Margin Notes: Holidays, Devil, Pinkos, Osgood

One of the scenes in the store windows at The Bay in Toronto, Ontario was captured on 9-December-2010

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Once upon a time, the store displays in big cities were a major draw of the holiday season, with people coming from outlying areas not only to shop, but to see what might be in the windows. I've been pretty disappointed with the store windows in Toronto the past few years. It's tough to complain about The Bay, since at least it has holiday displays unlike some retailers that do nothing, but they've mostly been repeats of winter scenes (like the one above) and Santa's shop for the past few years. The recession is over--it's time for some displays!

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A rather naughty Santa Claus was noted along Jane Street in Toronto, Ontario near Bloor on 11-December-2010

Of course, the quality of the display does matter. One of my neighbours has chosen to set up a rather naughty scene in his front yard in which Santa Claus periodically lowers his trousers to reveal "Ho Ho Ho" on his behind. I'm not really certain that one is the best to place on a busy street, and I hesitated before placing it on this blog, but near as I can tell no children are reading here anyway.

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One might say that the devil is behind that display. My favorite customer service request of all time may be the following: "Please remove the devil from all Tampa [items]." (A reference to the re-naming of the Tampa, Florida baseball team from the Devil Rays to the Rays.) It seems to be the business should retort, "What? You're paying me to do exorcisms now?"

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The devil apparently has been exorcised from local mall owners in the Toronto area. At the beginning of the season, there were several news articles on different malls that had banned the Salvation Army from ringing its bells at donation locations. Well, one by one, the malls bowed to public pressure and changed their policies. The last hold-out, the Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto, reportedly changed its policy this week, and the signature bells of the season are again ringing all over. (Never mind that too few people bother to carry change anymore.)

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That kind of controversy sounds just like the kind of thing that new Toronto mayor Rob Ford would get involved in. Conservative sports anchor Don Cherry received quite a bit of publicity for insulting anyone that disagrees with Ford at his inaugural this week, calling them, amongst other things, "left-wing pinkos." As a result, liberal councillors have been wearing pink, and Spacing magazine is having trouble keeping up with the demand for pink buttons. It's going to be a long four years.

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Speaking of conservatives, has anyone else noticed that CBS commentator Charles Osgood seems to be taking over from the late Paul Harvey of ABC as the conservative voice of short-form radio? Listen to the 06:25 broadcast on Tuesday, the 06:25 broadcast on Wednesday, or the 07:25 broadcast on Friday and tell me if there isn't a right-wing slant in the presentation.

Heritage: A Hidden Air Raid Siren

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Recently, while reading the latest edition of Spacing magazine, I was surprised to find a short article on air raid sirens in Toronto. It featured a nice Matthew Blackett photo of an air raid siren on a pole in Bayview Village Park and a short explanation of its history. What really attracted my attention was that, almost in passing, it mentioned that there are two more such sirens, one at the Harbourfront Centre, and one at the northwest corner of Dundas and Shaw near Trinity Bellwoods Park.


Was there an air raid siren hidden in the background of this view of Dundas and Shaw in Toronto, taken from the edge of Trinity Bellwoods Park, on 21-August-2010?

While definitely not in my neighbourhood, the corner of Dundas and Shaw was hardly an exotic place to me. It's on the Garrison Creek discovery walk, for one, not far from the route of the annual Good Friday Procession, for another, and Dundas Street West is part of the fastest route for me to walk downtown. Yet, in the multitude of times I had walked past this location, I had never caught a whiff of an air raid siren overhead.

It just happened that the next time I walked past Dundas and Shaw was within a few days of reading the article, and as I approached the corner, despite being in a bit of a hurry, I decided to cross the street and see if I could find it on the northwest corner. Sure enough, behind the first row of trees lining Shaw Street, there it was. As it was basically hidden by trees on three sides, I could see why Blackett chose to feature the one at Bayview Village Park. Still, it was definitely there.


The air raid siren was indeed towering above the trees outside a retirement home in Toronto, Ontario on 21-August-2010

It looked about the same as not only the air raid siren Blackett had featured, but also just about every other Cold War-era air raid siren I've ever seen in the western United States. According to Blackett, they remain in Toronto because "the City claims the Province is responsible for them, Provincial staff say it's a Department of National Defence matter, and the DND claims the city has the right to remove them."

They've been there so long now that they practically qualify for a heritage designation, or at least placement in Toronto's city museum, if that ever comes to be. To think that I walked by one for years without ever noticing rather boggles my mind. Thank you to Spacing and Matthew Blackett for causing me to take note.

Heritage: Vimy Circle

TORONTO, ONTARIO - On this Vimy Ridge Day nationally in Canada, it seemed appropriate to pay a little attention to a monument to this day that was never constructed--Vimy Circle.

I first learned about Vimy Circle from "Unbuilt Toronto" author Mark Osbaldeston's presentation to the Swansea Historical Society in February. Vimy Circle, which would have been located at modern-day University and Richmond, would have been a large roundabout, surrounded by Romanesque architecture with a monument to the battle at Vimy Ridge in the center.

The latest issue of Spacing magazine included more information on Vimy Circle, which was part of a bold effort to change the street map of Toronto, including Federal Avenue from the front of Union Station up to Queen Street and several streets running at a diagonal through the city's grid. A post on the Toronto Before blog illustrates what it might have looked like, and where it might have been, though the best rendering I've ever seen appears in Spacing. It looks almost like something out of Rome or Paris, and would have lent a feeling of planned and revered civilization that Toronto sorely lacks, save perhaps at Queen's Park.

Why was Vimy Circle never built, along with all the other proposals of the day? It was put to a referendum just three months after the 1929 Black Thursday crash of the stock markets heralding the start of what became the Great Depression. Unsurprisingly in those circumstances, the referendum failed.

Yet, while Toronto does not have a Vimy Circle, events today in Ottawa prove that Vimy Ridge will not soon be forgotten in Canada.