Well there’s the Boba Boy; some serious tagging and or graffiti – lots of it; the Cleaner’s Shop; vehicles subject to towing; and B-ricks (the main feature). Quite different from other parts.

Thanks to the sons I’ve learned a lot. Well-known Gordon Sinclair, thanks to CFRB and CBC, born in 1906, sired a Scot from Inverness and an Anglo from Kent. He spent time walking in neighbourhoods, building houses and breeding horses in stables.  Houses in those days slowed their ages. Their work – class families of humble means – loud and colourful. Convenience stores took places. All walked to family-run businesses to buy from family-run businesses. On Sackville Street empty taxis parked, pigeons and demolished apartment buildings, night shifts. Ghosts of families were everywhere. Big surprise was walking into a used book store in Coldwater, Ontario and discovering two books written by locals – We speak of authour broadcaster Gordon Sinclair and novelist Hugh Garner . . .  . . . .  Gordon shared his prose with dirty streets of Cabbagetown and/or Riverdale. Gordon’s  birth was on Carlton Street in 1900.  Sounds of the area connected with his youth. He recalled the roar of a lion (not this one) housing from the Toronto Zoo across the street. The sound reached as high as Amelia Street. Then came ‘Cabbagetown’ by Hugh Garner set on familiar streets. That  story began before The Great Depression up to the 1970’s. That brought in working class, hotbed multiculturalism, a variety of sins, old houses, prosperity still years away, encounters with 51 Division, newly arrived restauranteurs, squalid rooming houses. These are the books that tell, or once told, the real story. Forget the history text books sitting on shelves in school libraries. Not always, though. <Contributed by Duncan Fremlin – local Realtor and Musician>