Every year, Heritage Toronto works with local photographers to create Building Storeys, a visual documentation and anecdotal exhibit of our city’s heritage sites. This year’s exhibit—which is on view at the Steam Whistle Roundhouse throughout the month of May—is dedicated to rail and marine transportation. Over the month, Torontoist and Heritage Toronto are exploring the context for Building Storeys; today we look at the TTC’s maintenance and storage yards.

Building Storeys
Steam Whistle Brewing (The Roundhouse, 255 Bremner Boulevard)
May 3–31
FREE

Sometimes streetcars and subways need a little pampering. Whether it’s cleaning, critical repair work, or a good night’s sleep, the TTC’s maintenance and storage yards provide the timeout vehicles need in order to continue moving the city around. From sites that have serviced streetcars since the Victorian era to the giant yards required for the subway system, generations of transit workers have kept vehicles in as fine shape as technology and budgets have allowed. The gallery visits several of the TTC’s current yards, as well as one from the past that has been successfully reinvented for other uses.

Every year, Heritage Toronto works with local photographers to create Building Storeys, a visual documentation and anecdotal exhibit of our city’s heritage sites. This year’s exhibit—which is on view at the Steam Whistle Roundhouse throughout the month of May—is dedicated to rail and marine transportation. Over the month, Torontoist and Heritage Toronto are exploring the context for Building Storeys; today we look at Toronto’s subway system and its riders, stations, and trains.

Building Storeys
Steam Whistle Brewing (The Roundhouse, 255 Bremner Boulevard)
May 3–31
FREE

Ever since Ontario Premier Leslie Frost and Toronto Mayor Allan Lamport threw the switch that officially launched the Yonge line on March 30, 1954, Torontonians have relied on our subway system to get around town. Debates concerning overcapacity and how the system should be extended began almost immediately. They rage on to this day. Love it or hate it, there’s little doubt the subway is one of Toronto’s landmarks.

Click through the gallery to read a few things people have said about our subways over the years.

WHERE: College Street and University Avenue, Southeast Corner

WHEN: Earlier today

WHAT: Queen’s Park Station users are getting a new way down to the tracks, done up in a style meant to complement the architectural sensibilities of the still-under-construction MaRS Centre Phase II (and provided by that project’s developer, to replace the entrance that was there when the City gave them approval to build). Currently, the new structure is still behind construction fences, but the aim is to have it open for business on or around June 1, according to Rob Stewart, a spokesperson for MaRS. The entrance will be stairs-only, but anyone who wants to ride an elevator down will eventually be able use the ones in the MaRS Centre, which will have an underground connection to the station.

Dear Toronto talked with Wilson in 2009 about the Seen Reading project.

Julie Wilson, author of the new book Seen Reading, is funny, articulate, and self-deprecating. She has a fondness for both witty anecdotes and bathroom humour: an ideal cocktail party guest or, you might think, a good person to sit beside on a long commute. In transit however, Wilson—a self-described literary voyeur—is more likely to be peering over someone’s shoulder and scribbling into her notebook than chatting up a fellow passenger.

Fittingly, Wilson also knows how to throw an interesting party. On Monday, at the book’s launch, she had volunteers go on stage to pretend they were riding the subway—the tallest volunteer got to be a subway pole the others hung on to, while lightly swaying.

What is a literary voyeur? For Wilson, reading in public is a form of exhibitionism; since she watches others reading, her actions make her a voyeur. And while you might think exhibitionism in this context refers to the book covers people show (or try to hide), Wilson is much more interested in the readers themselves, in the potential reactions the next sentence or page elicits from them. “[Y]ou have no idea what emotions may floor you from one sentence to the next, and when they do, I’m there, watching,” she writes in Seen Reading.

If you use the TTC regularly, you may have seen Wilson, over the past five years, spotting someone reading, then making notes about the book, the reader, and how far through it they’ve progressed. She’s been chronicling some of those observations on her blog (also called Seen Reading), wherein she imagines the mindset of the readers she’s watched in spare but potent prose. Her very first entry involved spotting a woman “distressed” while nearing the end of Miriam Toews’ A Complicated Kindness. After the encounter, Wilson rushed to the nearest bookstore to buy the book and began reading it “in anticipation of the final pages, where I would once again meet this reader within the book that moved her so.” And so, a voyeur was born.

