The area between Front Street on the south and Adelaide Street on the north, between Berkeley Street on the east and George Street on the west, is the ten blocks that make up the original town-site of York or Old Toronto, as laid out in 1793.
This walk is mainly along King St. East. There is an incredible amount of history in this area.
The Home District Grammar School was built at King and George Streets in 1807 and was a one-room schoolhouse. When it first opened, only five students enrolled but it quickly rose to 37 by year’s end. Eventually, it became clear that it was too small to accommodate the number of attendees it was acquiring. To replace it, another school was built in 1816 at Adelaide and Church streets, known as the ‘Blue School.’
The King Edward Hotel was built by George Gooderham's Toronto Hotel Company to meet the demand in the rising metropolis for a grand hotel.
Gooderham is a very familiar name to Torontonians. To learn more click on Gooderham in the tags/labels below this post.
When it opened in 1903, the hotel, affectionately known as the "King Eddy", was embraced by the city. The fireproof, eight-storey building, designed by eminent Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb and prominent Toronto architect E.J. Lennox, provided luxury in service in dramatic settings. The 18-storey tower, with its top-floor Crystal Ballroom, was added in 1920-21 to enlarge the hotel. Although threatened with demolition in the 1970s, the hotel was revitalized in 1980-81. On its 100th anniversary in 2003, the King Edward, Toronto's first luxury hotel, remains a vibrant and elegant meeting place for local and international visitors.
The lavish King Edward Hotel on King Street was once the location of Toronto’s first jail, the Old Log Gaol, which held Toronto’s first execution in 1798. John Sullivan was executed for forging a one pound note to fund a drinking spree. Early Toronto had about 120 crimes that were punishable by death, including forgery and being found disguised in a forest.
At 1 Toronto St. is this plaque.
"Be of good courage boys, I am not ashamed of anything I've done, I trust in God, and I'm going to die like a man." - - Samuel Lount. On April 24, 1824 the cornerstone of York's second jail was laid on this site. In the aftermath of the Rebellion of 1837 close to ten thousand people stood on this spot to bear witness as Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, two of William Lyon Mackenzie's most loyal supporters, were hanged on April 12, 1838 on gallows adjacent to the jail. By 1840 a new prison, the Home District Gaol, was set to open on Berkeley Street and the old jail was to be incorporated into the York Chambers Building which stood until 1956. The last hangings in Toronto were at the Don Jail in 1962.
Toronto's First Post Office is a historic post office. It is the oldest purpose-built post office in Canada that functioned as a department of the British Royal Mail, and the only surviving example. After its initial use as a post office, it became part of a Roman Catholic boys' school (De La Salle College) and later a cold storage building. Located at 260 Adelaide Street East, the building now houses a museum and a full-service post office, run by the Town of York Historical Society.
The Cathedral Church of St. James is both a parish church ministering to the historic St Lawrence neighbourhood and a cathedral (the church where the bishop’s chair or throne – the “cathedra” – is located), making it the spiritual centre of the diocese and a focal point for the civic life of Toronto, one of Canada’s most prominent cultural and financial centres. The Cathedral has been designated as an Ontario Heritage Property by the Ministry of Culture and has also been designated as a heritage site by Heritage Toronto.
Saturday I was so zonked after two days of jury duty I slept 11 hours. I got caught up on my posts and blog reading. I did some chores and then vegged the rest of the afternoon.
Saturday's libation.
Sunday after a big breakfast cooked by John, I baked a cream cheese banana bread.
Now I have a system. Since I am early I stop in the Sheraton Hotel to use the washroom (the one in the courthouse on the main floor is grotty and there is only 1 per in the jury room).
The "cow gates" at Osgoode Hall.
