There are only so many ways to say “walking around aimlessly on a sunny weekend”…

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With the weather being so hot lately, I’m sure almost every Torontonian has though, at least for a moment, of daring a dip in Lake Ontario. Okay, yeah, at times it might smell like rotting corpses, but it might be refreshing.

Unfortunately for me, getting anywhere near the water either meant a slog out west to the man-made beach near Bathurst and Queen’s Quay, or east to Cherry Beach, home of the sandy syringe.

For a while there were rumours of a new faux beach being constructed near my neck of the woods at the foot of Lower Jarvis —  Sugar Beach — but this was, after all, a government project and the expected summer 2010 completion date couldn’t be trusted.

And then, in a sure sign that the universe is soon to end, I heard on my morning radio show that Sugar Beach was open for business. So I put on my most elegant thong, grabbed a towel, and headed down.

On the way there I couldn’t help but hearken back to Toronto’s past — how people used to refresh themselves in the waters of Lake Ontario, in style, and with class.

Prior to the forties it was considered improper to wade out into the lake, clothed or otherwise. The practice referred to as “wetting Willy” (William being a common name), being heavily frowned upon.

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If you happened to be an insomniac somewhere in the neighbourhood of 26 years ago or, like me, just happened to be awake for whatever nefarious purposes, you may have flipped over to local channel Global TV and been treated to their late night (early morning?) test pattern fill-in, a gentle program named “Night Walk”.

As the name implies, the show is nothing more than one long, continuous, first-person steadicam shot of downtown Toronto streets set to dreamy jazz. I’m not sure if the purpose of the show was ever made clear — Was it simply filler for that lonely 4 a.m. time slot? Was it a form of video sleep aid? Was it interwoven with subliminal suggestions intended to keep you enthralled? (I could never peel my eyes away!)

Apparently only one episode of “Night Walk” was ever shot, but follow-up programs such as “Night Ride” continued the tradition in the same vain.

Unfortunately, Global stopped broadcasting these programs some time ago, but I’m of the opinion that it’s about time they were brought back. Perhaps on this very blog. ;)

(How many now-absent Toronto landmarks can you spot?)

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I hope I haven’t misled you, dear reader. As the name implies, Rosedale isn’t all weird and unusual structures. The common Meadow Rose is rumoured to still spring up there, if that’s any indication of the place’s frilly beginnings. Probably still some growing around some of the older buildings. A testament to the fact that some of those buildings have been around since Rosedale got the name.

Back in the day, the community was thought to be waaaay out in the sticks. Maids wouldn’t travel out there so people didn’t want to buy houses for fear of  having to “rough” it. No shit. And there were some interesting goings-on too, like the disappearance of Ambrose Small in 1919, just after he’d sold all his theatre properties for $1.7 mill. Lots of suspicion on the wife, one of Small’s employees makes off with $100,000; sounds like good Sunday afternoon reading. Doesn’t Rosedale seem like a good setting for it?

Also there’s the story of Bill Bull, a prolifically ironic writer on church history, who in ‘31 had Al Capone trying to kill him. Hey, no one ever said that all the neighbourhood money was legit, did they? It certainly would explain why all the buildings have such imposing facades too. Plenty of spots for snipers to sit in wait for assassins. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that moats had once existed around some of these homes.

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That romp I took through the Toronto Archives the other day didn’t end there, dear reader. It went on for hours as I pored maps and stories of the city dating back to 1834, when Toronto first became Toronto. Okay, possibly the second time, but this time the King himself signed off on it. York it weren’t no more anyhow.

It all started with innocently enough. I usually just close the window after flipping through the photos but this time, just for fun, I decided to click on the Archives logo in the corner. Sometimes their web exhibits are suuuuuuper boring. But this time, for Toronto’s 175th, they did a series on the city in 1834.

And now I can say that I know where the original city extended to — it’s been something of a bug on my itchy brain for a while now.

I checked the maps against current street names and locations and the boundary points I came up with seem to agree with the maps going back to 1834. Unfortunately these points disagree with the Archives’ analysis, but I don’t care.

According to me, the north-eastern edge of 1834 Toronto is the intersection of Queen Street and River Street:

At that time Queen Street was called Lot Street because it led to a bunch of allotted land — lots. Also, there was no queen. Clever.

The photos, by the way, are looking into the old city from the four corners. Some of those corners haven’t seen much action since the old city, as you can see above. Others, like the south-eastern Gooderham’s mill and later Worted boozery, have been since been gussied up:

But if full-on historical effacement is your thing (it’s okay to admit you like modern),  the south-western edge on Front Street doesn’t get any more devastating. Not only is the intersecting Peter Street discarded for Blue Jays Way (organized ball leagues weren’t really a priority in 1834), but there is literally nothing left of the original city except Front Street:

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No doubt about it, I’m going to copyright hell. Yes, I’ve once again raided the Toronto Archives (I highly recommend a search or two; lotsa fun stuff), and emerged with some gleaming gems. Should the Archives ever decide to sue my blatancy, I’ll no doubt be forced to hand over much of TCL’s total monetary earnings to date: $3.67. If I made them cry, emotional damages too. But I just can’t help it; they have way too much great stuff to hide behind a stuffy web interface.

This time around I went back to the mid-sixties in search of the very beginnings of computing in Toronto. Okay, yeah, I’ve been spending a lot of time online making sweet sweet love to the blogosphere. And programming. But the digital miracles I’m pulling out of my ass (and many of us are), these days would’ve been unimaginable forty-five years ago. In fact, even though I’m more closely familiar with most of the gizmos in these photos than the average person, even I’m at a loss to put name or function to everything there. But I’ll try.