Wilson, in the grey coat, reads selections from Seen Reading while pretending to be on the subway. Photo by Jaime Woo/Torontoist.

While the word “voyeur” may have unsavory undertones, it is the perfect choice here. “Observer” or “watcher” (as in “people-watcher”) don’t capture the level of passion Wilson has for literature, the joys of reading, and the bonds between readers, nor the dynamics of her experiences, which take place just on the edge of private space created around a person when she reads in public. Wilson understands this private space, and then cleverly inverts it in her writing. Reading a book need not be about hiding away in plain sight: it can be a way of giving yourself permission to have deep experiences while in public. Wilson’s micro-fiction doesn’t take away from the reader or those experiences—it’s a way of celebrating them.

Wilson, at the launch, mentioned that transience runs through the book as a theme. She offered a few possible explanations: maybe it was that the readers were always in transit; maybe it was that while the commute remained the same, the commuters would always have different faces; or maybe it was something about Wilson herself, some need to connect with people around her that she didn’t know, except to know that they shared a common passion for books.

Perhaps, too, Wilson could sense the shift that would happen as books went virtual. With over 100 pieces of micro-fiction (chosen from over 700 blog entries) she has captured a time when walking down the length of a subway car meant seeing a mosaic of covers rather than the greys and blacks of electronic devices we encounter more often today, and there’s something magical about capturing that image.

No matter its form, though, reading will continue in our city, now fortified by the release of Seen Reading, a beautiful love letter to reading in Toronto.

Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale) wants Ontario, as Quebec, to go to bat against the feds on the issue of deleting data from the recently-nixed federal long-gun registry. Though the registry was successfully abolished by Prime Minister Stephen Harper after years of touting its insignificance (this, despite the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police claiming they used it regularly as a law-enforcement tool), its database could potentially be used on an unofficial basis by police, and even updated, should they choose. Wong-Tam will bring a motion to the next city council meeting that calls on the province to do everything in their power to keep the registry data from being purged.

Yesterday, we reported on the release of an internal TTC audit , which was apparently used as proof that the agency needs to restore public confidence. Turns out, the public is more confident than previously suspected. In fact, according to a new survey of 550 riders, conducted in February and March, they’re downright satisfied: 60 per cent thought they were getting good value (seriously?) and 81 per cent said they would recommend transit to a tourist (because…there’s no other alternative?).

TTC customer service chief Chris Upfold said the agency is looking into improving the method of purchase for Metropasses. (Really? ‘Cause I personally liked having to withdraw $126 in cash every single month, then standing in line for half an hour to give it in…just me, though.)

Also, in a seemingly arbitrary twist, the survey found that people think streetcar drivers are more helpful and “smartly presented” than bus drivers. Huh. A focus group will, naturally, be held.

Let it be known that Councillor Doug Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke North) is still, in spite of Mayor Rob Ford’s apparent wavering on the subject, in favour of property-tax freezes. He’s also into eliminating the land-transfer tax, so the brothers Ford are united on that fun front.

If you were feeling bummed about Toronto never winning any awards, buck up, because the annual survey from the Canadian Automobile Association has found that five of the very worst roads in Ontario can be found in none other than our your beloved city and mine , Toronto! Fifty per cent: not too shabby. Dufferin St. (you know it), renowned for its scenic potholes and artfully crumbled pavement, earned the number one place as crappiest road in the province.

Following the Toronto police chief’s recent promise to review the force’s response to people with mental health issues and those in crisis, this week, a group for families of people shot by police will meet for the first time in an official capacity, to discuss constructive ways police can deescalate issues with those who have mental health problems.

In the wake of May Day, or International Workers’ Day, Occupy Toronto protesters marched to Simcoe Park last night, across from the Metro Convention Centre, to protest mining big shot Barrick Gold Corporation, who are meeting there this morning. Three protesters were escorted from the premises and slapped with tickets after attempting to pitch tents. Organizers have said the action marks a shift in approach, as protesters hope to start targeting specific companies.

Correction: May 2, 10:35AM – The actual price of a Metropass is $126, not $136 as previously stated. The above has been corrected.

