A Statue Destroyed
Plus some very ugly signs and more.
This week in 1977, the Toronto Blue Jays played their first ever game. It was held on a cold April afternoon at Exhibition Stadium, so snowy they had to borrow the zamboni from Maple Leaf Gardens to clear the field. Anne Murray opened the proceedings by singing a chilly rendition of the national anthem and then the Jays beat the White Sox 9–5.
This week in 2022, one of Toronto’s most controversial statues was torn down. We’ll talk about that, some ugly signs on a beautiful building, and more.
But before we begin, a quick little reminder that this newsletter will only survive if enough of you are willing to switch to a paid subscription… which you can do by clicking right here:
ALEXANDER WOOD’S STATUE HAS COME DOWN
TOPPLING NEWS – Another one of our city’s most controversial statues came down this week. Alexander Wood no longer stands at the corner of Church & Alexander. His monument was removed by the local BIA — who helped erect it back in 2005 — and, to use their word, “destroyed.” He’s been spotted in pieces in a dumpster, bringing an end to one of the most unusual stories of commemoration that Toronto has to offer.
Wood was one of our city’s early settlers. He arrived from Scotland in the late 1700s, when Toronto was still the muddy frontier town of York, just a few years old and home to only a few hundred people. Wood quickly became one of the small community’s leading citizens, a successful merchant who also served as a magistrate with the power to uphold and enforce the law.
But the thing he’s most remembered for is the central part he played in one of the town’s biggest scandals, an event that’s been shrouded in mystery for more than 200 years.
I wrote about it in The Toronto Book of Love:
The details are hazy, and the truth unclear. But it all started in 1810, when Wood claimed he was approached by a woman named Miss Bailey. According to his account, Miss Bailey told him she’d been raped. Since Wood was a magistrate, she hoped he would be able to bring her attacker to justice. There was one vital clue: during the assault, Miss Bailey had scratched her assailant on his genitals with a pair of scissors. If Wood could find the man with wounded privates, he would find the rapist.
And so, he approached a series of men, explaining they were suspected of the rape, and asking them to unveil their naked groin so he could check and see whether they bore the scratch that would solve the case. One by one, the men agreed. But none of them was scratched and none of them appreciated Wood’s intimate examination. […]
Many believed that by forcing the men to undress, Wood had seriously abused his position as a magistrate.
It was a major scandal. “I have laid myself open to ridicule & malevolence, which I know not how to meet;” Wood complained, “that the thing will be made the subject of mirth and a handle to my enemies for a sneer I have every reason to expect.” He was right. And it was made worse by the homophobia of the townspeople. His land outside town — where the Church Street Village now stands — became known as “Molly Wood’s Bush” since “molly” was a homophobic slur.
At first, Wood managed to avoid an official inquiry thanks to powerful friends. He agreed, instead, to leave town — exiled. But when he returned years later and was appointed to an important government panel, a judge refused to swear him in.
The old scandal was stirred up once more. This time it ended up in court, where all the sordid details were rehashed for the official record. Wood won, but […] the story would follow the merchant for the rest of his life. He would remain a bachelor to the end of his days, raising more than a few eyebrows in a province where homosexuality was not only illegal, but punishable by death according to the letter of the law. […]
It’s hard to know what really happened back in 1810, whether Wood made an innocent but terrible mistake, abused his position, or concocted an ill-conceived cover story for consensual sexual relationships with men who were quick to distance themselves once the story went public. In a town where being honest about your sexuality risked not only social ostracization, but exile and even death, it’s impossible to know the truth.
So, we’ll never understand whether Wood was really gay, or an abuser, or both — though that hasn’t stopped this week’s headlines from calling him a “gay pioneer.” In recent decades, he’s become something of a historical gay icon in Toronto despite the fact that his life largely remains a mystery. As Ed Jackson points out in the fantastic book Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer, the modern idea of Alexander Wood is in many ways an invention — he’s become a quasi-mythical figure who stands in for all those unknown LGBTQ+ figures in the early history of our city who were forced to hide the truth of their private lives.
