Paul Magder
AUDIO INTERVIEW
SUMMARY
June 6, 2016
00:04 Intro
00:30 PERSONAL INFORMATION: Paul’s family lived at #2 Nina Street from 1961(age 7) for about 15 years as tenants on the second floor.
01:54 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE: The area has not changed much since then, except that people who live there now seem wealthier. His old house is now a single-family home. The garage in the back was originally stables. When he lived there nobody had a car.
03:24 TRANSIT: Paul depended on the streetcar which turned around at a loop in the Vaughan/Bathurst triangle. The large apartment building was not in the triangle then.
03:56 SHOPS: Kresge’s was where the Shopper’s Drugmart is now (Paul was confused at first with Woolworth’s). He remembers the creaky wooden floors. It was a “great store” like a dollar store and maybe there was a lunch counter.
06:21 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE / LIFE OF CHILD: Free Play: The “whole neighbourhood was our playground”, including the walkway that connects the area to the Casa Loma area.
07:15 COMMUNITY SERVICES / HEALTHCARE: Lyndhurst Lodge was a residential hospital for alcoholics on Lyndhurst Avenue. It has now been turned into town houses along the walkway that goes into the ravine.
08:07 RAVINES / LIFE OF CHILD: They used to go down to the ravine via a path they called “Dead Man’s Chute”. It was wild down there, like a “jungle” and “fantastic”. There was a dirty stream that people threw garbage in, including Loblaws’ shopping carts.
10:16 LIFE OF A CHILD: They played in the ravine, unaccompanied, even when 8 years old but “nobody worried about it.” People actually lived down there. They used to play games and trade baseball cards, etc. in the schoolyard; playing marbles in the Spring was “huge”.
12:50 SCHOOLS: Hillcrest School was originally in two buildings. Kindergarten, Grades 1 and 2 were in the building along Hilton Ave. and the rest in the building along Bathurst. There was a girls’ and a boys’ yard until Paul was in Grade 4 (1963?). Hillcrest went up to Grade 6, then students went on to Winona.
14:59 RECREATION: Paul remembers a bowling alley on the 2nd floor of a building on the southeast corner of Bathurst and St. Clair, above Dodd’s Drapery Store.
15:21 SHOPS: Paul’s barber was in a “little cubby” a bit further east on St. Clair. They called him “Benny the Butcher.” There may have been a gas station in the Vaughan/Bathurst triangle and there definitely was a Texaco Gas Station on the northwest corner of Vaughan and St. Clair, next to the Vaughan Theatre.
16:32 ENTERTAINMENT: Paul remembers seeing Romeo and Juliet during high school at the Vaughan Theatre.
16:56 SHOPS: At the Texaco Gas Station they used to give away “stuff to kids” like kites.
17:46 NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET LIFE / LIFE OF CHILD: Free Play: The kids would stay out until suppertime and then, when a bit older (8 or 9) would go out again after supper, until dark to play tag, adventure games or handball.
19:33 SHOPS / LIFE OF CHILD: At the variety/convenience store on Bathurst where they bought cards and popsicles they were sometimes accused of stealing. In fact, Paul confesses that he did steal a book from Loblaws!
21:14 RECREATION / LIFE OF CHILD: Park Play: A rink was created at Hilton Park and that area was also used for learning to ride a bike. Bikes were used for transportation but not for going to school.
21:57 SPADINA EXPRESSWAY: The issue came up when Paul was in high school but he didn’t pay much attention to it.
22:50 TRANSIT: The only subways when he was growing up were on the Bloor and Yonge line. They would take the streetcar down Bathurst to College to get to violin lessons. Later they would take the streetcar to Yonge Street to go downtown.
23:54 BARNS: The Barns were “active” back then, so they were off-limits. Later when they were empty Paul may have sneaked in there once.
24:27 LIFE OF A CHILD: Free Play: They used to sneak into Casa Loma by climbing over the walls and would come up from the grounds below into the building where they’d get caught. Later as a teenager, Paul and his friends would sneak into the Sealtest Factory on Davenport and steal bags of milk.
27:13 DELIVERY PEOPLE: Paul’s Mother shopped at the grocery store at Bathurst and Alcina (Jannetta) and they would deliver the groceries. The Janetta family is still active in the community. It was more common back then to shop at local stores instead of supermarkets.
29:31 IMMIGRATION: Paul’s Grandfather came from Poland when he was 16, before WWI. He came with his brothers and had a cigar store on Bloor near Brunswick. They spoke Yiddish, but were not religious.