Andy Byford, the TTC chief installed after the ouster of Chief General Manager Gary Webster in February, is now beginning to wade into some of the more mundane aspects of his role as one of the commission’s public faces. For example: containing damage from the continual stream of news reports about cellphone pictures of TTC employees engaging in inattentive or risky behaviour on the job. (In fact, we posted a video of a subway driver doing something irresponsible just a few days ago.)

This morning, the TTC released a memo from Byford, addressed to all commission staff. It’s a strongly worded rebuke to all employees who tarnish the dignity of the eggplant-coloured jacket. We have the full text after the jump.

Or you could just read the memo Gary Webster released in 2010, after a photograph of a TTC collector asleep at his post became citywide news. The sentiment is identical, and we’d even go so far as to say that the prose is better. But then again, Webster had spent his entire career at the TTC and probably had lots of invective saved up. Byford—a Brit who came to the TTC from RailCorp, in Sydney, Australia—is new to Toronto. He’ll learn.

Dear Colleagues,

As you know, the TTC’s image and by extension, our reputation as TTC employees, is once again the subject of intense scrutiny and severe criticism by the media and the traveling public.

To be frank, we can’t complain. In recent days, photos and videos have emerged of staff asleep on the job, texting or appearing to read a newspaper while operating a vehicle, and parking illegally to get a snack. As your CEO, I cannot and will not defend such incidents. Such behaviours are not only unacceptable, they lead to even more scrutiny and potential for assault.

In my time here, I have gone on record as saying how much I respect what front line staff do and how 99 per cent of you do a great job. That remains the case and I will continue to publicly back you.

But a small minority of staff continue to wreck all of our reputations. To them I say: I will not back you, in fact I will expect you to face the consequences of your actions, especially if you put customers’ safety at risk.

Between us, we can transform our company’s reputation and stop this ongoing criticism of what we do. But we can only do this if everyone does their job professionally.

So I have given my managers clear direction: back staff to the hilt that do the right thing or who make an honest mistake. But to those few that choose to ignore safety rules or who recklessly make things worse for their colleagues by their actions, expect to be held to account.

I am convinced we can change this situation and transform everyone’s perceptions of the TTC. Please heed this advice.

Andy Byford
Chief Executive Officer

Photo by Bryson Gilbert from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

It’s difficult to read Montreal-based writer Taras Grescoe’s new book on public transit around the world, Straphanger, without feeling more than a few pangs of some serious transit envy. Written as a public-transit travelogue, it’s a fascinating look at the intense relationship between a city’s growth and its transit system.

Reading Grescoe’s book, one comes to the inescapable confirmation of an idea that has been bandied about a lot recently: that the state of transit in Toronto is, to put it politely, tragic. While other cities have moved full steam ahead on transit expansions—even cities as freeway-drunk as Los Angeles—Toronto has become mired in tired debates over technology and ideology. While other cities come up with innovative methods for funding their transit systems, we are systematically starving ours.

So how can a Torontonian read Grescoe’s account of New York’s subway system or Tokyo’s bullet trains or Paris’ suburban commuter railway without feeling a little bit like we’ve missed the party? Indeed, Grescoe’s chapter on our city is entitled “The Toronto Tragedy.” But while Straphanger is a commentary on the harm the car has done to our cities’ form and vitality, it’s also a hopeful book. A book that, through examples from around the world, shows a way forward.

Torontoist sat down with Grescoe yesterday to talk about how the way we get around affects the structure of our cities, the myth of the car, and the future of transit in Toronto.

Form Follows Function Follows Form

Whether he is writing about the far-flung suburban sprawl of Phoenix or the tightly wrapped core of Paris that gives way to outer layers formed by tramways and, eventually, the car, Grescoe makes the point that the way we move is more than just getting from point A to point B. “City form is largely, but not inevitably,” he says, “influenced by its transportation modes of choice.” In other words, the way we move around our city matters.

Subways and streetcars, in their own way, fostered the first sprawl, as people were able to move farther out from the city’s core. Many cities, like Los Angeles and Vancouver, had their initial neighbourhoods formed along the spine of these early streetcar routes. But it was when the car came along, combined with cheap and easy home mortgages, that suburban sprawl took on the more menacing form that we see today. Grescoe relays the history of each city he visits through the expansion of its transit system, and, as he shows time and again, the two are inextricably linked.