Okay, so from my understanding, this is what computing looked like at the University of Toronto circa 1965ish:

Can you imagine what it would’ve taken to slap together a basic web page at that time? Like, look at the fellow in the photo above; picking out a frozen pizza because he knows he’s going to be a while.  It’s nice that they provided slushie machines for the programmers:

I guess he’s picking his flavour.

Oh, yeah, of course I’d be hideously remiss if I didn’t mention the sideburns. That was the requisite look in those days, from my understanding. For when you’d fall asleep on your desk on account of the speed of the computers. Sop up your drool ‘n all. (I know, gross, but hey, practical.)

So here’s Mr. Burns actually earning a living:

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Lately I’ve managed to walk home from work roughly every other day. I should stress roughly. You know, it’s cold outside, and once the sun drops and the wind-friendly intersections get going, plunking down three bucks to get there in warmth actually seems worth it to avoid all that. So not every day is walking day.

But, just as I start to think how hard we have it, an unconscious decision is made (if it was conscious I’d tell you who made it), to once again flip through the Toronto Archives, to remind me that I’m just being a whiny little bitch.

Maybe it’s because life was simple then that the frosty elements didn’t bother people so much. Maybe the people were simple.

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It was a hard slog today.

Every surface scrubbed, every possible source of food triple wrapped; still the fruit fly population seems to have doubled overnight. Their strategy appears to involve coating all my traps with the bodies of their dead, allowing the few that survive to fly kamikaze into the first available orifice:

Someone thought that printing house flies on the paper was a good idea. Momentarily fool you into thinking it’s more effective than it actually is, maybe?

The return of the 4 a.m. import glee club across the street compounded the struggle, making today very long and generally painful. Dragging my ass through the garbage battlefield in my dozy state would have been dangerous, so I chose instead to do a desk-bound reconnaissance of this conflict’s past through the Toronto Archives.

As always, I was left in awe of what people of the past were able to cope with; how much they were able to do with the simple mud streets and steamy horse shit they were given. The garbage collectors pulled the garbage carts around by themselves like real men. There would always be a partner to help position the pole (barely visible in the photo) from behind.

In the fifties, garbage collectors relaxed a bit as they were now relegated to merely tossing their cans in the rear. The white garbage trucks were probably a bad call, but at least the initial collectors on duty could be assured of looking fabulous while in them. Of course after repeated use, the back sides would become quite filthy.

Ah, those were the gay ol’ days. But that changed almost as soon as the union barged in, plopped on the couch, and cracked a beer. In no time flat, the city was employing five supervisors to one garbage collector.

And pretty soon the messy business we’re dealing with now took form in the appointment of two additional government clerks to ensure proper work apportioning. Everyone was fully qualified for one specific duty and also given special training to cease to comprehend English when a task was in danger of falling outside that duty, or on break time.

It’s not really so hard to understand how we got here, is it? If history teaches anything, it’s that modern-day garbage collectors are not expressing their flair nearly enough. No wonder they’re so pissy!

And there’s your golden nugget of knowledge for today. Tomorrow, if I get to sleep before dawn, maybe something else.

“What’d you do on the weekend?”

“Not much. Raped and murdered a couple of women, had a few beers with friends on Saturday night; nothin’ special. You?”

“Oh, you know, same-old same-old. Finally got that raw fecal smell out of the apartment on Sunday; turned out that I hadn’t flushed in three weeks. Can you believe that shit?”

“I hear ya! So, did you read about that guy that got shot…”

It’s the same old boring water-cooler conversation every Monday, more or less. If it’s not about Oprah and her hijinx or the smell of poop in one’s apartment, it’s about the latest homicide in the city. It does seem like someone’s getting shot or stabbed almost every day recently, doesn’t it? In April there were 4 murders in an area stretching from Mississauga to Durham. June’s looking a bit busier so far.

I wonder if Toronto Police will be able to cope. Then again, some old photos I’d seen in the Toronto Archives remind me that men of the Service’s past have done far greater with far less. Submitted for your consideration:

(a lot of photos in this one…)

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Despite the love, hate, or ambivalence you may feel for the TTC, you have to admit that it manages a pretty big spread over a pretty wide area. Occasionally, the quality of service is going to slip. Sometimes, though, eager young TTC staff take their duties seriously and perform them with a smile and a tip of the hat. It’s a nice change from the cocky smirk and sputum in the eye one usually gets.

For example, my morning commute on the 504 King West was handled by a dapper fellow donning the full Transit Commission regalia. His headwear was not unlike a full police constable hat (did you know they made these?), his uniform was Picardesquely neat and authoritative, and the mirror shades and Gestapo gloves he gesticulated wildly with were the final word on professionalism.

Here’s a wholly inadequate picture that I took:

If you look real close, you can make out the edges of the hat.

Like I said, wholly inadequate. But that doesn’t matter because I didn’t want to single out one specific driver, though you’ll always be in my heart, streetcar number 4187 operator.

What the situation reminded me of were some of the old photos from the Toronto Archives I’d been browsing recently while stealthily dodging work; pseudo-nostalgic images of a gentler time in the TTC’s history when men were men and ulcers were the size of a baby’s head.

Here are some of the tippity-tops from my short list:

On the way home to murder the cheating wife at a Wellesley bus stop, 1957:

Distracted-lesbian guided tour at King subway station, 1957:

Tommy Holmes, TTC conductor and chronic masturbator, 1930s:

Little Oliver Twist with his mum and their parole officer, 1926:

Holy shit it’s sinking!, 1927:

Hahahahahaha, 1928:

On the way to the re-education camp, 1928:

Here I am plunking down $2.75 a trip and the streetcar doesn’t even mow down pedestrians with a cow-catcher anymore. The TTC used to be the better way, now it’s just the adequate way. At least the operator of the  4187 car is making an effort to rekindle the glory days.

Them’s the times, I guess.