tree. And by the way, I have an arborist coming over who's going to tell us the story of Toronto Tree. Yeah.

And let me know, this is going gonna be like Toronto Tree real talk. This gentleman's in the calendar already. But there's some Toronto Tree real talk that's gonna be delivered to me. You know. That I might need like a therapist or somebody with me to hold my hand. You know, you could, I hope it survives because it could be like the Maple Leaf Forever Tree eventually, you know, the guy that wrote the Maple Leaf Forever. Yes, of course. There's that whole legend about his tree out front and that got taken down by a storm.

It might have that legendary status one day. There was a High Park spider, it had this great High Park climbing tree that we all loved and it got hit by lightning. And I still remember that feeling of what do you mean the tree is gone? So like, well, brace yourself for the Toronto Tree episode. It's going to be absolutely massive massive but back to AI for a minute before I play this I don't humble and Fred had a beer not with Great Lakes but another craft brewery and they made a jingle from AI and I hated it but they

played it every episode multiple times because they loved it I know Rob Bruce loves these jingles he's put together and maybe even the the the sponsors like them on some level I'm speaking for mike now. There's a reason I don't play them. I played them once for the uh, Arlene lot episode that featured uh, Andy andy pandy not to be confused with andrew ward who's on the live stream right now I played them that one time and then I said i'm not gonna play them again. I don't like them you ward who's on the live stream right now I played them that one time and then I said I'm not gonna play him again I don't like them I don't like them but I'm playing with you because they're old style and I look at your suit and I look

at your hat and we're gonna talk about a building that was built in 1899 and it felt it felt right okay cool so here again a soulless AI rendering but for a wonderful family-owned company in Mississauga Ooh, and Oakville Ooh, Palma Pasta It's the best of Palma Pasta Tonight Jeremy, may I send you home with a large lasagna?

It's frozen in my freezer right now. A large lasagna from Palma Pasta. I would love that. And my family loves it too. Okay. So you got your lasagna. Thank you so much. You got your beer.

You got your speaker. Did I give you the speaker? Oh no, not yet. Okay. So I played the jingle and everything for Yes We Are Open and Mineris has a wireless speaker for you. Thank you so much You listen to season 8 of yes, we are very cool Thanks a lot and your Ridley funeral home measuring tape couldn't go home home without another one of those

You know you're here every quarter So you probably have a whole room full of that and if you yeah, and that's why you go to recycle my electronics.com I know it doesn't work for measuring tapes. It's gonna be electronics. He's come in handy though. It's good to have one in every room. Okay so your final thoughts on take us home and then we're gonna give it talk about the present day status of old city hall and what might be in the future. Okay we haven't talked too much about the interior of the place which is also beautiful. There's lots of original wood trims still there. Once the courts took over, they reused the council chambers as a courtroom.

So they tried to adapt what they did in there. And there was some holding cells there already from the other courts. And so yeah, they just adapted and made use of it. Unfortunately, some things were removed over the years that they didn't really tell anybody about and some of those things got sold off and to the point where I'll get into that a little bit later but there's some beautiful stained glass inside that's designed by Robert McCausland. It depicts scenes of the Toronto's harbour

and waterfront history and has a lot of Victorian elements in there like sun rays and has the city's coat of arms which is much different today. The things that I was talking about that were moved there was by the staircase there was two grotesques which sort of like serpents either side of the stairs and they made a war memorial in 1947 and had those removed and eventually I guess he got put into storage and somebody sold them off. So to the point where, um, this gentleman, uh, George Russ, Russ die, who's, uh, um, also in, uh, I haven't talked about it yet, but I meant to bring you an issue of spacing today.

Cause I just did an article in spacing and it turns out he's in there as well talking about his book collection, but he was at a flea market in southwestern Ontario and found these and Brought them back and brought them put them back into old City Hall So they're still in old City Hall now that they've been rescued. Okay, good. They got rescued So yeah some some elements like that went away and came back just like we've seen in a few theaters like the old the old Pantages theater Some things went missing from there and came back as they restored it

because people that's one thing that that issue, the new issue of spacing, spacing number 70 talks about is a lot of private individuals save these things and then it gets put back into public use again later on. So good. The right people keep it safe. Yeah. Until we we we gain our vision back. Shout out to Maestro Fresh fresh west stick to your vision and I would keep a lot more if I had more room at one At one point I even went to an old farmhouse that was coming down and took the whole gingerbread off the off the porch and had It saved at my my parents house and my dad looked at me like I'm nuts and now that I look back on it I'm yeah, I was nuts. I wanted to have had a bleeding heart for everything.