But, Grescoe says, “transit can also change the existing form of a city.” Many cities are attempting to retrofit their suburban sprawl by creating denser centres around transit nodes, creating more walkable, transit-oriented development. Some of this, like the concentration of development around SkyTrain stations in Vancouver, works well, Grescoe points out, while others, like Portland’s Orenco Station neighbourhood, are really transit-adjacent developments where people still use their cars as their primary mode of transportation.

And if we pin our hopes on the car as our form of mass transportation, we’re going to have some serious problems.

The Mythology of the Car

The car was a really useful, ingenious invention, Grescoe says, “but it’s stopped working as a viable form of transport in our cities and we’re still living with the illusion that it can be one. We’re going to hit the wall soon in a lot of cities, and the biggest, most mature cities on the continent have already hit that. Toronto being one of them.”

In his chapter on Phoenix, Grescoe makes the argument that “every time you choose to drive you are, in a tiny way, opting out of, and diminishing, the public realm.” When asked if he views transit as a way to then engage with the public realm, he agrees. “Some people will look at me askance when I say that because you have images of Toyko commuters jammed together avoiding each others eyes,” but riding transit is a “reminder of the fact that we’re all in this thing together and this thing is the city.”

“We all slam our door on the world by getting in the car, by buying the ad line that this is bringing us freedom, by listening to Bruce Springsteen, falling in love with Jack Kerouac. Pining for escape. We’re getting sucked in. It’s a marketed legend now, the legend of freedom. For me, what you actually get is being stuck in gridlock on some freeway in an irrational transportation system.”

If a lesson can be drawn from Straphanger, it’s that an irrational transportation system begets an irrational urban form. “The calculus behind exurbs and office parks and long commutes was all predicated on gas being cheap,” Grescoe says. By structuring our cities around cheap, plentiful gas and the private car, we have painted ourselves into a bit of a corner. Now many cities are attempting to figure out how to graft light-rail transit lines and subways onto a city form that grew out of an entirely different mode of transportation. One only needs to read about Grescoe’s ride on Phoenix’s new light-rail line, which glides mostly empty past suburban subdivisions and parking lots, to understand how great this challenge will be.

Photo by Georgie_Grrl from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Where is Toronto in all of this? Grescoe writes that the Toronto-Hamilton region loses $6 billion a year in productivity due to congestion, has seen rush-hour traffic speeds decline by 24 per cent between 1986 and 2006, and ranks ahead of New York and Los Angeles on IBM’s annual commuter pain index. Ouch.

“Toronto, yeah, it’s uh,” Grescoe laughs, “It’s a horrible story.”

In his book, Grescoe makes the argument for public agencies with regional authority as a way to plan and implement well-run transit systems. “The TTC is doing a heroic job of running transit to the suburbs—it’s considered a model by a lot of transit scholars—but it’s too much for a city agency.”

“Metrolinx really needs to step up,” Grescoe says. “The TTC is incredibly frustrated with what they’re being called upon to do. They’re a small city transit agency that is called upon to do the work that TransLink is doing in the Vancouver area, that TriMet is doing in the Portland area. Those are transit systems that work because there is regional planning. Metrolinx doesn’t have the money or the resources to oversee these things. And the TTC doesn’t. I think there needs to be, at the Metrolinx level, good regional oversight. And that’s what I found in every city I went to: the cities where transit actually worked there is a planning agency overseeing this.”

A good transit system costs money, but recent polls have suggested that Torontonians are warming up to the idea of using alternative funding methods to get the city moving again, whether that takes the form of a Los Angeles–style regional sales tax, road tolls, London-style congestion charges, or some combination. Funding has to be both reliable and consistent, Grescoe says. “You can’t hope for a little money from the federal government here so a politician can come and cut the ribbon and gain some points among his constituency.”

“If you want to keep your city moving, you have to make that investment and it can’t come in dribs and drabs. That’s the lesson you see from cities around the world. We tend to have in Canada this big mega project thing: Oh, there’s an Olympics happening or a World’s Fair happening. That’s how the Montreal Metro got built; that’s how the SkyTrain got built. We just need to bite the bullet and face reality like they have in Asia and many European cities. Transit is what makes a city work and we’re falling behind in North American right now.”