Between the fact that we don’t know whether he was actually gay and what we do know about his scandal, Wood has always seemed like an odd choice for a celebratory monument. As has the decision to include a tongue-in-cheek reference to the scandal: Wood was depicted in a bronze panel at the base of his statue kneeling down to examine the exposed crotch of a man with his pants down around his knees.
But that’s not what brought the statue down. The BIA referenced the fact Wood may have committed sexual assault in their initial letter calling for the removal of his statue, but the focus was on another issue: recent questions about his role in the development of residential schools.
Those questions were new to me when the letter was released, and I’m still very much learning about them. They seem to be complicated and contentious. Wood was the treasurer of a missionary society that raised money for the St. John’s Mission in Sault Ste. Marie, a precursor to the Shingwauk Indian Residential School, which opened decades later in the same place. But there’s disagreement among historians about how strong the connection between earlier mission schools and later residential schools was. Krista McCracken (a researcher and curator at Algoma University’s Arthur A. Wishart Library and Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre in Sault Ste. Marie) told NOW magazine there was a mixed reaction when staff read the BIA’s letter.
And as McCracken told the magazine, “Listening to Indigenous community members and taking the lead from Indigenous community members is really important. They need to be the ones who are making decisions around what stays and what doesn’t stay. That being said, listening to community can take time and I think it’s really important to give the time and space needed to have robust conversations around this history.”
READ NOW’S ARTICLE ABOUT THE STATUE FROM LAST SUMMER
READ THE STAR’S ARTICLE ABOUT THE STATUE’S REMOVAL THIS WEEK
MAKING THE COMMODORE BUILDING LESS BEAUTIFUL
UGLY-ASS SIGN NEWS — The Commodore Building was stood on the corner of Adelaide & Peter for nearly 100 years. It wad designed by one of Toronto’s most respected architects of the 1920s and ’30s, Benjamin Brown — who also designed the Paradise Theatre on Bloor and a few other downtown high-rises like the Tower Building and the Balfour Building, which face each other across Spadina just a couple of blocks west of the Commodore.
Now, it looks like the Commodore Building will be getting some garish new signage thanks to Dollerama, and its windows — specifically mentioned as a valuable heritage feature by the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario’s description of the tower — are slated to get some street-level-atmosphere-killing coverings, too.
READ MORE ABOUT THE NEW SIGNS.
READ MORE ABOUT BENJAMIN BROWN’S LEGACY.
QUICK LINKS
The best of everything else that’s new in Toronto’s past…
PUTTING VACANT STOREFRONTS TO GOOD USE NEWS: A series of window installations has gone up on Yonge Street, filling empty storefronts between Dundas and Wellesley with the stories of pioneering women from Toronto’s past, including Pauline Johnson and Mary Ann Shadd. Read more.
SIN STRIP NEWS — The Star shared an except from Daniel Ross’ new book about “how Yonge Street ended its reign as Toronto’s sex district,” The Heart of Toronto: Corporate Power, Civic Activism and the Remaking of Downtown Yonge Street. Read more.
COOL SMALL STREETS NEWS — Jamie Bradburn takes you on a little tour of “a few of the city’s most notable, yet overlooked roads.” Read more.
HE SHOOTS HE SCORES NEWS — Auston Matthews broke the Maple Leafs’ record for goals in a season this week. So Sportsnet looked back at the other five season a Leafs players broke the 50-goal mark. Read more.
SIXTY SECOND HISTORY NEWS — A new Heritage Minute shares the story of Chloe Cooley, whose resistance to enslavement inspire the law to gradual abolish slavery in Upper Canada. Watch it.
1970s BLOOR WEST VILLAGE NEWS — blogTO shares a shopping guide from 50 years ago, showing up the businesses of Bloor West Village, including some that are still around five decades later. Read more.
