The Village of West Toronto Junction became a town in 1887, a mere five years before my grandmother was born. Recently, I came upon an 1886 map of The Junction and I thought how tickled she would have been (and no doubt is) to realize that the street closest to where she spent most of her later years, had been called “Brighton Place West” back when she was an infant in Brighton, England. By the time that I was born, Brighton Place West was no more, and the area was known as The Junction, referring to the intersections of several railway lines. The Grand Trunk (later Canadian National (C.N.) Railway, the Toronto, Grey & Bruce (later Canadian Pacific (C.P.) Railway), and the Northern (later C.N.R.) lines stopped at the Junction as early as the 1880’s. 
We lived three and a half blocks from the abandoned West Toronto railroad station to the northeast and 3 ½ blocks from green oasis of High Park to the southwest. Though the area was named for the tracks that met and crossed here, I never thought much about trains. The closest I came to them was when – unbeknownst to our respective parents – one of my dearest friends, D. and I would sneak across the big iron “Wallace” bridge at Glenlake and Dundas Streets (photo above) to buy nickel bags of bacon and hickory chips not available in 
stores closer by.
Mum had lived on the other side of that bridge when she was a girl, so she would frequently cross the tracks to buy bread at Canada Bread Company near Dundas and Bloor Streets. One winter day, however, there was too much snow on the stairs, so she decided to cross the tracks. As she pushed her way through knee-deep snow, she spotted a train coming. Halfway across the tracks, she realized that she still could not tell what track the train was on. It seemed to be coming straight at her no matter how far she moved across the tracks. Eventually, of course, the train passed and along with it, her fear, but she said it was the scariest feeling she had ever had and did not cross the tracks again when they were covered with snow.
[Photo above: Looking south along Dundas Street (north of Bloor Street) from the top of the Wallace Bridge]
(
Bio X)
The 
stores closer by.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home