However, Grescoe also says that the TTC “has been fighting against incredible odds to provide pretty good service to a very large area.”

So, what could the TTC do better right now? “I think that the single best thing that the TTC could do would be to do what Metro has done in Los Angeles, what Montreal’s STM is doing, and spend a little money on public relations. Cast themselves as underdogs and heroes and saviours of the city. Because they are. People love to hate the TTC. Everyone has their horror stories about snoozing guys in the booth, but in a lot of ways this is a system that has kept the city running.”

One hopes that with Toronto’s recent return to Transit City, Grescoe will have a bit of rewriting to do on his Toronto chapter when the paperback edition comes out. In the meantime, it probably wouldn’t hurt to send the mayor a copy.

Correction: April 26, 12:40PM – The word Phoenix was previously misspelled throughout the article above and has now been corrected.

SPOTTED BY: YouTube user evanderm

WHERE: Between Eglinton and Bloor stations on the Yonge subway line

WHEN: Video uploaded Friday; recording date unknown.

WHAT: The TTC is, needless to say, investigating after a TTC passenger posted this video on Friday, which appears to show a TTC operator messaging while operating a subway.

Spotted features interesting things our readers discover in their journeys across Toronto. If you spot something interesting, send a photo and pertinent details to tips@torontoist.com.

City council: still mostly men.

“Does Rob Ford have a woman problem?” asked the Globe and Mail recently. A bold question, but the problem of female representation in politics reaches far beyond the mayor. In Toronto, 15 of the 44 councillors—or 34 per cent—are women, and while that sounds bad, it’s a heck of a lot better than the paltry 24.8 per cent elected to federal parliament.

Thankfully, a mentorship program may help correct the current sausage-fest that is Toronto politics.

The Toronto Regional Champion Campaign was launched in 2008; 26 young women were mentored by female councillors as part of an initiative by Councillor Pam McConnell (Ward 28, Toronto Centre-Rosedale). McConnell is chair of a Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ committee dedicated to upping the female quotient in municipal politics. The idea seems to have legs: the program just received funding from the feds’ Status of Women Canada and is set to hit four other communities including Edmonton and Wainfleet, Ontario.

In Toronto, the program just launched its third Protégée Program, with all 15 female city councillors participating. Each councillor is mentoring two young women for a period of 12 months. The women are typically 18 to 26 years of age, are either currently enrolled in or freshly out of university, and hail from a variety of communities and backgrounds–a nice touch, given that council is overwhelmingly Caucasian.

“When I came onto council there were very few women, period; now we’re looking at trying to get a more representative face of Toronto in general,” said McConnell. “It will only start when we give young women the tools, the experience, and, most importantly, the connections to put their names in.”

It’s McConnell’s hope that her sister councillors’ passion for politics will translate, and that these young women won’t face the same barriers to entry she did.

Councillor Pam McConnell at a council meeting last September.

Not only are female politicians forced to prove themselves as leaders over a longer period of time, says McConnell of those difficulties, but women also suffer in the combative environment that is politics: their consensus-building skills are undervalued, and they have a harder time fundraising. Women, she finds, shy away from the networking game, while young men thrive on it, and when it comes time to raise dough, the women suffer. McConnell hopes that the Protégée participants will not only gain confidence through the program, but will also build up a handy network of empowered contacts.

Mentee Leona Teixeira, a 23-year-old who hails from Avenue and Lawrence, currently works for MaRS helping online start-ups find their feet in Toronto. She was non-committal about a future career in politics but, having interned with GO Transit, is passionate about how proper transit infrastructure can help build communities.

Not surprisingly, she’s been paired with Councillor and TTC Chair Karen Stintz, aka the new “Rebel Mayor.”

As for Rob Ford’s “woman problem,” McConnell insisted that all councillors, male and female, are on board with the mentorship program. “I think we need to remember that every male member of council has a daughter, or a sister, or a granddaughter, and they know that those young women have things to contribute.”

A lovely sentiment, though it’s hard to forget that Ford is struggling to keep the few women he does have as members of his Executive Committee, which works to implement his agenda at City Hall. In this administration, fresh, young female faces on council are more necessary than ever.

