Short Jaunt: Broadview & Gerrard… and Riverdale Park

Hello! Today's Short Jaunt is focused on the intersection of Broadview and Gerrard Street East, as well as Riverdale Park.

Let's start with the north side of the intersection. On the northeast corner there is an obviously old building that says "Bank of Nova Scotia" across the side, presently known as Scotia Bank. But, plot twist! This building was originally the Bank of Ottawa and it was built in 1911. The Bank of Ottawa as an entity was created in 1874 and was known as the "lumberman's bank". According to the Historical Society of Ottawa, it was created by lumber barons who wanted a bank that was sympathetic to the needs of the lumber industry. Doesn't sound biased at all. The bank had a pretty successful run, but in 1919, they decided to merge with the Bank of Nova Scotia. So while this building was built here as the Bank of Ottawa in 1911, it was rebranded 8ish years later after the merger.

Across the street at the northwest corner is the Riverdale branch of the Toronto Public Library. It has interesting ties to American philanthropists. In 1903, Andrew Carnegie- yes, the Carnegie Hall Andrew Carnegie- granted $350,000 to the Toronto Public Library for a new central branch as well as three other branches. Riverdale was one of them. This neighbourhood was chosen in large part because of the Riverdale Businessmen's Association, who lobbied for a permanent library branch in the area. The City of Toronto designated the corner of Broadview and Gerrard for the library in 1909, replacing the garden of the Don Jail's governor. In case you didn't know, Bridgepoint Healthcare, which is currently behind the library, was previously the Don Jail. We'll talk about that later. The Riverdale branch opened in October 1910. 87 years later, more American philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates provided funds for a computer learning center to be established at the library. I mean, their foundation did, not them directly, but still- lots of big names associated with this library branch.

This one isn't quite in the intersection, but I wanted to point out 383 Broadview, just north of the bank on the east side of the street. This was the location of the first Charlie's Meats, the restaurant that essentially launched East Chinatown. In 1952, Charlie Cheung moved to Toronto from China. After many years working in restaurants here, he and his wife started a cured meats business from their basement. Specifically, they made a Chinese style bacon called "lap yuk", which quickly became a hit in Toronto's Chinese community. At the time, the community was mostly centered in the area we currently know as Chinatown (along Spadina), after being displaced from the first Toronto Chinatown. That's a story for another day, but links in the show notes to learn more.

After Charlie set up shop here at 383 Broadview, other aspiring business people and restaurant owners from the community followed suit. One of the most well known ones was the Pearl Court restaurant, which was at 633 Gerrard from 1982 until they closed in 2019.

This area and the intersection especially is now known as East Chinatown. This is why on the south side of the street, a bit west of the intersection, there is the "Zhong Hua Men” archway which means "Chinese arch". It's based on the "pailou" or "paifang", an archway in Chinese architecture meant to honour ancestry, historical figures, or significant events. This kind of arch is found in most western Chinatowns, though we don't have one in Toronto's Chinatown on Spadina. This one in East Chinatown is the only one we have in the city.

The Zhong Hua Men in East Chinatown was erected by the city in 2009 after seven years of fundraising by the Chinese chamber of commerce. While most Chinatown gates arch over a street, this one is positioned more as a sculpture or monument in a parking lot donated by the Toronto Parking authority. The marble Fo lions at the base of the archway were donated by the Chinese government and they are meant to serve as guardians. Overall, the arch is meant to honour Chinese settlers as well as Chinese railway workers who were mistreated, abused and even killed in Canada, and without whom we wouldn't have a railway and the economic benefits that came with having a railway in Canadian cities. There's a really interesting Vox video about the architecture of Chinatowns in North America, I put a link in the show notes, definitely recommend checking it out.

That's all I could find about the south side of the intersection. But I'm definitely interested in the history behind the building now occupied by the A&W on the southeast corner of the intersection. So if you know anything, let me know.

Let's move on to the park. Walk north a little bit until you get there, but as we go, I'll tell you a bit about Broadview Avenue.

As with many other streets in the city, it was originally a trail used by the First Nations. When the area was colonized, settlers used the same path to lay down a road called Mill Road. The road was originally established to connect Queen Street East (at the time called Kingston Road) to the mill built further north on the Don River, roughly where Todmorden Mills is today. Hence the name Mill Road. That was in the 1790s. In the 1880s, the street was renamed Broadview because of the beautiful view of the parklands and river. This brings us roughly to park history. Let me tell you about a man named John Scadding.

John Scadding was a British settler who was buddies with John Graves Simcoe, the guy responsible for laying out the city in its earliest days. Simcoe granted Sacdding 250 acres of land. That's a lot of land. It spanned the area we're standing in, on either side of the Don River, and from the lakefront up to Danforth. Needless to say it included the park. In 1794, he built a building just south of Queen Street near the Don River. It's one of the oldest buildings in the city. It still exists, but it has been moved to the exhibition grounds where The Ex, you know, the CNE takes place. Weirdly, Scadding didn't stay in this area very long. Two years after building his cabin, he went back to England and then he came back a little over 20 years later. At that point, he decided to split up his property and give it away like Lindsay Lohan's character did with the prom queen crown and Mean Girls. I mean, he wasn't that generous, he sold the land. I just liked the image of this like regency era man throwing pieces of a plastic glittery crown to other regency men who are just jumping around excitedly in their little pantaloons.

