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    I Remember Sunnyside
    I Remember Sunnyside
    I Remember Sunnyside
    Ebook230 pages1 hour

    I Remember Sunnyside

    By Mike Filey

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    About this ebook

    First published in 1982, I Remember Sunnyside is a mine of golden memories, bringing back to life an earlier Toronto, only hints of which remain today.

    Like the city itself, Sunnyside was an everchanging landscape from its heady opening days in the early 1920s to its final sad demolition in the 1950s. The book captures the spirit of the best of times a magical era which can only be recaptured in memory and photographs. It also presents the reality of a newer Toronto where change, although necessary, is sometimes regrettable.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDundurn
    Release dateOct 1, 1996
    ISBN9781459713383
    I Remember Sunnyside
    Author

    Mike Filey

    Mike Filey was born in Toronto in 1941. He has written more than two dozen books on various facets of Toronto's past and for more than thirty-five years has contributed a popular column, "The Way We Were," to the Toronto Sunday Sun. His Toronto Sketches series is more popular now than ever before.

    Read more from Mike Filey

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      Book preview

      I Remember Sunnyside - Mike Filey

      greatly.

      Preface to Revised Edition

      When this book first appeared in the fall of 1982 it was eagerly received not only by people who had actually visited Sunnyside and wanted to relive those special times, but by people who had only heard about this magical place and could only experience Sunnyside through words and photographs. In fact, the closest I ever came to having a book on the national bestseller list was as a result of the remarkably high sales figures achieved by I Remember Sunnyside. Over the fifteen years that have gone by since the book first appeared in stores, I have written many other books on Toronto’s rich and fascinating history. Nevertheless, I Remember Sunnyside, now long out of print, continues to be the one book for which I receive the most requests. Now, thanks to Kirk Howard and the nice people at Dundurn Press, a revised and updated edition of I Remember Sunnyside is available to once again evoke nostalgic memories of being there for Sunnyside old-timers or, for the Sunnyside rookie, the wish that they had been there.

      At Hanlan’s Point (above), photographer William James caught King (or is it Queen?) plummeting into the clear waters of a Toronto Island lagoon in the summer of 1911.

      This pair of diving horses, rather majestically named King and Queen, perhaps in honour of the recently crowned British monarchs King George V and Queen Mary, was just one example of the numerous attractions presented each summer to lure the public to the Island amusement park. An advertisement for the park in the June 17, 1911 edition of the Star Weekly informs the reader that the pure white equines are descendants of the wild horses of Florida that, in times gone by, disported themselves in the everglades. The ad goes on, The platform from which the two white horses plummet is 40 feet above the surface of the lagoon. The dive is made with lowered head and feet outstretched and is exceedingly graceful. All this is done without a whip and with the horses own volition.

      Visible in the left background is the popular scenic railway. The runways of the Toronto City Centre (formerly Toronto Island) Airport now straddle this location.

      One

      Early Toronto Amusement Parks

      Amusement parks have been around for centuries. In the mid-1600s, what were known as pleasure gardens made their appearance in France, and soon, thereafter, in other cities on the European continent. The pleasure gardens were really nothing more than grassy clearings where beds of flowers, tree-lined pathways, the occasional fountain, and other visual embellishments were laid out to entice pleasure seekers to come eat, drink, and be merry. Many such gardens added various participation sports, such as lawn bowling, shuffleboard, and tennis. As the years went by some gardens introduced circus acts to further entice and entertain their customers. It wasn’t uncommon to see a juggling act or two, tightrope walkers, and, of course, the daring young man on the flying trapeze. Even the world-famous International Air Show at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto had its forerunner as part of a pleasure garden’s itinerary. Visitors to these pleasure gardens 300 years ago marvelled at the hot-air balloon ascensions and parachute jumping attractions that lacked only the noise and speed of our modern air shows, but, in their time, were every bit as exciting and nerve-wracking. Some gardens introduced music and dancing, and some even succumbed to the evils of gambling and

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