Children enjoying a skate at Nathan Phillips Square during the 1965 blackout, with light provided by city parks trucks. Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.

Mass power outages can make the imagination run wild. Take the case of Mrs. Joe Clarke, who was driving through downtown Toronto during the Great Northeast Blackout of 1965. According to the Telegram, Mrs. Clarke “got the fright of her life when she saw a shadowy monster silhouetted in the moonlight.” After a moment of panic, she realized that she wasn’t in a horror film: “the terrified woman realized that the lurking broad-shouldered ‘creature’ was…the Royal York Hotel.”

Despite the occasional person envisioning city landmarks as Japanese movie monsters and passing thoughts that saboteurs were at work, Torontonians took the blackout that struck the city during rush hour on November 9, 1965 in stride. While the power outage didn’t leave as large an impact on Toronto as it did on New York City, nor was it celebrated annually like the 2003 blackout, it made for an interesting evening for local residents.

Front page, the Telegram, November 10, 1965.

Thanks to overloads affecting plants along the Niagara River that knocked out a cross-border power grid, Torontonians were among the 35 million North Americans affected by a blackout that began around 5:15 p.m. Downtown was hit by three waves of unexpected power losses—the first and longest lasted an hour, followed by a 15-minute outage at 6:55 p.m. and a 20-minute loss at 7:25 p.m. The longest spell of darkness hit North York east of Yonge Street, where the power remained off until 8:25 p.m.

People leaving work downtown were greeted by streets littered with marooned streetcars and trolley buses. Underground, most subway trains were able to coast into the nearest station. For trains stuck in between stations, TTC crews were dispatched to guide passengers out of rear cars toward the nearest station. Despite the delays, passengers remained calm and treated the situation as just another rush hour nuisance. “We just sat there and had a very nice time,” Mrs. W.G. McGowan told the Star after a two-hour, two-stop ride home. “We all had a good visit with people we didn’t know. Another passenger admitted to CBC Radio that he “just sat there watching the girls.” While 75 extra buses were pressed into service to replace the Yonge-University line, full TTC service was not restored until 9 p.m.

For those attempting to drive home, the lack of functioning signals created gridlock. With too many busy intersections for Metro Toronto police to handle, citizens took traffic control into their own hands. After witnessing two near-fatalities, teacher-in-training Pat Conroy pulled over at Finch and Willowdale avenues to keep traffic flowing. “I felt somebody had to do something about it,” he told the Globe and Mail. “I kept on wondering where were all the EMO [Emergency Measures Organization, now Emergency Management Ontario] people or the police.” Conroy, who also directed traffic at Bayview and Finch, noticed that police passed by him three times, while a fourth officer warned him not to expect any compensation if he was hit. The following day, police chief James Mackey criticized people who acted like Conroy due to the risks of directing traffic. “We know the civilians were hoping to help,” he told the press. “But many of them were out in those intersections with dark clothing and no lights. It was dangerous.” Mackey’s statements were condemned by EMO officials, who were impressed by the initiative taken by Conroy and others and believed they deserved honours. According to Metro Toronto EMO director J.H. Pollard, “in an emergency it is sometimes necessary to use common sense and to act without legal sanction.”

Confusion also reigned at the airport. Flight dispatch clerk Ivan Matsalla was among the people Telegram reporter Tiny Bennett asked the question “And where were you?”

I was at work at Toronto International Airport and when all the lights went out it seemed rather like fun. When we realized it was a large scale blackout we started to rush around. One of our men phoned in to inform us New York was out and as we had a plane over here we had to hustle. All our phones and radios were out but one phone which really came in for heavy traffic. It wasn’t until the emergency lighting came on that we had the chance to find out just how widespread it all was.

The Cork Room at Bay and Wellington streets, a longtime watering hole for the Toronto Stock Exchange. Photo taken by Ellis Wiley prior to 1966. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 124, File 1, Item 128.