UNAFFORDABLE HOUSING NEWS — The mayor and his allies blocked an attempt to expropriate a Victorian mansion — William Dineen House — and turn it into affordable housing. A private developer is buying it instead. Read more.
NEAT FIND NEWS — A shopper recently stumbled across a letter from 1930s India while browsing through Value Village in Leslieville. Read more.
TORONTO HISTORY EVENTS
GLORY DAYS: 200 YEARS OF TORONTO SPORTS SOUVENIRS
April 20 — 6pm — Online — Heritage Toronto
“April marks an important time for sports in Toronto: baseball season begins while hockey and basketball playoffs kick off. Join Matthew Blackett and Wayne Reeves, co-editors of Spacing’s “Souvenirs of Toronto Sports,” to discuss Toronto’s ongoing love of sports, illustrated through rarely-seen artifacts held by the City of Toronto collections.”
Free with registration.
STREET NAMES AND SCURRILITY
April 21 — 7:30pm — Online — Etobicoke Historical Society
“Richard Fiennes-Clinton takes a light-hearted look at King George III, and some of the connections that existed between the Royal Family the old Town of York, between the 1790s and the 1830s. George III is remembered as the King who lost the American Revolution, and who suffered from bouts of “madness”. But George III was also a family man, who tried to instill domestic virtues in each of his 15 children. But when the King died in 1820, his eldest sons embarked on a "Royal Baby Race" to provide an heir to the Kingdom. The Royal Family were the inspiration for street names in early Toronto, many of which remain today.”
Free for members; an annual membership is $25.
REFASHIONING & SUSTAINABILITY WEEKEND: MACKENZIE HOUSE
April 23–24 — Various Times — Mackenzie House Museum (82 Bond Street)
“How did 19th century printers in Toronto recycle materials to avoid waste? In a 45 minute program, participants learn about 19th century recycling and how it both parallels and differs from the sustainability ethos of today. Visitors will see demonstrations of printshop equipment and take home personalized souvenirs from the 1845 printing press.”
Free.
REFASHIONING & SUSTAINABILITY WEEKEND: COLBORNE LODGE
April 23–24 — Various times — Colborne Lodge (11 Colborne Lodge Dr., High Park)
“Learn how textiles were produced before modern manufacturing and the environmental impact of these processes. Participants will learn about the characteristics of natural fibres and the processes to turn them into cloth.”
Free with ticket.
THE DISCOVERY OF INSULIN WITH JOHN LORINC
April 26 — 6:30pm — Online — The Riverdale Historical Society
“The story of the discovery of insulin, at the University of Toronto in 1921, has become one of the most mythologized narratives of Canadian science, and triggered a revolution in the treatment of a horrendous disease that was a death sentence for many sufferers. Yet the mythology has obscured much of what really occurred in the lab run by Banting and Best — e.g., the conflicts within the wider research team, the role that early vaccination research played in their work — as well as the long-tail lessons associated with the discovery of insulin, including the role of the profit motive in drug development and the importance of domestic testing and production infrastructure. The centennial surfaced some of these angles, and the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a reminder about what was lost when Canada divested the Connaught Labs, which played such an integral role.”
Free if you join the Riverdale Historical Society mailing list.
FIDDLEHEAD FERNS & LOYALIST LAGER: HOW FOOD BUILT TORONTO
April 27 — 7:30pm — Online — The North Toronto Historical Society
“What was the food scene of early Toronto, long before its celebrity chefs and foodie festivals? In this presentation by Dr. Laura Carlson, we’ll take a long look at Toronto’s foodways: from ancient Indigenous cuisines to the city’s earliest public markets. We’ll explore how food and drink shaped the very streets of early Toronto, playing a role in everything from politics to economics to culture. Finally, we’ll hear about some famous Torontonians who built their reputations on keeping the city well fed.”
Free with registration, I believe.