Neil Naiman
AUDIO INTERVIEW
SUMMARY
March 22, 2015
00:10 BACKGROUND / SHOPS / SERVICES: Neil grew up off of Bathurst St. on Croydon Road halfway between St. Clair and Eglinton, but the family oriented themselves to St. Clair. They went to the TD Bank at the corner of St. Clair and Bathurst and the Health Bread Bakery just west of Bathurst on St. Clair. Neil went to a barber on Vaughan Road south of St. Clair who later moved to Raglan Ave. He spent a lot of time at the Wychwood Library.
01:02 ENTERTAINMENT: Neil and his friends went to the Bowlerama. He also went to Saturday matinees at the Radio City theatre on Bathurst south of St. Clair just north of the streetcar loop and later to matinees at the Vaughan Theatre at Vaughan and St. Clair.
02:09 LIFE OF A CHILD: He remembers his brother losing a tooth while they were watching Ben Hur at the Vaughan Theatre and they were eating Mackintosh toffee.
02:32 PLACES OF WORSHIP / LIFE OF A CHILD: In the 1950’s his father would force him to go to synagogue on Saturday mornings. They used to go to two small orthodox synagogues. One was at Burnside Drive and Bathurst. The other was on Vaughan Road, north of St. Clair. It is now a Buddhist Centre.
03:52 SHOPS / RESTAURANTS: He remembers the Cottage Restaurant on the south side of St. Clair, Kresge’s and the Power Store on the north side of St. Clair between Bathurst and Vaughan. In fact, there were two Power Stores in the neighbourhood - the one his mother shopped at on St. Clair and another at Eglinton and Bathurst. Leon Weinstein owned the Power Stores, which became Loblaws. Later a Loblaws store opened on the south side of St. Clair east of Bathurst. The Bowlerama was above it.
05:06 His mother also shopped at the Health Bread bakery on the corner of Raglan and St. Clair. There was another Jewish bakery, Hermes Bakery, on St. Clair near Alberta Ave.
05:45 PLACES OF WORSHIP: A brief discussion about synagogues in the area, including Shaarei Shomayim.
06:16 SCHOOLS / LIFE OF A CHILD: Neil went to a Jewish school that was at College and Brunswick. For grade 6, due to a renovation at the school, his classes were at the Shaarei Shomayim on St. Clair. He remembers running after the girls on St. Clair.
06:57 LIFE OF A CHILD / SHOPS: He didn’t go much west of Vaughan Road as a child, except to Woolworth’s, but his aunt and uncle lived on Crang Ave., so when he visited them he might go to the Hermes Bakery.
07:45 PLACES OF WORSHIP: Talking about what happened to the synagogues in the area: the Burnside Drive location became an Evangelical church, then a Chabad. The other one he attended on Vaughan became a Buddhist temple.
08:18 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: The biggest changes he sees in the neighbourhood are the high-rises at the corner of Bathurst and St. Clair - he feels they are “out of place” - and the loss of the Crosstown gas station at the same corner. It was one of the few places that were open late and had a full-service car wash. It was “a landmark to many of us”.
09:10 TRANSIT: He used the St. Clair streetcar sometimes, but he mostly took the Bathurst streetcar. They would take the Bathurst bus down to the St. Clair loop and get on a streetcar there. He remembers taking a streetcar called the Dupont Docks with his mother to see movies at Shea’s Cinema. He believes it ran along St. Clair, down Avenue Road and then turned somewhere and went down Bay Street. He remembers catching the streetcar at the loop to go down to the Exhibition; he would go with other seven year-olds, alone. Later he corrects this; he thinks he may have been 10.
12:37 RESTAURANTS: Cottage Restaurant: The only thing he could have was a milkshake because his family was kosher.
13:22 BACKGROUND: Neil’s wife, Joanne, remarks that their first house as a couple was on Braemore Gardens; later they moved to Tyrell Ave. So they spent much of their adult life together in the neighbourhood.
13:47 ENTERTAINMENT: Neil jumps back in to say that they used to go to the Christie Theatre, which later became the Maple Leaf Ballroom.