Perhaps there was something magnetic in the lighting used at the new Dominion supermarket at Bayview and Eglinton. As if possessed by an alien force, residents of Leaside and North Toronto suddenly put on their finest shopping clothes and walked toward the store, in a procession that resembled a zombie walk, minus the fake blood. Drivers who felt the call calmly turned into the freshly paved parking lot.

Every Saturday at noon, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today. Early Dominion presidents Robert Jackson and William J. Pentland. Dominion: Sixty Years of Dependability by Ted Wood (Toronto: Dominion Stores, 1979). Legend has it that the Dominion grocery empire was born [...]

Source: Toronto Blue Jays Scorebook Magazine, Volume 4, Number 11, 1980. Thanks to your friendly neighbourhood Dominion store, budding Blue Jays fans in 1980 could extend their love of their favourite baseball team to the culinary items usually associated with the sport. If the kids couldn’t make it to Exhibition Stadium, they could pretend they [...]

Every Saturday at noon, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today. Holiday shopping at Yorkdale in the 1960s. Illustration by Brian McLachlan/Torontoist. Christmas shopping is upon us, which means it’s time for the claustrophobic to avoid approaching most of Toronto’s shopping malls. [...]