Joe Mihevc
AUDIO INTERVIEW
SUMMARY
March 8, 2016
00:27 PERSONAL HISTORY: Joe grew up in the Dufferin / Rogers / Eglinton area.
01:00 He Moved to Winnett Ave. in 1985 and Humewood Ave. in 1993.
01:48 He travelled along St. Clair every Sunday to church as a child.
02:08 PLACES OF WORSHIP / Cultural Centre: The Hungarian House on St. Clair near Winona was once a synagogue; he remembers hearing that it was purchased for a Hungarian community centre.
02:28 SCHOOLS: Joe and his brothers all attended St. Michael’s College at St. Clair and Bathurst. The St. Clair streetcar was a familiar route.
02:55: SHOPS / CHANGE: Loblaw’s was on St. Mike’s land, all on one level with a large parking lot. St. Mike’s debated what to do with the land on which the store stood from about the 1960s and well into the 1980’s. They finally decided to sell a parcel to Loblaw.
03:45 ENTERTAINMENT: The Theatre near Vaughan and St. Clair is now gone. It was “verboten” to students when he was at St. Mike’s.
04:27 RAVINES / RECREATION / LIFE OF CHILD: He learned to skate at Phil White Arena; Cedarvale Ravine was then a more wooded area – he played in the ravine as a child. One could get right into nature without leaving the city.
04:54 Creeks: Old Castle Frank Brook, the western leg of Don River runs through Cedarvale. You can’t fill in the creek – it is still there. You can see it in the spring months. He would enter the ravine from Phil White Arena.
05:54 ‘Lost Rivers’: The brook runs east from Everden and makes an eastward jog just south of Eglinton, to GlenCedar. Part of the ‘Lost Rivers’ system. First block between Dewbourne and Eglinton, experience a lot of flooding. In 2016 they are doing an environmental assessment to look for solutions to avoid sewage backups. Garrison Creek and Taddle Creek are less problematic but Glen Cedar and Westover Hill sometimes have flooding.
07:46 Joe explains that Vaughan Rd is the top bank for all these river systems. At Eglinton and Dufferin there’s the Humber River, at St Clair there’s the Castle Frank Tributary of the Don River.
09:43 POLITICS: Joe started his career in politics in 1991. He was first elected to the City of York, in this area. The entire budget for City of York was $70 million.
11:04 Disadvantaged City: He describes the bizarre shape and boundaries of York and how it excluded most businesses. This meant there was almost no commercial tax revenue, instead revenues went to the City of Toronto. He conjectures on how this came to pass.
13:06 ENTERTAINMENT: St. Clair had been home to many theatres at Bathurst, Vaughan, Christie, Oakwood and Dufferin; they disappeared with the advent of multiplex theatres. St.Clair began its decline, possibly because of the loss of the theatres in combination with it being “on the border of everything.” Joe explains that because it was on the edge of The City of Toronto and the City of York nobody made it the centrepiece of their political life. Keele and Eglinton and Mt. Dennis were thought of as the “classic” City of York.
13:55 POLITICS / MEMORABLE PEOPLE: Ben Nobleman, after being elected in York, mistakenly showed up at Toronto City Hall to serve.
14:17 City Boundaries: The Further east you went in the City of York, the less aware people were that they lived in York – Sandra Ashby (local activist) and Paul Newby found out during election that their new home was not in Toronto, but in York.
15:36 Poor Cousins: City of Toronto had $905 to spend per resident and York had $450. He explains how difficult it was to get things done in York – “nothing happened if you didn’t organize the community. The old Toronto could just buy it.” If they needed libraries, they could pay for it. In York, they had to organize and mobilize and get a lot of volunteer energy.
16:39 STREETLIFE / NEIGHBOURHOOD / POLITICS: St Clair itself saw almost no development. He also refers to the closing of the theatre at Vaughan and the development of the lands at Bathurst and St. Clair.
16:38 TRANSIT: St. Clair was a dying street till about 2000; development began in the 2000s with the streetcar right-of-way.
17:31 WYCHWOOD BARNS: The Barns was “conceived as a kind of mini Union Station of the North.” St. Clair was the north edge of the city and had many gas stations, where you would now see Midas, Speedy Muffler, a paint store and Pizza Pizza. You would fill up your gas tank at one of them before you would drive out into the country.
18:01 NEIGHBOURHOOD: Pre WWI the area was beautifully wooded, which inspired street names Kenwood, Pinewood, Maplewood, Cherrywood, etc.
18:39 TRANSIT / STREETLIFE: Joe provides some streetcar line history: a Private railway operated on St. Clair pre WW I. In 1921 the city expropriated all private railways for the TTC. St. Clair was made into a wide boulevard to accommodate two lanes in each direction plus a right-of-way for the streetcars down the centre.
