How Toronto Got Its Silverback
Plus an old post office, a groovy mural, and more.
During this week in 1964, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton landed in Toronto. They checked into the King Edward Hotel while Burton was starring in a local production of Hamlet. They were deeply in love — in fact, it was right there in the hotel (while sitting at the same table in the photo, I suspect) that Burton proposed. But their time in Toronto wasn’t all wine and romance. The fact they were both recently divorced created a firestorm of controversy in the conservative city, with scathing criticism in the newspapers and protesters descending on the hotel. (In fact, it was such a landmark in the romantic history of the city that I wrote about it all in The Toronto Book of Love. And if you’d like to hear more of those stories, I’ll be giving a free online talk filled with them this Tuesday night. You can find all the deets at the very bottom of this email. )
During this week in 2022, we’ll talk about an elderly ape, an even older post office, and more…
HOW TORONTO GOT ITS SILVERBACK
THE BIG STORY — Toronto’s most beloved ape celebrated his 50th birthday last week, so I figured I’d spend a bit time learning about his life and how he ended up in Toronto in the first place.
The story of Charles The Gorilla begins with tragedy. He was just two months old in the fall of 1973, starting his new life in the wild rainforests of Gabon. That’s when his mother was caught in a trap, killed by poachers’ spears for her meat. The young orphan was found by local villagers, squealing on the forest floor. They rescued him and sold him to an animal trader. That’s how he ended up in a crate on an airplane bound for Canada.
By then, Toronto already had a long history of zoos. The first opened in 1881. Piper's Zoological Gardens stood on Front Street, where the Royal York Hotel is now. It was home to lions and elephants and monkeys and eagles… A bear named Peter The Great once crushed a man’s arm in his jaws when the visitor kept harassing him, punching him through the bars of his cage. For a while, the zoo even featured the rotting corpse of a massive, 12-ton whale that had washed up on the shores of Nova Scotia. It was shipped to Toronto and packed in ice, put on public display until neighbours began complaining about the smell.
Toronto’s second zoo would open soon after. The Riverdale Zoo stood on the slopes of the Don Valley, staffed in part by inmates from the prison just across the river. (Now, it’s Riverdale Farm.) It began with a pair of wolves and some deer, but soon boasted a diverse menagerie thanks to donations of wildlife made by private citizens. It quickly proved by a very popular attraction — the first weekend the lions and elephants went on display, more than 20,000 people came to see them. But the Riverdale Zoo is mostly remembered for the terrible conditions the animals had to endure. The beasts were held in small cages, often with little more to entertain them than concrete and bars.
By the 1960s, attitudes had evolved. That’s when plans for a new, less cruel zoo got underway.
The Metropolitan Toronto Zoo would be one of the biggest in the world, nearly 100 times the size of the one in Riverdale, with larger and more naturalized enclosure. In fact, the zoo’s first director was so determined to get rid of all the bars and other obstacles between the crowds and the animals that it doesn’t seem to have been entirely safe.
In those early days, the beasts had a habit of breaking out of their enclosures — apes, baboons and wolves all went on the lam. Visitors could get close enough to touch some of them, including the tiger. And the lions were briefly held back from public display when zookeepers realized they could have jumped out of their enclosure to launch a bloody rampage if the mood stuck them. (The director would eventually be fired over the mess, and was later convicted of extortion after taking kickbacks for animal sales at the Detroit Zoo.)
The orphan gorilla from Gabon would be one of the new zoo’s founding residents — part of the gorilla troop who nervously welcomed visitors on opening day in 1974. At first, the keepers called him Charlie — thinking he looked a bit like Charlie Brown. And he was in pretty rough shape, with missing hair and open sores. But in the decades to come, as he grew into the big, strong, alpha male silverback of the troop, he’d become known as Charles.
The gorillas were among the animals who quickly took advantage of the lax security. Charles and his companions could easily escape their pen, and often did, climbing up into the banana trees that stretched overhead. One his mates, Josephine, even managed to climb over the glass to roam free through the African Pavilion one night. She then figured out how to open a door by pressing the bar, slipping outside to enjoy the fresh air for a while before a stunned maintenance worker stumbled across the massive ape hanging around the nearby McDonald’s.
Things can get tense within the troop, too. As each of Charles’ sons has reached maturity, they’ve had to be sent away to other zoos to avoid the violence that would otherwise erupt when they inevitably tried to unseat their father as leader — just like in the wild. And since the silverback hasn’t shown much interest in youngsters who aren’t his own, there was a time when he had to be separated from the others for part of every day so his family could mix with other gorillas.
That’s when Charles started getting into art.
To keep him entertained during his time alone, his keepers gave him paint and paper. He’s dabbled in a bit of multimedia work as well. Many of his pieces have ended up on gallery walls, some selling for as much as a thousand dollars — way more than the orangutans get. His first show alone raised $37,000.
It’s now been half a century since that orphan baby first arrived in Toronto. Charles is an old man now, having lived a decade longer than gorillas do in the wild. His keepers steam his vegetables to make them easier to eat, and have him drink medicated teas. He’s got ten kids and a half dozen grandchildren. He celebrated his 50th birthday as the most famous resident of the Toronto Zoo, with banners and bubbles and troves of special treats hidden around his habitat for him to uncover.
