Toronto Sketches 9. Mike Filey
Madison Square Garden in Toronto
Mike Filey’s column “The Way We Were” has appeared in the Toronto Sunday Sun on a regular basis since 1975. Many of his earlier columns have been reproduced in volumes 1 through 8 of Dundurn Press’s Toronto Sketches series. The columns in this book originally appeared in 2003 and 2004. Appended to each column is the date it first appeared as well as any relevant material that may have surfaced since that date (indicated by an asterisk).
The New Old Toronto Street
One of the most historic streets in Toronto is little Toronto Street. It’s only one block long, if you don’t count the intersection it makes on the east side with Court Street, another small thoroughfare that also has some interesting history. To further define the limits of the present-day Toronto Street, it connects King Street to the south with Adelaide to the north. Notice that I used the expression “the present-day Toronto Street,” since what we have today is not the Toronto Street originally laid out by a few pioneer surveyors back in the late 1700s.
Historically, today’s Toronto Street is, in relative terms, a rather recent addition that came into being sometime after 1830. Dr. Scadding in his book Toronto of Old identifies the original Toronto Street as today’s Victoria Street, and a very busy street it was. That’s because in the early days of York (Toronto’s original name), Yonge Street did not extend south of Lot Street (now Queen) due to the presence of a marshy swamp. Back then the small community’s “downtown” was along King Street east and west of Church Street. To get there pedestrians as well as animal-drawn wagons and carts from the north and northwest would have to detour around the marsh and continue the trip via a thoroughfare called Toronto Street that connected Lot with King.
When it was decided to fill in the marsh and extend Yonge Street south of Queen, the original Toronto Street was closed and that land given to those who owned property through which the newly lengthened Yonge Street now ran. By the way, it should be noted that back then opening and closing roads was no big deal since in most cases these so-called “roads” were usually no more that dirt paths.
Looking north on Toronto Street from the same vantage point on King Street in 1914 and in 2002.
Some years later a new street was opened east of Victoria that connected King with Adelaide. To identify it an old street name was resurrected. It became today’s Toronto Street. Several grand buildings were erected on the new street only a couple of which still exist.