Victorian Drag Racing!
Plus: streaming Jackie Shane, the city's first car, and more...
It was an ordinary Wednesday on Yonge Street in the summer of 1882. Toronto was a quickly growing metropolis, home to nearly a hundred thousand people, and downtown Yonge was already a thriving commercial strip. It was lined by storefronts of brick and stone, three or four storeys high, and awnings that reached out over the sidewalks. During the day, the street was filled with bustle and life; pedestrians strolled past shop windows and cut through traffic, dodging carriages, wagons and streetcars. That August afternoon had been warm and muggy and as the sun set in the evening, the road was still wet from a big storm that had passed through. As darkness settled on the city, the gas lamps of the streetlights began to cast their faint glow. And it was then, at night, that the real chaos began — a sudden disruption to the usual rhythms of the street. It came with the thunder of hooves and the crack of a whip. Horses were barreling down the road, flying at top speed, carts bouncing along behind them, their drivers urging them on to ever greater speeds.
The Victorians were going street racing.
By this point, the industrial age was beginning to transform Toronto. There were steam-powered factories and the first electric lights; the city’s earliest railroads were already three decades old. But a lot of Torontonians still relied on equine power. Thousands of horses lived and worked in the city, pulling wagons and carts and streetcars and fire engines. It would be years before the first automobile appeared in our streets. Horses were a familiar sight and known to be a frequent hazard; they often got spooked and rampaged through the streets. (I wrote about it in the newsletter this summer.) But it seems those runaways weren’t the only threat; some Victorian Torontonians used their horses for a dangerous bit of high stakes entertainment.
We only get the briefest glimpse of it in the newspaper, nothing but a passing mention in the “City News” section of The Globe. The recurring feature provided readers with short snippets of local news. That day in August 1882 provided a particularly strange mix of stories: an alligator had died at Piper’s Zoological Gardens by choking on a tortoise; the zoo’s owner was in negotiations to have his prize attraction — the rotting corpse of an enormous whale — go on display at the International Fisheries Exhibition; somewhere on the railway tracks near the Don River, a dog had been hit by a freight train and cut in two; four boys had been spotted riding the cow-catcher of another train travelling along the waterfront; a butcher had been arrested outside a saloon on York Street as he beat up a longshoreman; another man had been seriously injured by falling from a house.
And mixed in with those quick glimpses of life in the Victorian metropolis was a complaint about the horse-racing that had broken out the previous evening: “Several parties carried on trotting races on Yonge street last night. This is a practice very dangerous to pedestrians, and one which should be stamped out by the police, especially when a principal street of the city is selected for that amusement.”
It seems that even 140 years ago, long before the days of high octane engines or customised rims or teenage girls in poodle skirts dropping their handkerchiefs at the starting line, people in Toronto were already getting annoyed by the dangerous roar of street racers recklessly flying through our city.
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QUICK LINKS
The best of everything else that’s new in Toronto’s past…
UNFAIR NEWS — There was more news about the ongoing debacle at Ontario Place this week. A report by the auditor-general has found the cost to the public has now ballooned to $2.2 billion and that the process has not been “fair, transparent or accountable.” Read more.
SOUL NEWS — The Jackie Shane documentary, Any Other Way, will be available to stream through Crave beginning tomorrow (December 9). I’ve been absoolutely dying to see it (even had tickets at one point before falling under the weather), so I am thoroughly excited. Shane was one of our city’s greatest soul singers, as well as a Black trans woman who spoke fairly openly about her sexuality on stage in her time as one of the most thrilling live acts in Toronto back in the 1960s. Learn more.
IT’S PRONOUNCED “FENSHAW” IF YOU CAN’T BELIEVE IT NEWS — Speaking of the city’s first car, the Muddy York podcast takes us back 128 years to the day F.W. Featherstonehaugh first drove it through out streets:
(Click to open on Bluesky.)
TINKY NEWS — On the podcast itself, Muddy York dives into the messy history hidden beneath our feet: the stories of the city’s sewer system. Listen to it.
OLD ROAD NEWS — Bob Georgiou has a new piece up on his Scenes of Toronto blog. It’s the most recent in a series of posts about the history of “Old” roads in Toronto; the ones that quite literally have the word “Old” in their names, which are often leftover reminders of a street’s original route. Read more.
PEAMEAL BACON NEWS — Forbes has released a list of “10 Great City Tours For Travelers In 2025” and a Toronto entry made the cut! Bruce Bell’s tour of the St. Lawrence Market, which also includes stops at St. Lawrence Hall and the King Edward Hotel, is included alongside walks in New York, London, Amsterdam, Lisbon and more. Read more.
