McCaul Street 1920's-50's

[LowPolygon]

i didn't know there was a synagogue on the site of the Pillage by the Grange...

quite a large and beautiful one at that:

old worker's housing on west side of street, south of OCA:

 

[CityPlaceN1]

There certainly was a lot of crappy rundown buildings downtown at one point.

 

[Mustapha]

Thanks for these pics. The details in them evoke some emotions. The outhouse. The pretty young girl sitting in a wagon. The synagogue that is SO clear to the eye yet now long gone.

Hey, has anyone gone to the food court at 'The Villages'? Mom and pop type places; quite neat and worthy of support.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

there's a UFO in this picture...

 

[Urban Shocker]

In the late '70s OCA had the chance to buy the Brinks building ( the low modernist structure on the right of the synagogue photo ) and, foolishly, their Governing Council turned down the offer.

When I started at the College in '71, the east side of McCaul was mostly an open lot with a bit of rubble strewn about - Willage by the Ganges didn't appear for several more years.

 

[Mustapha]

For awhile in the late 70s the Village rivaled Yorkville as a place to dress up and be seen. All the young dating couples went there. 'Ginsberg and Wong' a restaurant where you could order smoked meat or - after a fashion - chow mein, was a hopping place with long lineups.

 

[LowPolygon]

In the late '70s OCA had the chance to buy the Brinks building ( the low modernist structure on the right of the synagogue photo ) and, foolishly, their Governing Council turned down the offer.

When I started at the College in '71, the east side of McCaul was mostly an open lot with a bit of rubble strewn about - Willage by the Ganges didn't appear for several more years.

yes i rememberer when the school decided against buying it--in favour of the more extravagant and unsuitable Stewart Building. we were all quite surprised because the school had been using the Brinks building for years for its "experimental painting" dept, and it was a perfect space to work in.

(i have strong memories of Graham Coughtry and his mickies, Jim Tiley, Dan Solomon, David Bolduc and all the rest of them from that annex building...)

the Stewart building might have made sense from a certain perspective, but it was an awful place to paint in--it was so cramped and fussy on the inside by comparison...

 

[MindtheGap]

I lived on Darcy street for years in the mid to late 80s and remember Ginsberg and Wong going strong even at that point. Hadn't the Brinks building been used by the Otis elevator company for some time?

 

[LowPolygon]

otis bought the building after OCA decided against it. i think they bought the Stewart building in 1982-83.
when i was a student there, all my painting classes were in the brinks building...

 

[Urban Shocker]

Mustapha: Ah yes, Ginsberg & Wong - and that mechanical bull thing ( Urban Cowboy era, 1980 ) near the food court. What a fun ride he was ...

thedeepend: Indeed, the Brinks and Experimental Arts - when Gus Wiseman ran it - were a fine match compared to the Stewart building. Coughtry, Kubota, Tiley, Solomon, Hodgson, I remember them well. My first year was when Ascott arrived and I had a wonderful time during the chaos of '71/72. The Bev was going strong, just down the street, and there were quite a few OCA bands ( the Diodes and, later, Martha and the Muffins ) from that era.

 

[simply Dan]

Interesting about the synagogue - I had no idea there was one on McCaul. Village by the Grange (the entire block btw. Dundas, St. Patrick, Queen and McCaul - including The Artisan and now 9T6 must be one of the densest residential areas in the entire city.

 

[LowPolygon]

Indeed, the Brinks and Experimental Arts - when Gus Wiseman ran it - were a fine match compared to the Stewart building. Coughtry, Kubota, Tiley, Solomon, Hodgson, I remember them well. My first year was when Ascott arrived and I had a wonderful time during the chaos of '71/72. The Bev was going strong, just down the street, and there were quite a few OCA bands ( the Diodes and, later, Martha and the Muffins ) from that era.

wow, yes. all those names! Gus was a sweet man...
i saw the Diodes, Teenage Head, B-Girls, Johnny and the G Rays etc many many times. the Diodes opened for Talking Heads in the winter of 76/77, at the OCA auditorium. that night was the first time i ever set foot in the building. it was such a small scene back then! a little pocket of cool in a wasteland of Kodiak wearing knuckleheads listening to Supertramp, Genesis and Max Webster...

 

[adma]

otis bought the building after OCA decided against it. i think they bought the Stewart building in 1982-83.

Yeah, an elevator company in a single-storey building. How droll. (At least now, you can see the old Brinks ID uncovered.)

As far as its being a vacant lot in the early 70s: wasn't this one of those benchmark blockbusting/redevelopment superblock sites nipped in the bud by the Crombie revolution? At least, until VBTG finally materialized at the end of the decade, suitably midrised/urbanized/Jane-Jacobized. (Patricia McHugh panned VBTG with a little too much gusto in her guide to Toronto architecture; sure, it still might have been bad-old-superblocking with a politically-correct urbanizing makeover, but it could have been far, far worse...)

Would the synagogue have been demolished in concert with the rest of the block, or much earlier?

 

[tomms]

amazing picutures, i really like the horse infront of the synagoge

dont mean to hijack the post, but heres one looking north from queen-ish, 2008

​

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[jaborandi]

Yeah, an elevator company in a single-storey building. How droll. (At least now, you can see the old Brinks ID uncovered.)

As far as its being a vacant lot in the early 70s: wasn't this one of those benchmark blockbusting/redevelopment superblock sites nipped in the bud by the Crombie revolution? At least, until VBTG finally materialized at the end of the decade, suitably midrised/urbanized/Jane-Jacobized. (Patricia McHugh panned VBTG with a little too much gusto in her guide to Toronto architecture; sure, it still might have been bad-old-superblocking with a politically-correct urbanizing makeover, but it could have been far, far worse...)

Would the synagogue have been demolished in concert with the rest of the block, or much earlier?

I distinctly recall John Sewell giving a lecture at that time (68-72?) at OCA about battling the developers for the VBTG site- he was wearing a brown leather jacket and he sat sidesaddle on a stool. The housing was still there but in very bad shape but I don't recall the synogue at all. I think Sewell must have been a councillor at the time. I agree that VBTG could have been much much worse. I always quite liked it until they introduced the townhouses on McCaul with their wicked awful cheap fenestration. With great sadness, my heart hardened towards the complex and now it is merely a means to keep out of inclement weather on the way to Cinematheque Ontario.