Many commuters unwilling to wade into traffic and transit chaos rode out the blackout by knocking back a drink or two. Despite candlelight illumination and a lack of air conditioning that created thicker-than-usual clouds of cigarette smoke, downtown bars enjoyed brisk business. Thelma Day, hostess of the Cork Room on Bay Street, told the Globe and Mail that “the power can go off at 5:30 every night; it keeps the cash registers ringing.” Day worried about getting more candles and how to send her waitresses home when their shifts ended. “It’s impossible to get a taxi,” she noted. “Maybe some good-looking fellows will come along and drive them home. That’s sweet, isn’t it?” Over at Le Coq d’Or on Yonge Street, manager Nicholas Fotes observed that “none of the customers are panicky—in fact I think they are enjoying it.”

Also enjoying the blackout were 200 children who continued skating in Nathan Phillips Square thanks to a Department of Parks truck which used its headlights to illuminate the rink. Inside the new City Hall, the emergency power was switched on, but not before Mayor Phil Givens’ wife was temporarily trapped in an elevator for several minutes.

Mrs. Givens had a short wait compared to Bathurst Street resident Evelyn Solomons, who was trapped with her two-year old daughter Wendy while riding an elevator up to her second-floor apartment. “My first reaction was one of horror because I didn’t know what happened,” Solomons told the Star. “Then I heard voices saying there had been a power cut.” Her neighbours attempted to open the doors with crowbars before calling the fire department, which arrived just as power returned. When the two-hour ordeal was over, she vowed it would be a long time before her next elevator ride.

Non-functioning electrical doors and equipment were an issue in various places. Supermarket shoppers who waited in line to have their purchases checked by flashlight and rung up by hand were stuck in stores when the automated doors wouldn’t budge. A stranded Ontario Hydro official who asked his wife to pick him up waited over an hour because she had to wait for someone to manually open the garage door of their apartment building. At the Don Jail, electrically operated locks clamped shut for half-an-hour before emergency power kicked in.

Source: the Telegram, November 10, 1965.

Despite the blackout, most large social functions carried on. As the Telegram noted, “no one seemed to care if the female guests turned up with smeared lipstick or the men wore mismatched socks.” Actors rehearsing a play at the Poor Alex Theatre tossed aside scripts they couldn’t read and improvised their lines, which they felt improved their performance. Restaurants with gas stoves continued to serve customers, with some take-out counters reporting a 40 per cent increase over usual Tuesday night sales due to people who couldn’t cook at home. For families who could, there was the option of pulling their barbecues out of storage, allowing kids to enjoy a late-season grilled hot dog. Boiling frankfurters or other edibles over a fire wasn’t an option for some homeowners, especially in Scarborough and North York, as the outage knocked out water pumping stations, leaving residents in areas where pumps lacked backup power with little-to-no water pressure.

Finding the latest updates about the blackout was a tricky matter. In his review of local radio coverage, Telegram entertainment editor Jeremy Brown found CFRB was the best source of information, as the station “answered every question that came to my mind, in a relatively dispassionate, full, responsible manner. CFRB’s backup power kicked in with barely a disruption to its signal, and its traffic reporter Eddie Luther quickly surmised from his helicopter that the power outrage wasn’t an isolated incident. Telegram television columnist Bob Blackburn found coverage from the US stronger than that found on local stations—CBC ran a pair of bulletins, while CFTO preferred to scroll information across the bottom of the screen than interrupt regular programming.

In the days that followed the blackout, government officials on both sides of the border wanted to determine who to pin the blame on. Ontario Hydro found their American counterparts tight-lipped about their initial investigations, which led to Ontario Premier John Robarts musing about cutting ties to the American power grid if remaining connected would lead to future problems. Robarts might have wished he had kept his mouth shut when Ontario Hydro admitted during a November 15, 1965 press conference that, ironically, measures it had installed to prevent a mass blackout had initiated the outage. On the bright side, Ontario Hydro chairman W. Ross Strike noted that the incident was a blessing in disguise—“We’ve been alerted that further study is needed so that maximum safety can be developed.” While preventative measures were put in place to prevent another blackout on the same scale, we know based on what happened in the summer of 2003 that they haven’t always worked.

Additional material from the November 10, 1965, November 11, 1965, November 13, 1965, and November 16, 1965 editions of the Globe and Mail; the November 10, 1965 and November 16, 1965 editions of the Toronto Star; and the November 10, 1965 edition of the Telegram.

Every Saturday, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today.