Read my Twitter thread about the boy who once lost an arm to a wolf at the zoo:
VISITING TORONTO’S OLDEST POST OFFICE
NEWS — You’ll find one of our city’s most remarkable historic sites on Adelaide, just east of Jarvis. Toronto’s oldest post office has been standing there for nearly 200 years. It first opened in the 1830s, serving the residents of the town during some of its most turbulent years.
This was the post office where Torontonians went to pick up their mail during the chaotic days of the rebellion. When cholera stalked the streets. During bloody fights over Responsible Government. And while the Blackburns and the Abbotts were working to make Toronto a more welcoming haven at the end of the Underground Railroad.
Today, it’s both a museum and a working post office. You can mail your letters from the very same place where William Lyon Mackenzie, Robert Baldwin and Anne Murray Powell once mailed theirs. It’s known as “Toronto’s First Post Office” (though it was actually the settlement’s fourth, it was open when the town was officially incorporated as a city).
Last week, The Toronto Star paid a visit to the historic site and had a chat with Kat Akerfeldt, the executive director of the post office, which is run by the Town of York Historical Society.
My favourite tidbit in the article? That if you had mail to pick up back in the day, you’d find out by seeing your name listed in the newspaper.
A WONDERFULLY GROOVY MURAL UNCOVERED
NEWS — A colourful piece of the city’s 1970s history has just been unearthed in the tunnels beneath the Sheraton Centre.
The hotel has been standing on Queen West for 50 years, originally opened as a joint venture between two big hospitality chains: Sheraton and Four Seasons.
The world’s first Four Seasons was a motel on Jarvis Street. Not exactly the origin story you’d expect for one of the world’s big luxury brands. It opened in 1961, the work of a young architect named Isadore Sharp who quickly built the business into an international chain that’s now co-owned by Bill Gates and a Saudi Arabian prince.
Just a decade after opening that first motel, Sharp teamed up with Sheraton to build a huge concrete tower rising above Queen Street — still the second biggest hotel in Toronto today — as part of the big renewal project that saw the Ward demolished to make way for City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square (which are just across the street). It was originally known as the Four Seasons Sheraton Hotel.
Today, the building is undergoing renovations and it was during the work in the PATH below that the funky mural was uncovered — at least for now. We’ll see how long it lasts, but it sounds like there’s at least a chance it might live on. The hotel’s general manager told blogTO, “It's such an iconic part of the building and really provides a retrospective look at our 50-year history in Toronto, so we are leaving it exposed for the time being and are hoping we will discover even more about its origin.”
A SPONTANEOUS CAMERA OBSCURA HIDDEN IN AN OLD SILO
NEWS — Meanwhile, an even more magical discovery has been made at another Toronto construction site…
The Canada Malting silos have been towering over the waterfront near the foot of Bathurst Street for nearly a century. They’ve been a fixture there since 1908, gradually expanded in the decades since. Once upon a time, they rose behind the outfield walls of the old Maple Leaf Stadium. During the war, they were right next to home of the Norwegian Air Force, who were based here while in exile from their homeland. Today, the silos loom above the unsettling statues of Ireland Park — the famine memorial that’s tucked away just behind them — and the spot where you cross over to the islands to grab a flight from Billy Bishop Airport.
They’re currently undergoing rehabilitation so they can be opened to the public in some form someday. And while that work is going on, staff were amazed to make an unexpected discovery inside one of the massive concrete silos:
"It was a tremendous surprise," Waterfront Project Manager Bryan Bowen told blogTO, explaining that at first they assumed it must be a mural. "We stopped what we were doing and simply took turns marvelling at this image…. We were wondering how it is that this image was there on the surface, but then you actually start seeing people outside walking by projected on the wall as well."
TORONTO HISTORY EVENTS
QUENTIN VERCETTY’S CREATIVE JOURNEY TO MEMORIALIZE JOSHUA GLOVER
February 17 — 7:30pm — Online — The Etobicoke Historical Society
“A design competition was announced in 2020 for artists to submit proposals for a monument to Joshua Glover, an escaped American slave who found freedom in Canada and became a notable resident of Islington. Rexdale-born and raised award-winning artist, storyteller and educator Quentin VerCetty was announced in September 2020 as the successful artist.
“Please join us to hear Quentin relate his inspiration from the life of Joshua Glover in the creation process of his sculpture and his personal resonance to Glover’s story. Quentin will also reveal the rich imagery in his work in emulating Glover’s inspiring journey from slavery to freedom.”
Admission is limited to members of the Etobicoke Historical Society. Annual memberships are available for $25.
OPENING RECEPTION: OLD FACES
February 17 — 7pm — Toronto’s First Post Office — The Town of York Historical Society
“The Town of York Historical Society presents ‘Old Faces’, an art exhibit by Dan Philips: ‘This series of pieces came about as I tried to come to terms with the City of Toronto changing all around me, all of the time. Recent city developments made me realize that this city has always been changing. So these pieces are meant to show some of the old faces of buildings that were, and some of the people that lived and worked in them, not all that long ago.’”
Free with registration.
MY UPCOMING EVENTS
HISTORY LECTURE SERIES: LOVE STORIES WITH ADAM BUNCH
February 1 — 8pm — Online — Richmond Hill Public Library
“Rediscover Toronto through rose-coloured goggles! Discover the scandal, passion, and heartache embedded in this city's history as celebrated author Adam Bunch shares true tales of romance from The Toronto Book of Love.”
It’s free with registration. (Priority will be giving to RHPL members in the unlikely case the event fills up.)
This is all great!