Osgoode Hall, at Queen Street West and University Avenue, next to the Superior Court of Justice, is an edifice of distinction. Home to the highest courts in Ontario and to the Law Society of Upper Canada, it’s one of a few rare old Toronto buildings that have staved off the lapping tides of urban uglification. The plaque out front describes it accurately, if immodestly, as “one of the finest examples of Victorian Classical architecture in Canada.” Like any historical building, Osgoode Hall has its myths. Part of its stately charm is the cast-iron fence that surrounds it and the unusual “kissing gates,” which mimic rural gateways designed to keep livestock from wandering. Long-standing tradition has it that the entrances were installed for just that purpose: to keep itinerant 19th-century cattle from gumming up the wheels of justice. Is the legend true? Architectural drawings by William Storm, who supervised the 1860 expansion that included the fence, actually referred to the gates as “cattle guards.” And they work: in 1950 a group of students attempted unsuccessfully to bring a cow through one of the entrances, which is the kind of thing students did before sex and the internet were invented.
1927
People watching at City Hall at lunch hour. Yes, I managed to dodge the fellow juror that had insisted on following me at lunch on Friday!
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The courthouse is just out of the photo on the left by those two bluish buildings.
Odd photo shoot.
Across the street, Sheraton gardens for a bathroom break.
Back in the courtroom, we are dismissed at 3:30 so I do some shopping and get a frappucino.
We met at 9:30 and in court by 10. City Hall at lunchtime. This is the only time we can leave and spend some time on our own. Breaks are taken in the juror's room.
John met me at 5 and we strolled down to Libretto's for an early dinner.
We took the streetcar to Spadina and then Uber'd home.
Wednesday court at 10 AM. Break and snacks at 11:30 and then lunch at 1:00. We finished at 3 after the judge instructed that we would not sit on Thursday. So be prepared on Friday for closing arguments and the judge's directions, we should come prepared with 3 days of overnight requirements.
However, there was a possibility that we wouldn't be back until Monday. He also mentioned that Monday is election day for the mayor of Toronto. He said we could speak privately to the court officer about our voting requirements as some had already voted either by mail or in advance polling, some may choose not to vote. If you were voting on Monday, then there would be cases of people who lived out of the city and voting only opened at 10.
There were very rejected-looking jurors in the room as we returned for other directions. As a group, our voting choices were given to the officer who gave them to the judge. He also had some other decisions to make.
At 4:30 he ruled on one decision. Then at five, we were advised of a change of plans. We would not sit Thursday or Friday, and report at 12:30 on Monday for a 1 PM start along with our suitcases.
Most were happier now, knowing we would not be spending our weekend in a hotel.
With the shock that our electronics will be taken away when we begin deliberation, and that we will have our own hotel rooms (located anywhere around the city - even airport) but no TVs, clocks, radios!!! I use my phone as my reader! I was thinking I better go buy some books. But a juror mentioned a library in their condo and I remembered we have a lovely library.
I selected 4 books, hopefully, that is more than enough!!!
I thought about bringing my embroidery but then realized I would need scissors and that wouldn't make it through the metal detector at the courthouse! People have already been warned about forks and knives (for their lunches).
BTW, this cartoon cannot happen in Canada. It is illegal to ever talk about the decisions made by a jury.
The Criminal Code of Canada prohibits a juror from discussing or disclosing the nature or the content of the jury deliberations not revealed in open court, even after the jury has been discharged.
I had shown you the Googly eyes that appeared a couple of weeks ago. Today the boom lift (a common machine used for overpass road maintenance) has been given a rather intense makeover at York for Pride month.
Thursday
I can sleep in! I went downtown for a haircut and some retail therapy.
In the Financial Disstrict.
Collective Arts opened a new location in Union Station. Click here for their brewery location on Hamilton. They are known for their support of local artists.
Friday
We went for pedicures at 11 and a manicure for me.
I received a call Friday afternoon from a "private number". It was a court officer asking if I was Juror #NN, yes, and was told that we don't need to show up on Monday but meet on Tuesday morning at 9:30 with our suitcases.
Friday steak, baked potato and asparagus broccolini.
WATCHING
Continuing with Red Rock.
READING
I started The Weight of Ink - Set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century, The Weight of Ink is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect: Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history.
This is a good book, but not for me right now.
I needed something "lighter" so I read What Have We Done. Meh, over the top, cliched.
Started The Second Life of Mirielle West - Based on the little-known true story of America’s only leper colony, brings vividly to life the Louisiana institution known as Carville, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined throughout the entire 20th century.
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