Every Saturday morning, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today. Front Page of the Globe and Mail from September 9, 1952. On September 8, 1952, four men sawed through the window bars at the Don Jail and crawled over the wall to freedom. The jailbreak of the Boyd Gang—Edwin Alonzo Boyd, Leonard "Tough Lennie" Jackson, Willie "The Clown" Jackson (no relation), and......

Every Saturday morning, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today. Photo of Gordon Sinclair in the Far East (ca. 1930). City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1244, Item 2098. After a long and controversial career, Gordon Sinclair's obituary called him "soft-hearted, irascible, generous, rude, impulsive, sensitive, boorish, colourful, egotistical, irritating, explosive, warm and irreverent all rolled into one." The description was apt. With......