ICE SAILING NEWS — On Bluesky, Jeremy Hopkins reminds us of the days when iceboats used to race across our frozen harbour:
(Click to open on Bluesky.)
FACADISM NEWS — A new tower is planned for the Church-Wellesley Village, and the proposal was recently revised to “preserve and restore” two historic homes that were given a heritage designation. The resulting renderings are, uh, quite the example of facadism. Alex Bozikovic shared some of them on Bluesky, along with his own thoughts on the matter:
(Click to open on Bluesky.)
TORONTO HISTORY EVENTS
WHEELING THROUGH TORONTO: A HISTORY OF THE BICYCLE AND ITS RIDERS
December 10 — 6pm — Toronto Reference Library
“Cities around the world, including Toronto, are embracing the bicycle as a response to the climate crisis. This is not the first time the bicycle has come to our rescue, proving itself a loyal friend during times of crisis, including the world wars and the COVID pandemic. In ‘Wheeling through Toronto, A History of the Bicycle and Its Riders’, author Albert Koehl takes the audience on a 130-year ride through the rich history of the bicycle in Toronto. By understanding how we got here, we can begin mapping a way forward, one in which the potential of cycling is maximized.”
Free!
STORIES & HISTORY OF MASSEY HALL
December 11 — 7pm — Beaches Sandbox — The Beach & East Toronto Historical Society
Author David McPherson speaks about his book exploring the history of one of the city’s most beloved concert venues.
Free!
WHY DON’T CANADIANS ENJOY THEIR HISTORY — WITH CHARLOTTE GRAY
December 12 — 7pm — Online — Town of York Historical Society
“Join award winning author and historian, Charlotte Gray as she discusses how, in recent years, Canadians have spent less and less creative energy, intellectual effort and government funding on exploring the past. The result is a pervasive case of historical amnesia: fewer school and university students study Canadian history, and fewer authors write about it. The only exception is Indigenous history, which for too long was ignored. Charlotte will illustrate her talk with the story of Sir Arthur Doughty, Canada’s first national archivist – a historian who dedicated his life to preserving our history, yet kept his own secrets and is almost forgotten today. Perhaps, asks Charlotte, the biggest historical curiosity in Canada is our lack of curiosity about the past.”
$22.63 for non-members; $17.31 for members
LIBERATION ON THE DANCE FLOOR
Until December 15 — Fridays 4–8pm, Weekends 11–3pm — The ArQuives
“Liberation on the Dance Floor: Reflective Nostalgia is an exhibition showcasing the work of Toronto’s Gay Community Dance Committee (GCDC), a volunteer-run, coalition-building community organization that raised funds for various LGBTQ2+ community groups in Toronto and surrounding regions. Between 1981-1992, the GCDC held over fifty dances—most of which included hundreds of volunteers and thousands of dancers—and raised over $250,000 for participating community groups… This immersive exhibition invites attendees to think through the role of the collective dance in Toronto in the 1980s and the ongoing transformative potential of the queer dance floor.”
Free!
BLACK DIASPORAS TKARONTO-TORONTO
Until February 22 — Wed to Sat, 12–6pm— Musseum of Toronto
“Black Diasporas Tkaronto-Toronto presents films and archives told and created by over 100 Black Canadians. More than 500 personal narratives document the rich histories that have shaped the spaces and places of contemporary Toronto. Visitors are encouraged to take time for intimate listening and viewing in areas throughout the show. They will discover personal stories from across multiple generations, highlighting the depth of Black history in this city and across Canada, and representing over 20 countries that represent this city’s Black diaspora. Visitors are also encouraged to share their origins if they wish, highlight moments of Toronto’s history that aren’t noted here, and identify events, organizations or even food that exists in Toronto because of Black histories.”
Free! (Donation suggested.)
ILLUMINATING THE NIGHT: THE MAGIC LANTERN SLIDES OF WILLIAM JAMES & THE HISTORY OF TORONTO
January 23 — 7pm — Toronto’s First Post Office – Town of York Historical Society
“Join Richard Fiennes-Clinton as he discusses William James, the notable Toronto photographer who took thousands of images of the City in his career spanning several decades. Richard will discuss how James often made his images viewable to the people of Toronto by displaying them on his "magic lantern", a projector that used kerosene for the power of illumination and hand-tinted dozens of theses slides. William James and his luminary slides will be the subject of this presentation bringing light and colour to this often darker and wintry time of year.”
$22.63 for non-members; $17.31 for members.