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Toronto's "urban myths"

K

King of Kensington

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What are some beliefs past and present commonly held by Torontonians about the city that aren't for the most part aren't true.

Here are a few I can think of:

1. Chinatown is actually Vietnamese (Census data for the area shows that there are about 10 times as many Chinese than Vietnamese in the area, whether one looks at birthplace, language or ethnic origin.)

2. York University opened partly because of anti-Semitism at U of T (I've heard this several times and incidentally always from non-Jewish Torontonians. How can this be? The heyday of Jewish quotas was a generation before York opened and it wasn't an issue by the 1960s.)

3. Toronto never followed the US model of inner city decline (Although it never declined to the extent that many northeastern and midwestern US cities did, from the 1880's to 1960's Toronto pretty much did follow the Burgress concentric rings model where those that could afford it moved further from the city center.)

4. The UN declared Toronto to be the most multicultural city in the world (It's been commonly reported by politicians, journalists and others, but there's no evidence the UN ever made such a declaration.)
 
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Re #3. There was a population decline in the old City of Toronto following World War II, but while people did move out, their places were taken by immigrants who established businesses and cultural hubs along the old commercial streets like College, Dundas West (east of Lansdowne), Gerrard and St. Clair. I think this partially prevented a physical decline such as those seen in US cities. Some streets did decline, like Queen West, Bloor West (east of Dundas), Queen East (Broadview to Greenwood) and Dundas West (Junction). Some of this was attributable to the end of streetcar service (being replaced by the subway) but in other cases, there wasn't really an immigrant community that took up the area and revitalized it. The City was also spared widespread destruction for expressway construction. While Regent Park was an experiment in large-scale public housing, it didn't go downhill as much as the infamous "projects" we often hear about in the US.
 
Sure, but it was still an area people struggled to get out of. Hence the departure of the Jewish community from the Spadina-Bathurst-College area in the 1950s and 1960s and of the Italian community in the 1970s and 1980s, as these communities became more prosperous.

I know people incidentally who have moved back to the core over the last 30 or 40 years and gotten concerns from parents and grandparents about moving back to the slums!
 
King of Kensington said:
1. Chinatown is actually Vietnamese (Census data for the area shows that there are about 10 times as many Chinese than Vietnamese in the area, whether one looks at birthplace, language or ethnic origin.)
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I believe in the 90's the Vietnamese population rivaled that of Chinese. I also heard - perhaps another myth - that Chinese establishments tended to stay on one side of the street and Vietnamese on the other.
 
Here is another myth:

Yonge Street is the longest street in the world.

In reality, Yonge Street ended at the mouth of the Holland River. What trivia buffs and Yonge Street boosters considered Yonge Street included the rest of Highway 11. However, much of Highway 11 is not named Yonge Street and therefore, cannot be considered a part of Yonge Street. Even the old Route 66 from Los Angeles to Chicago is longer than Ontario Highway 11 (and is also non-grade-separated as well).
 
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junctionist said:
There's the myth that British grenadiers drowned in Grenadier Pond in High Park during the War of 1812. I first heard it when my grandmother told me the myth on a visit to High Park when I was 4 years old. There's also the myth that Grenadier Pond is bottomless. Both are untrue.
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If Grenadier Pond were bottomless, then Vladimir Putin would be upset at learning that Grenadier Pond is deeper than Lake Baikal and Grenadier Pond is a shortcut to the Earth's inner core.
 
junctionist said:
There's the myth that British grenadiers drowned in Grenadier Pond in High Park during the War of 1812. I first heard it when my grandmother told me the myth on a visit to High Park when I was 4 years old. There's also the myth that Grenadier Pond is bottomless. Both are untrue.
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Grenadier Pond is actually a continuation of Humber Bay. There originally was just a very low sandbar that separated the pond from the lake. See link.

Grenadier Pond is the largest of several ponds in the park, but has undergone a reduction in size, from anestimated 19 hectares to its current 14.2 hectares, due to urban development in the surrounding areas (UFS 2002). It is likely that the pond was originally separated from the lake by a sandbar, created by long-shore currents continuously transporting and re-depositing sediment along the shore. Waterflow through the outlet of the pond was probably insufficient to breach the emergent bar, leading to the development of a backwater pond. Periods of high water levels in the lake basin may have been marked by occasional flooding over the bar (UFS 2002). In the nineteenth century, the pond was more fully cut off from the lake by the entry of the Great Western Railway’s lines to the city. This work entailed extensive cutting and filling operations to create the rail right-of-way, as well as modifications to the Lake Shore Road. Thereafter, an outlet weir was installed to regulate water levels in the pond (UFS 2002). Further filling at the south end of the pond took place with the construction of the Queensway in the 1940s.

A small creek, known as Spring Creek drains the east half of the park. The south end of the creek is today occupied by a series of artificial sedimentation ponds (the Upper and Lower Duck Ponds) in an area formerly occupied by an open water pond or estuarine wetland created through similar processes to those operating at Grenadier Pond.
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Johnny Au said:
Here is another myth:

Yonge Street is the longest street in the world.

In reality, Yonge Street ended at the mouth of the Holland River. What trivia buffs and Yonge Street boosters considered Yonge Street included the rest of Highway 11. However, much of Highway 11 is not named Yonge Street and therefore, cannot be considered a part of Yonge Street. Even the old Route 66 from Los Angeles to Chicago is longer than Ontario Highway 11 (and is also non-grade-separated as well).
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Yup, and Highway 11 isn't even the longest highway in Ontario. The Yonge Street thing is probably Toronto's most enduring urban myth. Yonge Street ends unceremoniously next to a golf course near Bradford, then starts up again briefly as a dirt road. It's 60 km long, tops. Toronto alone has lots of streets that are longer.
 
How about that the Brunswick House always watered down and/or recycled their pitchers of beer?
 
I have heard several people over the years tell me there is a long abandoned subway line downtown, usually mentioning Queen or King Street. Not exactly sure how they got that in their head; maybe they once heard about plans or roughed in stops for a Queen streetcar subway and thought it was built but never used.
 
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mjl08 said:
I believe in the 90's the Vietnamese population rivaled that of Chinese. I also heard - perhaps another myth - that Chinese establishments tended to stay on one side of the street and Vietnamese on the other.
Click to expand...

I checked the 1991 census tract data for the Chinatown area and there were about 7000 Chinese and 500 Vietnamese at the time. Pretty much the same as today.
 
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