Toronto Sketches 11. Mike Filey

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      Looking south on Yonge Street from just south of the dusty Lawrence Avenue intersection, circa 1905. Note the tracks of the Toronto and York Radial Railway, a sort of early GO Transit operation that carried people and freight to and from the city on high-speed electric streetcars.

      Just days before the new Yonge subway was to open, a crowd waits to board a northbound Yonge streetcar at the Richmond Street intersection, March 28, 1954.

      And when it came time to give a name to the new path his Rangers were cutting through the forested hinterland north of the York town site, Simcoe remembered his neighbour back in Devon, a man who had also been a colleague of his in the British House of Parliament.

      Sir George Yonge, 5th Baronet, was born in a little Devon town called Colyton and he was destined to serve as the country’s Secretary at War (1782–1794), Master of the Mint (1794–1799), and the governor of the Cape Colony (1799–1801).

      As important as these positions were, it’s more likely that Simcoe selected his friend’s name because of Yonge’s fascination with and expertise in the art of Roman road-building.

      What better tribute than to name the pioneer road Yonge Street.

      June 20, 2010

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      Sir George Yonge (1731–1812), in whose honour Toronto’s main street is named.

       Courtesy of the National Archives.

      Royal Twist to Street Name

      There is still much interest in this country today in the affairs of the British Royal Family, so I thought it only fitting to present my readers with a column with a “royal” twist. That twist has to do with the name of one of Toronto’s most interesting streets and one that bears the name of our present queen’s (Elizabeth II) great-great-grandmother.

      Queen Street, looking west toward the split with King Street, just west of the Don River. Note the dangerous level railway crossing, which disappeared when the present bridge was built in 1911. This view is circa 1900.

       City of Toronto Archives.

      Looking west along Queen Street from the bridge over the Don River, 1948.

      A similar view today.

      Soon after the community we now know as Toronto was established by Lieutenant Governor John Simcoe in 1793, his land surveyors created a map of the area on which an east–west “base line” was delineated. Starting at this important geographical element and moving northward, additional east–west streets were added to the map, with each of these being exactly one hundred chains apart (a chain being a surveyor’s measuring device, with one chain equal to sixty-six feet). Mathematically, this one-hundred-chain distance translates into 6,600 feet, or one and a quarter miles. These streets, known as concession roads in the beginning, would eventually become the major east–west crossroads we now know as Bloor, St. Clair, Eglinton, Lawrence, York Mills/Wilson, Sheppard, Finch, and Steeles.

      The original “base line,” which ran across the bottom of the grid, eventually took on the descriptive name Lot Street because it formed the southern boundary of the one-hundred-acre parcels of land (or lots) that were awarded to the settlement’s privileged newcomers. These lots were a kind of reward for giving up the amenities of the province’s established communities, such as Kings Town (Kingston) or Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) for a life in the undeveloped hinterland around York.

      It wasn’t until after Alexandrina Victoria (the granddaughter of King George III, after whom our King Street is named) ascended to the throne of the United Kingdom in 1837 that her loyal subjects here in Toronto changed the name of Lot Street to Queen Street to honour their new monarch.

      July 4, 2010

      Daring Young Man over T.O.

      In this day and age, people seldom look skyward when an airplane flies overhead. But that certainly wasn’t the case in 1910, for on July 13 of that year local aviation history was made.

      Count Jacques deLesseps, who became the first person to pilot an aircraft over the city of Toronto.

       Courtesy of Michael deLesseps (Jacques’ grandson).

      It all started a few days earlier as the first Toronto Aviation Meet got underway on July 8. Sponsored in part by the Ontario Motor League (now the CAA), daily admission to the nine-day show was $1 for adults and 65¢ for children. The event was held at the Trethewey Model Farm northwest of the city near the town of Weston and was advertised to run through July 16 (but never on a Sunday in good old Toronto). Several well-known aviators were invited to attend and demonstrate their newest “flying machines.”

      Among the guests was French aviator Count Jacques deLesseps, who arrived at the temporary airfield on the opening day following his participation at a similar air meet in Montreal that had only recently ended. The count, who was one of the first to fly an airplane across the English Channel, brought with him two of his monoplanes, both Bleriot models, one of which was his famous “La Scarabee.”

      This map shows the route deLesseps flew. The twenty-six-minute, twenty-four-mile jaunt provided many Torontonians with their first glimpse of an airplane.

      Over the next few days, aviators and their “state-of-the-art aeroplanes” performed for the crowds that had made their way out to Mr. Trethewey’s farm by way of either the Grand Trunk or Canadian Pacific Railways, each of which provided transportation (“at close intervals”) to and from the city’s Union Station, which at that time was located west of York Street at the foot of today’s University Avenue.