My childhood memories are deeply entwined with the rapid development of Scarborough after WWII, one of several boroughs comprising the city of Toronto. Our father worked at several Scarborough firms such as The Ford Plant and Frigidaire, while Doris worked at SKF. The following excerpt, taken from Scarborough, Then and Now (1996) expresses the history best.

Scarborough‘s roots date back to the late 1790’s. In 1793 Elizabeth Simcoe, wife of the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, suggested the Township be named Scarborough after the town of the same name in England because it sat high above a waterfront feature of cliffs, resembling those of it’s Yorkshire namesake. In 1796, Scarborough was officially opened up for settlement, and David & Mary Thomson (I attended the high school named after them not far from their original home site) became the first European settlers in 1700. Scarborough became a township in 1850 and by 1900, approximately 3,700 residents called Scarborough home. It progressed as a Borough after 1967 and officially became a City in 1983. Currently, well over half a million people reside in Scarborough.

Through the process of amalgamation, the boroughs of Toronto were officially absorbed and have become part of Toronto proper as of 1997. (My Italics)

When our family resided on Victoria Park and Eglinton Avenue’s in 1957, the Golden Mile Plaza was already three years old. The story of Scarborough and its rapid development after WWII make for interesting reading and the story behind the Golden Mile Plaza is no exception. Taken from Scarborough, Then and Now (1996) the following details its beginning and its recent demise.

Another phenomenon of the 20th century was the shopping centre. The shopping centre or mall, has in many ways replaced the general store as the community’s meeting place – especially for young people. The older sites started out as large outdoor plazas, of which there are still many in Scarborough. The idea was to create a convenient, one-stop shopping and entertainment centre for the growing community of Scarborough residents.

Many of the larger shopping centres had a bank, shoe stores, a supermarket, department store, and a bowling alley. Eglinton Square Shopping Centre, on the south side of Eglinton Avenue east of Victoria Park Avenue, opened on December 3rd, 1953. It claimed parking for 1,500 cars, and by 1957, not one but two Dominion Stores. But it took second place to its cousin across the road, the Golden Mile Shopping Plaza that even boasted a movie theatre.

On April 8, 1954, across from the Eglinton Square, the Golden Mile shopping plaza opened. At the time of its opening, the Golden Mile Plaza was the largest shopping centre in Canada – one eighth of a mile long. It had 35 stores, including two department stores (Fairweather and Walker Sores), and a 40,000 sq ft Loblaws Super-Market said to be “probably the biggest in Canada” and boasted “magic carpet exits”. (When Queen Elizabeth II took a Royal Tour of the Golden Mile Plaza in 1959, she went straight for Loblaws after the formalities were finished because she had never seen a supermarket before – something most people take today for granted.) Besides being the largest plaza in Canada at the time, the Golden Mile was the first shopping centre in Canada to have both a theatre and a bowling alley. Besides the shopping services it provided to Scarborough, the Golden Mile Plaza employed 1,600 people when construction began in 1953.

The Golden Mile Plaza was a big deal for Scarborough residents, at the time. During the three day opening celebration there were good buys, games for children, a fireworks display, music from the 48th Highlanders Pipe Band, and among the prizes to be won was a 1954 Ford Skyliner with a transparent roof. The Golden Mile Plaza has since been demolished, and an enclosed mall housing a Super Centre grocery store, Zellers, and several smaller stores was erected where the Golden Mile Plaza once stood proudly.

The Golden Mile Story

The once rural township of Scarborough began its transformation into a modern city, commercially, with the establishment of the 19th century general stores, eventually moving into the era of the large supermarkets of the 20th century, chain stores, shopping plazas, and finally today’s large indoor shopping malls. Industrially, Scarborough really began developing after the Second World War. Scarborough bought the GECO buildings in September 1948 at the low cost of $360,000. This strip of land stretched east from Warden Avenue to Birchmount Road, and it would become part of an area later known as the “Golden Mile”. It became a Canadian success story.

The story of the General Engineering Company plant, which became known as GECO, began in February 1941 when a contract was signed by CD Howe, the minister of munitions and supply, and the Toronto based GECO Ltd. It authorized the Company to build and run a large munitions plant in Scarborough during the Second World War. It would be used specifically to fill and assemble fuses and igniting devices for large projectiles, such as those used with machine guns, field guns, tanks, and aircraft weapons.

When the war ended in 1945, the plant was immediately closed, decontaminated, desensitized, and released for civilian use and development. Toronto converted some of the buildings to temporary low-cost housing units to accommodate the housing shortage that developed after the war. (I can still hear my mother say, “I’m not living in some old jeeko housing unit!” not understanding what jeeko meant until years later) This temporary relief, however, went on until about 1955 and the area became known as a suburban slum.

