Blinky’s creator, former Toronto police officer Roy Wilson (left), and retired inspector and force historian Mike Sale. Wilson sold his “Blinky” patent to the department for one dollar.
On a Wing and a Prayer
In 2010, the new Toronto Island Airport ferry was christened Marilyn Bell 1 in honour of the former Toronto schoolgirl who became the first person to swim Lake Ontario. Marilyn, who was just sixteen years old at the time, accomplished the task on September 9, 1954. She completed the torturous forty-mile crossing from Youngstown, New York, to the break wall south of the Boulevard Club in Toronto’s west end in just under twenty-one hours.
Flight Lieutenant David Hornell, VC, by war artist Paul Goranson.
This painting by artist Graham Wragg depicts Hornell’s PBY-5 Canso flying boat in its death throes following an attack on a German submarine off the coast of northern Scotland in late June, 1944.
Now Marilyn Bell-Dilascio, and living in New York, the Canadian heroine did the honours, although out of deference to the environment she poured the traditional champagne over the ship’s name plate rather than smashing the bottle over the bow.
Coincident with the naming of the new vessel and the change of the airport’s name to the Billy Bishop Toronto Island Airport (over the years since it opened in 1939 the facility has been known as Port George V Airport, Toronto Island Airport, and, most recently, Toronto City Centre Airport), the Toronto Port Authority officials decided to rename the existing ferry, as well. It has been known since its arrival in the fall of 2006 by the rather mundane title TCCA1.
Following a public contest, which saw the swimmer’s name selected as the name of the new ferry, the next most popular choice and the one that would be affixed to the older vessel was that of David Hornell. And while the former had over the years become a well-known name, the latter was less so.
The Toronto Island Airport ferry TCCA1 was recently renamed in honour of David Hornell, VC.
David Hornell was born on Toronto Island on January 26, 1910, and subsequently moved to Mimico (a western suburb of Toronto), where he attended a local public school before moving on to high school. Following the outbreak of the Second World War in the fall of 1939, David joined the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and received his wings in September 1941. He served on both Canadian coasts before being shipped overseas. It was while on patrol in his PBY-5 Canso flying boat off the coast of northern Scotland that the crew spotted a surfaced German U-boat. Pressing the attack, Flight Lieutenant Hornell’s aircraft was badly damaged by shelling from the enemy submarine and soon the entire starboard side of the aircraft was in flames. Nevertheless, Hornell and his crew continued the attack and ultimately destroyed the submarine. But they then found themselves in trouble. With incredible dexterity, the pilot crash-landed the severely damaged aircraft, and although almost blind, he determinedly encouraged his crew to fight off the notion that they all were doomed. After nearly twenty-one hours taking turns in the only useable rubber lifeboat, the crew was rescued. But it was too late for the badly injured David Hornell, and he soon succumbed to his injuries.
January 31, 2010
Never-Ending Roadwork
I think I’m correct when I suggest that the city street that has received the most attention by the media over the past few years is St. Clair Avenue, and in particular the part that stretches west from Yonge Street. And there’s really no need to repeat the almost unanimous consensus that the construction of the dedicated streetcar right-of-way along this street could have been done faster, cheaper, and with less disruption of the neighbourhoods involved. People cleverer than I am have told anyone who will listen (as well as some who won’t) just how it should have been done in the first place.
Actually, this brief preamble leads us to the subject of this chapter. The construction of the new St. Clair right-of-way isn’t the first (or even the second or third) time this broad thoroughfare (which was initially a muddy and often impassable concession road blazed through the forest exactly one-and-one-quarter miles north of Bloor Street) has been subjected to major road work.
In fact, in the 1911 City of Toronto Archives photo (opposite), the street is undergoing the first of those seemingly interminable construction projects. And you can almost hear the neighbours wondering just what impact the arrival of the electric streetcar was going to have on their pastoral way of life. Under a magnifying glass, I think I can even see a “Save Our St. Clair” poster.
Looking east on St. Clair Avenue from just east of Dufferin Street, 1911. Note the newly built Oakwood Collegiate in the background on the right.
The same view almost one hundred years later.
In the photo, rails are just being laid, but soon the streetcar would become a permanent fact of life for those living out on St. Clair West. But you’ll notice there’s something missing — the good old TTC. Another decade would pass before what was originally known as the Toronto Transportation Commission would take over responsibility for the city’s public transit needs. When this photo was taken, the new St. Clair streetcar line was just being built by the city’s Works Department. The reason it became the department’s project was because the private company that looked after the transportation needs of the rest of the city steadfastly refused to build tracks and operate a streetcar service in a suburban area of Toronto that they said wouldn’t generate any money. And unlike today’s municipally owned TTC, for the private company the reasoning was sound. The object of providing transit service was simple — to make money, and lots of it, for the company owners and its shareholders.
And so it was that when the first streetcars on St. Clair began running on August 25, 1913, they were operated by the city, while other streetcar lines remained under private ownership until the TTC took over on September 1, 1921.
A brief aside: Some readers may recall a time when those in the know claimed that electric streetcars were “dinosaurs,” and that by 1980 Toronto would be rid of them. In fact, they said the St. Clair route should be one of the first lines to vanish. Not only was the TTC smart enough to keep them, but many Torontonians have come to embrace the streetcar, as have several American cities and their citizens. And, in a strange turn of events, the TTC has recently ordered a large number of new, state-of-the-art streetcars to replace its aging fleet of CLRVs and ALRVs (Canadian and Articulated Light Rail Vehicles).
Worldwide, electric vehicles are seen as the way of the future for numerous smog- and traffic-choked cities.
February 7, 2010
Toronto EMS Has Come a Long Way
One afternoon I was sitting in my local Tim Hortons reading the Sun (what else) and sipping on a hot chocolate, when all of a sudden several EMS paramedics and a number of firefighters rushed in. Together they began assisting an elderly gentleman in a nearby booth who was obviously in some distress. Within minutes they had him stabilized, on a stretcher, out the door, and on his way to the hospital. While I’ll never know the final outcome of this little drama, I hope I will receive the same quick and skilled response from the ladies and gentlemen of Toronto Fire Services and Toronto’s Emergency Medical Services if I’m ever faced with a similar crisis.
The event prompted me to look into the history of ambulance service in our city. Thanks to copious research that has been done by EMS historian Bruce Newton, the facts have been neatly presented on the department’s website (torontoems.ca/mainsite/about/history.html).