I wanted to save everything. But someone's got to do it. Yeah. There's also some murals inside by George Egg New Read that are beautiful. It talks. It shows all about Toronto's immigrant pioneers that came here and also angels and a lot of motifs from that time period. One thing we were talking about before a little bit was there's actually accommodations inside old City Hall, including rooms for janitors. One of those people that was in that in that janitor role, I guess, was Roland Caldwell Harris, who we all know probably more as RC

Harris. The water filtration plant is named after him, but he was he eventually grew to become in charge with public works. So it's because of him that there's a lot of these artistic buildings around that have that art deco flair and and and this more of an artistic flair, even though it's a very utilitarian building. So he actually lived in there in there for a number of years. And they finally put a plaque to him. You'll see one now on the front lawn about him, his time there with his family. Okay, well, and that's another great building to visit during the doors open. Oh, for sure. I love it. And that's the great Jitters album. Shout out to Blair Pankham.

Oh, there's so much film there, like Bob and Doug McKenzie and you name it. It plays a prison in many films. So it's another landmark of Toronto. Absolutely, absolutely. So the end of construction, it was being built for 10 years, but it actually was 20 years after they first conceived Old City Hall. As I said before, Lennox gave the city, I've got the actual numbers here,

he gave them an itemized bill of 242 thousand eight hundred and seventy dollars and eighty two cents with an outstanding balance of one hundred and eighty one thousand two hundred and fifty five and 71 cents very particular right for his services as architect and project supervisor The city immediately was like it's 1907 you should have given us a long time ago and they refused to pay So they started fighting each other a lot to the point where, yeah, he settled in 1912. And like you said, he wanted to have a plaque and they flatly refused, but he got his revenge. He got the last laugh. He got in there. He got his signature in his grotesque.

And I think there might be some family members in there too, because there is some happy looking people beside him that I think possibly are his wife. Maybe I'm not sure who those people are. We have to dig into it a little bit more. Did we mention Manning Chambers or because maybe that we did mention it, I think in buildings we destroyed but shouldn't have Manning Chambers. Yeah, like this is the they call this this is that annex that was destroyed. The five story building that was destroyed to make way for the new City Hall that was at the northwest corner of Bayon Queen

Oh, I didn't know it was many that was the the registry they named it me Okay, they named it manning chambers after the former mayor of Toronto Alexander Manning. Oh, wow. Okay Today you learned time. I taught you some stuff from you. I just thought it was the uh the land and land deed registry place. But that got uh that did get demolished for the uh current city hall. Yeah a lot of um actually a lot of the old ward area they did see it as very um rundown they wanted something new. That was another reason Old City Hall took its place, but it also took apart a good chunk of that community as we're seeing in some areas with public works even today. Like I notice in Thorncliff area, there's a huge

facility going in there to maintain the Ontario line and it's taken up a lot of the stores for the community and push them out. So they've they've had to adapt as well. It kind of reminds me of the same kind of situation. Public Works comes in to an area that's not really high rent, redeveloped it, and then it changes forever. So a lot of those communities like the first Chinatown was there. It shifted over towards Spadina once a lot of the Jewish neighborhood

or people had moved out. So it's always shifting. There's different areas like that that shift over time. Well, the only constant is change. Exactly. You can, when you use that phrase, I want you to say, as Tron and Mike says, the only constant is change.

No matter how much I love all of these old buildings and want them to stay around, yeah, it's gonna change, things wear down. But I hope to keep things around for a lot longer that are beautiful like this. Like admittedly, sometimes we try to save buildings that maybe do need to go or whatever, but Old City Hall is an example of a building that we absolutely must preserve. It is a jewel in the crown of Toronto today. And I do think one thing I do really do want it to become

is some kind of a museum of Toronto. And there have been city council and a lot of people have advocated for that as well. Being an old building with sort of restrictive rooms, it's a little tricky, but there is some ideas that are being hatched. There's a large center courtyard that's exposed to the air in the middle where they just parked cars if that was enclosed it could make

a great museum space in that in that area for larger items is this Ed Keenan wrote about this right this this possibility yes he did write about that as well yes okay Ed Keenan will some people are like what's Ed's take on this and I'm like he comes over every quarter but he was here in early April so we don't actually expect Ed back on Toronto, Mike until the first Thursday of July. So we all have to hang in there to find out what Ed thinks about this and that. But I'm glad people are excited about the quarterly visits from Ed Keenan on Toronto, Mike. Okay. So the city hall, yes, the old one, we're sticking with the old one. So it got pretty significant renovations in 2005.

