Then and Now: A young American "expat" in 1930s Toronto.

Torontonians down through the ages have lived, worked and worried. 

Some of their stories have been told orally in family histories, sometimes put to paper and, in this day and age, "virally" through the internet.

"Put to paper": Today, I'd like to present a correspondence I had with a Mr. Robert D. Gruen back in 1993. He was an American  — born in 1913, died in 1994 — who lived and worked in Toronto for a short time in the 1930s. 

He came here as the young scion of an American industrial concern — a  Cincinnati-based watchmaking company — to gain management experience at the company's Canadian branch office. We exchanged letters as the result of some questions I had about an old watch.

Mr. Gruen lived at the Claridge Apartments in Toronto on Clarendon Avenue. It's still there and even more beautiful in maturity. He worked in the company offices in the Metropolitan Building (now Victoria Tower) at the southwest corner of Adelaide and Victoria.

I'll stop now and let Robert D. Gruen tell you, in his own words, on his own letterhead, about his life in 1930s Toronto. I'll follow his letter with some images of the Claridge Apartments and the Metropolitan Building.

More pictures in the Miscellany Toronto: Then & Now thread in the UrbanToronto Forum.

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