Tuesday Treasures

 Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.

June 2025 - Iceland

August 2025 - Toronto ON

346 Spadina Avenue was the location of the Labor Lyceum, the building has been many things over the years.

It was demolished and a new building housing The Scott Mission sits there now.

It sat on the corner across from this Chinese restaurant.

The garment industry was the main employer of Jewish immigrants in the early 1900s. The Labor Lyceum was home to unions that supported the interests of workers. Learn about the industry and two key events that the Jewish community and workers actively participated in.

Click here to read more.

Click here to watch a documentary about the Spadina fashion industry.

The plaque reads:

Established in 1913 by Henry Dworkin and Sam Easser, the Labor Lyceum Association sought to advance the interests of the city's Jewish trade union movement. Through the sale of $5.00 stock certificates, the Association purchased the houses at 344 and 346 Spadina Avenue in 1924, adding meeting rooms in 1929.

The Labor Lyceum operated as the headquarters for the non-Communist trade unions of the primarily Jewish garment district. The seasonal nature of the textile industry meant that workers could socialize and strategize here during slow work periods. The Labor Lyceum also served as an important cultural centre for various Jewish societies and fraternal organizations. It hosted a range of activities from lectures and rallies to dances, plays, and concerts. In the 1940s, the provincial Co-operative Commonwealth Federation held political conventions here.

Beginning in the 1950s, the Jewish community moved out of the Spadina Avenue area. The Labor Lyceum, however, remained significant to new immigrant groups and their labour activism. In 1971 the building was sold and the Labor Lyceum moved to Cecil Street.

In 1924, the Labor Lyceum, a union hall for Jewish workers in the garment industry, stood at the corner of Spadina and St. Andrew, in the Jewish Market, now Kensington Market. Their strike action led to better conditions for all garment workers in Toronto. So when trailblazing anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman, who J. Edgar Hoover called “the most dangerous woman in America” was exiled from the U.S. for agitating on topics as radical as birth control and women’s rights, she fittingly chose Kensington Market as her adopted home. When her funeral was held at the Labor Lyceum, the crowds caused havoc with traffic in downtown Toronto.

Click here for more.

Emma Goldman, the renowned anarchist, lived in Toronto during various periods of her life, most notably from 1926 to 1928, 1933 to 1935, and 1939 until her death in 1940. Deported from the United States in 1919, she chose Toronto as a base for her activism in Canada. She resided on Spadina Avenue and was a central figure in a vibrant anarchist and activist community in the city.

It took me two trips to find this plaque, it was hidden in plain sight! I found the building 233 Spadina, but it looked like a non-descript cafe???

It made me laugh as I looked at this photo, you can see the plaque, but that man was blocking my view as I peered in the door, looking around for a plaque, assuming it was attached to the building itself.

I ventured in and found an assembly line of Asian women with a huge line of customers buying delicious looking sandwiches.

It's funny, and kind of amazing, to think of the history of this building. What did it look like when Emma Goldman lived here in the 1920s? What else has the building been? What was it back then?