Like in 2005, I took the number down, like 77 million bucks and they fixed, they restored the exterior of the clock tower and then they spent some more money on interior repairs. So this project was completed, I guess, in 2012. So I think that's when this speculation started that maybe Old City Hall will house a museum for the City of Toronto. And I think you're excited about that. And I think that's a great idea.

Yeah. But why did it? So why did all the tenants? Because I, you know, I was married there in 96. So I know know the courtyards there, people go there to fight tickets, it was a courthouse. So you said this off the very top, but just so we kind of put a bow on it, why do all the tenants leave old city halls so that it's vacant? Well, they may have wanted newer facilities. It is an older building, so some problems were arising with certain things that you

can and can't do in the building it's restrictive because it is a national historic site now designated building so your hands are a little bit tied whenever you go to do a lot of things so with courts especially being in there it's it's a little problematic so but I just think they overall wanted a change as well and Being a central location like that. I Don't know it. I don't know all the reasons in there. I could see I could probably think of a bunch though Okay, but 10 Armory Street, right? That's so that could tell us right around the corner for me Yeah, and they constructed a new courthouse Yeah, that and also the the other courts that are over in the North Market building that

are going to be upstairs. Okay, I was reading about this Toronto City Council vote in 2018 and this vote was like basically advancing plans for a city museum at the site. But it seems like many things of the city. It seems to be stalled. Any updates at all? Because last I checked was like last year they were saying, oh, like before anybody can move in, we need about $190 million worth of work. Yeah. And

So are we passing around a hat at TMLX 18 on Sunday? That's the thing with anything like this, it is very expensive to maintain and to have something viable in there. It's just and with things like when the city is declaring basically that they're bankrupt and there's people in need, fixing up an old building really isn't priority. But yeah, it's very hard to understand where council is going with this because they'll say that and then the next day they'll vote'll vote themselves are raised so It's it's tough to really figure out what the angle is but I do think Toronto does have its museums We do have to but I think every other world-class city does have this

Does have a museum of the city fairly close to its City Hall So this would be perfect but I don't know there's a lot to hammer out with this and it's been put under review so I don't know they're supposed to be coming back. Do I need to make some calls? There are FOTM's on council you let me know I'll talk to a few. Yeah well I would like to know but at least three I'm just off the top of my head we've got at least three of these city councillors that are FOTM's. It would be very cool to find out their perspective on it. So what about this, and I teased it off the top, but this Queen's Park closing for like extensive renovations. So won't

the Ontario Legislative Assembly need a temporary home while that's happening? Yes they will and they're kind of hinting in the media that that may happen. There's I think they're talking about it. I know a similar thing happened in Ottawa when they were renovating the Parliament buildings there. Legislature moved over to the old railway station just across the street right by the Rideau Canal so I could see something like that happening here, but I also don't, I don't know if it has the capacity though, because Queens Park is a much larger structure, it seems. Sure. Well, that was the problem. If it didn't hold Toronto, municipal, yeah, workers,

how's it going to hold the province? Okay. But hey, if, if it could keep it going a little bit longer until the city can get on a better, you know, better standing and then they can do it, then that's good, I guess. What about making it like a film studio or whatever and just use it to film like TV shows and movies and stuff? That could be also cool. But yeah, also restrictive though, because filming is pretty hard on buildings sometimes. so you really have to watch them. Did you ever see the movie, The Boondock Saints?

No, I haven't actually. So I've seen it, I've seen it. Yeah, it was actually, I enjoyed it. I don't know if that's a hot take or what, but they have a trial near the end of the movie and the interior space they used for filming the trial scene was in fact old City Hall. Very cool. Amazing. And then I was saying okay what else? There's a few Canadian productions that people know Murdoch

Mysteries, Flashpoint, Street Legal, Covert Affairs. This is wonderful and Dirty Pictures which I'm less familiar with, but these are some of the television programs and movies that have been filmed at old City Hall. We'll have to add that to the list. Okay, okay, okay. Because we're going to do a part two, right of things filmed in Toronto. Oh, I want to do a part two. I want to do a part three. I want to do a part four. We're going to do all the above.