31:44 SCHOOLS: In Grades 5 and 6 Paul went to Winona School for swimming lessons in the Spring. They would go without a teacher. Once there was a “big uproar” because of a man exposing himself on Alcina, but they still didn’t send a teacher with the students. {auditor’s note: I was part of that! I saw this man almost daily!}
32:55 TRANSIT: As students they used to hitchhike to get to Oakwood along St. Clair.
33:38 SCHOOLS: At Oakwood Paul was in the music class and in the orchestra. Students were divided up based on what options they took and the instruments they played. Paul got into the Senior Orchestra right away. Ms. Kumigai (sp?) was the senior music teacher at first, then she retired and Graham Wishart took over. He was a “tough” teacher and was later exposed as a predator. No-one knew back then, but he was already taking students up to his cottage. The orchestra went on a trip to Jasper. Oakwood had a lot of other activities, including a big basketball team. There were dances, too. At Winona, they taught “shop” (Industrial Arts).
38:27 DEMOGRAPHICS: Oakwood was 50% Italian and the parents wouldn’t let their daughters go to the dances. This did not affect relations between the students as it was “very integrated”; although there were cliques based on interests. There was also a big Ukrainian group in the neighbourhood, around Hillcrest Park and some Greek people, too. The area used to be “very Jewish” but not in Paul’s time. There were also some Polish families in the area.
41:23 SCHOOLS: When Paul started high school in Grade 9, jeans weren’t allowed and girls wore dresses, but by Grade 11 (1970) it had all changed. The teachers were mostly strict, although some were young and “groovy”.
42:16 DATING: Paul didn’t date, but was asked to a Sadie Hawkins dance. They just went to dances in a group and from Grade 11 on there were parties, too.
43:06 RECREATION / RESTAURANTS: Places to “hang out” included a pool hall at Alberta and St. Clair, on the north side near the liquor store and also a restaurant on the south side of St. Clair just east of Oakwood. Another restaurant was on the north side where they’d have chips and gravy. Students went there when they skipped class or had spares.
45:31 RECREATION: Paul remembers a bingo hall near Robina and St. Clair, above the stores, but he didn’t go there.
45:52 PARKS / LIFE OF CHILD: Free Play: As a teenager Paul often went to Hillcrest Park with friends. They would “hang out” and meet girls there, even in Grade 8. In Grade 11 they became more independent and hung out with kids from the Forest Hill area and would go to Winston Churchill Park to see them.
47:47 MEMORABLE PEOPLE: There was a friendly, nice fellow who lived in one of the small apartments on the south side of St. Clair, west of Winona who maybe had a mental disability. He was around 20 or so. Paul also remembers all the macho Italian men in the pool halls.
49:23 LIFE OF A CHILD / TEEN: Hanging Out: They considered anywhere west of Caledonia as “over the edge of the earth”, but at night they would go to a 24-hour burger joint at the corner of Caledonia and St. Clair. They would also go to McDonalds at Dufferin and Wilson and the Dairy Queen at Pottery Road and Broadview. This was when they could drive. Paul recalls practicing winter driving in the Loblaws’ parking lot situated where the Loblaws store is now.
52:34 RECREATION / LIFE OF CHILD: They went to the bowling alley across from Loblaws quite a lot, for birthday parties, etc. It was a “nice place, actually”.
54:17 MEMORABLE EVENTS: There was a big fire that burned down the bowling alley in the late ‘70’s or early ‘80’s. Changes in the area include the closing of the Crosstown Gas Station and the theatres.
55:57 LIFE OF A CHILD: How long did you study violin for? I started when I was 8 with private lessons. There used to be itinerant music teachers. So in Grade 8 and, even maybe in Grade 6, they would come to the school and we would have lessons from them. And then when I attended Oakwood, I was in Music Department.
57:03 TRANSIT / LIFE OF A CHILD: I would travel alone on streetcar as early as age 8.
58:02 MEMORABLE EVENTS: Paul remembers the World Cup celebrations. He heard it from a balcony on Regal Road at Oakwood. The whole neighbourhood was cheering. Nowadays it seems to have toned down, probably because many Italians have moved out.
59:13 WRAP UP: Paul lists all the places he’s lived in this neighbourhood (Nina St., Vaughan Rd., Regal Rd., now at 541 Rushton Rd.) and the changes he’s seen. The neighbourhood is more upscale and popular now than when Paul was growing up. It didn’t seem so well known as “everything was focused downtown.” He even used to walk to Yonge and Bloor then to Queen Street to Britnell’s bookstore, A & A and Sam’s (the Record Man).
1:04:29 ENTERTAINMENT: He has a vague memory of the Maple Leaf Ballroom, which became a bingo hall and later the Salvation Army. It originally was the Christie Theatre.
1:05:31 NEIGHBOURHOOD SUMMATION: It was a comfortable “down-home” place to live and grow up in - an “unknown gem” in the City.