He split up the section between Gerrard and Queen into five lots and when they sold they led to a number of houses and cottages being built. The section south of Queen was purchased by Will Smith! ...or rather William Smith Jr. He built a tannery there in 1820.

Scadding kept what was left the land between Gerrard and Danforth. He built a farm here working with the hilly terrain that we still have today. Apparently it was a beautiful place full of rose gardens and apple orchards and melons. Also animals, especially sheep. Sadly, the farm turned against him in 1824. A tree on his property fell on him and he died. His family continued to live there for about 30 years and then they turned the property over to the city which they plan to use for an "industrial farm, a House of Refuge and a jail".

Their plans came to life! Just south of the park, behind the library is the Bridgepoint Health Center. A large part of the property was originally the Don jail. If you walk up there, you'll see the older building on the west side of the property was the jail. It still has barred windows, and the entryway is overseen by the sculpted face of Father Time. Right next to the jail was the aforementioned House of Refuge. It was built in 1865 to service the homeless population, which included the mentally ill who didn't have support. The city was in a depression at the time, so a lot of people needed help. In the 1870s it was a smallpox hospital. And when that epidemic passed, they moved to treating scarlet fever and other infectious diseases. At that point, they changed their name to the Isolation Hospital. We really can't say epidemic without the word isolation coming up right on its heels, can you.

All this time, it was still servicing the homeless. Seems kind of irresponsible to care for the homeless in an infectious disease hospital. But maybe that's just me. In the 1880s, they had to set aside a part of the house specifically for homeless elderly women, many of whom were left widowed with nothing because of the Depression. The hospital got rebuilt and changed names many times over the years, and in 2002 became Bridgepoint Health. They took over and refurbished the Don Jr. Building and built a new modern wing facing the Don River.

Back to the park. Riverdale Park was originally part of the jail property. So it was Riverdale Farm- which is still just across the river near necropolis cemetery- that farm and these parklands were initially maintained by prisoners. At the time the jail and its property were seen as a very progressive way to treat prisoners and some even called it the "palace for prisoners". In the late 1800s, 10 years after the jail was built, it was separated from the parklands. I thought it became a proper park by then, and maybe it was, but I also read that in the 1920s, there was a landfill site beneath the park. If you look along the edges of the park on Broadview Avenue, you might notice a row of green pipes that were used to vent methane gas from the landfill. I did find pictures of people setting up elaborate tobogganing sites on the parkland in the 1900s and 1910s though so maybe the landfill and park coexisted. Lovely.

In the 60s, the city built the Don Valley Parkway which officially separated the park from Riverdale farm. I mean, the river did before but it was still connected by a darling little footbridge that I wish was still there somehow. We do have a pedestrian bridge that goes over the Don Valley Parkway but you know it's not the same. It was around this time in the 60s that the park got equipped with more sports facilities. Nowadays the park is a favorite location for east enders to illegally drink beer while watching the sunset on the slanted stadium-like sides of the park. People run and play baseball here too, I guess.

One last thing you might have noticed a statue in the southish end of the park. In the 80s, this statue honouring Dr. Sun Yat-Sen was erected, having been funded by the Chinese and Vietnamese business owners in the area. He was a Chinese revolutionary known as the "father of Modern China". His statue depicts him holding his book called the "Three Principles of the People: nationalism, democracy and socialism". He once came to Toronto to fundraise for his political efforts. Fun fact.

That's today's episode. Thanks for coming on this short jaunt with me. If you feel compelled to rate and review, I would really appreciate that. As usual, the next episode will be in two weeks time. In the meantime, feel free to check out all of my past episodes on my website walkinginplace.tours, or on any podcast platform. You can also follow me on Instagram @walkinginplacepod and on Twitter at @PlaceWalking. If you want a more involved version of these kinds of walks, I'm going to start putting some of the tours up on the Story City app. Very soon I will have a tour of Casa Loma up on Story City. It has a few extra facts that I didn't cover in the podcast episode as well as fun photos and just like you know, fun add ons to the original tour. So check it out. If you are interested in joining a tour in person, I will be doing tours of the Harbourfront area through Airbnb experiences in September. So check that out. I'll include a link for all of these things in the show notes. Speaking of the show notes, as with all of my episodes, you can find all of the source material listed on a page on my website. The link is in the show notes. Last last thing I also wanted to include a bunch of additional reading. I touched on a lot of topics today that were really interesting, and that I think it's worth looking more into. They just didn't make the cut. So check out the show notes to see more. Thanks so much. See you next time.