Very cool. Okay, so now, so yeah, please, let me pass the baton to you as if you are Donovan Bailey and you get to take us home and just touch your hat when you're done. Well, I'm almost there. I'll be staring at that beautiful hat. Well, that was pretty much in a nutshell. And yeah, I just wanted to leave it off as, as basically like, if you do want to see

Old City Hall and see a lot more than you've ever been able to see, Doors Open Toronto would be the time to do it. The May 2 for weekend, May 24 and 25, it's going to be, I don't know if it's both days, but it's going to be open to the public this year, which it hasn't been for a while. So you'll be able to see firsthand a lot of these sites. I don't know if they're going to have people going in the tower. They probably won't, but you'll be able to get to see a lot more than you were before because the courts wouldn't allow you to go into a lot of these areas because they're very, very private, right? So yeah, it should be very cool. I'm dying to go and check it out.

It's more than cool. I'm dying to go and check it out. It's more than cool. I'm gonna put it in my calendar. I'm gonna bike over and I'm gonna do doors open Toronto at old city hall. And on my bike ride there, I'm gonna re-listen to this episode. So I know what I'm looking at. Let me see some of these grotesques,

some of these gargoyles. Drink it in. That interior. Also St. Lawrence market North is having their big ceremony this Saturday. So I don't know if you're planning to go to that, but there's that too. So many events for me to go to. Put that in the calendar too. I'm gearing up for a lot this summertime too because I head out to a lot of the car shows and things like that in Toronto and get to see the people hanging out. So and I'm also planning to go to Gravenhurst this year just to see the

100th anniversary of the Segwen which is up there, the oldest steamship operating in the world basically and it's turning 100 this year in its current form but its home port is Toronto so I usually try to seek out things that are out there that are based in Toronto. That's one of them Jeremy Hopkins lives an interesting life and he does interesting stuff. I Try amazing you did it again. You hit it out of the park every quarter. I get just I get Educated thank you so much got a rich Fascinating history and you you bring it to the people and I can't wait

to hopefully see you on Sunday at TMLX 18 at Christie Pitts, 1.30 p.m. I have some gifts for FOTMs who come out courtesy of Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball. Hope to see you then and I definitely need to see you at TMLX 19, which is at Great Lakes Brewery on June 26th. Right on. I know I'm gonna be there for that one at least. Okay listen I know I dropped this TMLX 18 on everybody very short notice and I know it's Mother's Day so I understand. That's all good. But TMLX 19 on June 26th, no excuses. I want everybody there. It's always a fun time. And Palma Pasta will feed us. And that brings us to the end of our 1689th show.

Go to trontomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. Where's the best place to follow you Jeremy Hopkins? Probably Blue Sky right now. Jeremy Hopkins at bluesky.com. So Jeremy Hopkins at bluesky.com. So Jeremy Hopkins? Uh, probably a blue sky right now. Jeremy Hopkins at bluesky.com. So Jeremy Hopkins at bluesky.com. So Jeremy Hopkins, I'm at torontomike.com on bluesky, so follow us both. That's my go-to social media platform as well. I'm always dropping stream of consciousness thoughts.

Like this idea I have for a parody song. Denise Williams had a big song called Let's Hear It For The Boy. I'm writing a parody. Let's Hear It For Jay Wall. Working on it for Joe Wall, actually. Maybe Let's Hear It For Joe Wall. You're Jay Ho. He's Joe Wall. Get Rob Proust to AI that up. I'll get Rob Proust to sing it, but I don't want AI singing that song. Thanks to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Monaris, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, RecycleMyElectronics.ca, Building Toronto Skyline and Ridley Funeral Home. See you all tomorrow. Tomorrow's the big day for Chilliwack heads out

there. I got Bill from Chilliwack. He's the founder, he's the singer, he is Chilliwack. He's my special guest. We're diving deep into the history of Chilliwack as a band and why they're on their farewell tour. They play their last Toronto gig soon at Massey Hall, another great Toronto structure. The East Colroy Thompson Hall knew Massey Hall, but you know this. Yes, I did. Another great building. See you all tomorrow.