19:18 In the 1930s there was a make-work project to remove the right-of-way where they filled in the streetcar tracks so cars could use the entire street. Not everyone agreed with this change. Business community opposed it. The debate of the past parallels recent debate. “Now St. Clair is booming commercially and in terms of developers wanting to build on St. Clair... We’ve rediscovered the old in the new.”
21:25 WYCHWOOD BARNS / TRANSIT: Each Barn is marked with the date of construction – 1913, 1915, 1917 and two in 1921. It was a working facility for the TTC. During the WWII era, the city population was approx. 750,000 or 600,000. It drove 335 million rides during this time. Most of these rides were on streetcars. Currently the number is 550 million. It shows us how dependent we were on public transit before the car and modern suburbia took off.
22:48 There were many streetcar lines at that time: Rogers, Oakwood, Davenport, Dupont and one from downtown Toronto to Barrie. There are photos currently in the Barns that show streetcars for the East Mall, and Islington..”
23:27 Joe talks about the the post WWII era, and refers to historians and films that explain how automakers bought up transportation facilities, across North America, and let them go into decline. Toronto, San Francisco, New Orleans, Boston are among the only cities that maintained some portion of streetcar operations. Toronto’s was drastically reduced. With fewer cars to service, the TTC had to close the Wychwood Barns in 1978.
25:07 In 1978 the TTC used the Barns to store old vehicles. Since the vehicles started without a key kids would sneak in and ram the old cars back and forth. Some of the old PCC cars were sold to Egypt. In the year 2000 the TTC declared the Barns surplus to their needs. The Barns had been lying dormant for over 20 years.
26:20 Joe describes what the Barns looked like before it was restored. It had a big fence around it, except on the Wychwood side where you could sneak in and enter. Kids would break into the building. It became a raccoon habitat. He tells a story of racoon rigamortis – the racoon had gotten into the cream that was used for the gears. The buildings were forlorn looking with boarded up windows. You can forgive people who saw it as a place to be torn down and not preserved.
28:00 BARNS / POLITICS: In 1999 or 2000, the debate started about what to do with the Barns – city planners were brought into the discussion. They presented 4 proposals of for it being 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% park. They didn't think they could get 100% of it as a park space. During the city election, in 2000, all the candidates, including Joe, argued for 100% park. At the TTC meeting Joe heard about TTC plans to demolish the Barns buildings. He asked for a heritage analysis before sending it out to tender. The TTC wanted a fresh and clean site but after heritage advocates got involved, a movement grew to save the buildings. Roscoe Handford was very active. They began to “see this as a possibility rather than as a liability”
30:30 At the last meeting in 2000 the City council voted for 100% park. As people started to tour the Barns with Doors Open Toronto and Heritage Walks they saw possibilities. Joe describes the Barns as being ”industrially ugly and beautiful as you can imagine.” They are solid brick and “represent our industrial heritage” – that was the basis for the Barns receiving a heritage designation. He confirms that the pits were still there. They started to envision the park with the buildings themselves anchoring the site; a park can be in a different form – not only grass and trees.
35:02 The current pizza oven is run by The STOP. It was preceded by an oven that was built by community advocates like Peter McKendrick and Roscoe Handford; they brought dough once a week to make pizzas – this endeavour brought out the ‘ethnic mommas’ who said “it’s just like the village back home” – they became allies.
36:41 WYCHWOOD BARNS continued: Barn 4 is run by The STOP – they focus on urban agriculture and food security. They run educational programs at the Barns. Their goal is to be more food self-sufficient, even in urban areas. They teach skills around gardening and healthy food preparation. Gardens are a cooperative project between The STOP and a seniors’ organization that partners young people with seniors from different ethnic communities to plant traditional foods.
38:12 The ice rink is totally community driven – it began before the Barns started. It was one of the ways the neighbourhood (with encouragement from local councillors) laid claim to the greenspace – it established them as using the space as a park. There was a political purpose in that rink.
39:07 The “Lords of the Rink” started their process in 2001 or 2002 and having been watering it every year.
39:58 RECREATION: Joe talks about recently putting in the outdoor artificially surfaced rink beside Phil White arena. The plan for it was conceived 5 or 6 years ago. There was no artificial rink in the area that had been part of in the old City of York. They used some of the space from the misused parking lot at rear of the arena In 2007/8 for it’s construction. The cooler for Phil White was being refurbished so Joe had them upgrade it to allow freezing of both indoor and outdoor rinks. They recently added an indoor changeroom.
43:00 WYCHWOOD BARNS: The Barns has Artists’ Live/Work Spaces: there are 28 spaces in Barn 1. The city subsidizes the difference between market rent and ability to pay. They are for working professional artists who are also on the social housing waitlist – they “provide affordable housing so artists can do their craft.”
44:12 The Success of the Barns has increased property values of the homes across the street on Benson. “People want to live near the Barns. They want to live near the arts. They want to live near culture. It gives that “hip feeling.”
44:59 It’s a regional hub: it’s used for a Farmers’ Market, arts events, community events, funerals, and weddings.
45:10 Financial Agreement: The city leases the Barns to Artscape, an arms-length independent city entity, for $2 annually. The city provides a clean site; Artscape fundraised $22 million for all renovations to the buildings. They got some housing money from the federal government.
46:06 Barns’ Layout: Barn 1 is the artists’ live/work space; Barn 2 is the Covered Street; Barn 3 is for organizations, i.e. Storytellers Association of Toronto to Theatre Direct; Barn 4 is The STOP; Barn 5 is a hollowed out veranda and serves as a pass-through and summer Farmers’ Market.
46:40 Barns’ Design: Architect Joe* Lobko (*Mihevc mistakenly calls him Peter) put up with never ending community consultations. These consultations led to the Barns strong sense of community ownership. The children’s playground could have been a parking lot.
47:16 Parking Issues: There are occasionally some problems but for the most part it works well.
48:37 SCHOOLS / MEMORABLE PEOPLE: He remembers the 1994 Humewood / Cherrywood debate. Trustee Karen Hen lost to Cherrywood supporter, Ed Blackstock, but the Cherrywood Alternative program at Humewood School was still cut.
49:08 RAVINES: Lost Rivers: Joe talks about a resident who lives at Humewood and Valewood whose grandmother remembered seeing ducks on a little river that ran east west through that area. It was where Garrison Creek started. It runs east-west on Valewood, down Atlas/Winona to the parking lot of No Frills, down to Christie Pits, ending at Fort York. The river now goes underneath Humewood School.
50:45 There are flooding issues due to Garrison Creek on Atlas Ave. In heavy rains water can get to half a metre high in backyards. The home at the bend of Winona, during backyard renovations, had a bulldozer sink where the river was. On Roseneath people would dig up discarded garbage in their backyards that was buried in the creek – especially ashes from coal and wood burning furnaces.
52:48 HEALTHCARE / DEMOGRAPHICS / Public Health: In the years following WWI, disease was on the rise, and to combat this the City of Toronto mandated indoor plumbing, connected to a sewer system, to keep drinking water safe from diseased water that was coming from the outdoor toilets. Poor people went to York once this ordinance was passed. This defines the City of York’s character – working class. Joe remembers an old fellow telling him that in the 1930s he had an outdoor toilet in his backyard. York took more than another decade to pass a similar ordinance.
54:41 DEMOGRAPHICS / CHANGE: The City of York became a place where waves of immigrants came to settle – Irish, Jewish, Italians, Portuguese and Eastern Europeans (like Joe’s family). So many people have started their lives on St. Clair, Dufferin, and Eglinton. The houses were small and affordable – you could have lots of kids.
55:20: Gentrification: People would start out living in York; once they got enough money together they left for the suburbs. Partly due to the St. Clair right-of-way, and partly due to the rejection of a suburban lifestyle, St. Clair has become a “privileged community.” Trends have changed – he talks about the American model where the rich live in the suburbs, and Latin America where the rich live downtown. He makes the comparison with Toronto, that we have gone from an American model to one that’s closer to a Latin American model. He explains that immigrants/refugees can no longer afford to come to this area. We have infrastructure with social service agencies, public transit, and schools but instead we’re getting ‘905 refugees’. There is a big trend with kids, whose parents moved to the suburbs for a better life, who now want to live in the city. They move back to where their grandparents lived. Older people move out, young families move in.
58:34 Kindergarten population boom: There is a large number of kindergarteners in the area. This is a reversal of trends and projections for enrolment.
58:58 TRANSIT: Streetcar: Joe’s trip from his house at St. Clair and Christie to City Hall takes 25 minutes by transit. New technology is coming that will improve the timing of the streetcars even more. He recalls that before the right-of-way he would often walk to the subway rather than battle onto a streetcar. More streetcars are still needed to accommodate rush hour volume, but the ride is smooth.
1:0010 NEIGHBOURHOOD / CHANGE: The new community infrastructure, built over the last 20 years, has also made this an attractive community.
1:00:16 SHOPS / business survival: There were challenges during the construction of the right-of-way. Dollar stores, on month to month leases, moved out. Groups that were in for the long haul, bounced back and some have used tough times to reinvent themselves – eg. Acapella. There is a set of new businesses: Mabel’s and Baker and Scone (with its 22 staff). On opening day the owner of Baker and Scone had 1,500 scones to sell and sold out by 11 am. Joe has noted that the biggest investors on St. Clair are local residents.
1:02:24 Street Life: In the Last 2 years they granted 8 new patio licences on St. Clair.