In April 1949, Scarborough Council moved from it Birch Cliff residence to the GECO site where it resided until 1973. Other Scarborough services, such as the Library (of which I belonged and remember being taken to it by school bus) and the police, also took up residence in the old GECO buildings for awhile.

However, Scarborough had seen a future in the site and had bought GECO from the Federal Government in 1948 and began to move the tenants out. Reeve Oliver Crockford had a plan to create a "golden mile” of industry.

In addition to the former GECO property, Crockford’s “golden mile” of industry included lands on both sides of Eglinton Avenue from Pharmacy Avenue to Birchmount Road. One of the first manufacturers to set up there was Frigidaire, the maker of large appliances, (Dad worked here during that time as a spray painter) in the factory which later became home to Delco and in 1974, the GM Van plant which provided 2,500 jobs. The plant closed in 1993 and was completely demolished.

There was also the huge SKF factory, which manufactured ball and roller bearings. (Doris worked here after leaving the RCAF and met Gale’s future husband, Bill Pow. She introduced the two of them and they were later married on October 24, 1966) It has since moved closer to Highway 401 due to economic and transportation concerns. In fact, today land adjacent to Highway 401 has replaced the Golden Mile as industrial headquarters because of the great accessibility it provides to places across Ontario, into other provinces and to the United States. Nonetheless, when Scarborough was beginning to develop industrially in the Golden Mile era, it did not take long for every large lot along Eglinton Avenue to be serviced and bought. The Golden Mile, was becoming a reality. The land values of surrounding area – from Danforth Avenue to Lawrence Avenue and eastward to Kennedy Road, were soon “skyrocketing”.

All sorts of industries were setting up in Scarborough, such as the Lily Cup Plant on Danforth Road, and Quality Records on Birchmount Road (Gale worked here for a short time) The year 1950 was an especially prosperous year for Scarborough. Over $20,000,000 in building permits were handed out and fifty-two industrial firms were now located in the former GECO area. Scarborough was leading Canada in industrial expansion.

MEMORIES OF CHRISTMAS

Just as soon as the leaves begin their dramatic colourful change, so do our thoughts turn to Christmas. Well, in the minds of the retailers, anyway. Even before the last bit of Thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin pie disappears, up goes the lights and gaily decorated trees. It's a shame at what we have transformed this most gloriously significant time in the Christian calendar into.

I can recall my own family Christmas celebrations and how they have changed materially over the years. However, my spiritual upbringing is still very strong.

As a child growing up in still rural Scarborough (before the Town Centre, before the Golden Mile even and Ellesmere and Sheppard were still gravel roads) times where simpler and easier to understand. Things that I was taught at home, at Church and at school, are just as valid and important to me today as they were when I was younger. Even more so. "Please and thank you", "excuse me" are phrases one seldom hears. Good manners are always in style.

Everyone had "chores" to do. No one was too young to be coddled or excluded and there was no such thing as "allowance". We shared everything in the way of clothing and shoes, these being passed down to the younger ones. "Take good care of this now", my parents would tell me. There was no such thing as rushing out to the store to buy something just for the sake of buying. Those of us at the age of 16 were turned out to work.

Both my parents were raised on farms and lived very demanding lives. Nothing was given to them but through hard work, caring and sharing attitudes and a strong belief in the Good Lord, they persevered and raised their family the best way they new how. These are the things that I inherited from them. I have never missed or regretted the things that they were unable to provide. Material things to me are just that, things. They are nice to have - but I do not build my life around them. Money! I need it, sure - but it doesn't buy me what I want right now. What I want right now is to have my parents and two sisters back to help celebrate the "good ol' Christmas past". My only regret is that they departed this life before I had a chance to repay them properly.

"Everything in its place and a place for everything" I recall hearing at home. "Never throw anything out" admonished Mr. Hushes at school. "Idle hands are the work of the Devil", Miss Miller tells me in Sunday School class. I still live by those maxims and many more. My life seems constrained to many were but these rules helped to keep order and provide comfort. Our entire lives are centred on rules and regulations from cradle to grave.

A very dear friend of mine once told me "believe in yourself and ignore those who try to undermine you with doubt". The world is a wonderful place and I am trying to live my life the best way I know how. I try to practice that old adage "it's better to give than to receive" everyday. Materially, spiritually, whatever, to whomever, be it family, friend or stranger without any thought of monetary gain or recognition. The reward was being in the action itself.

But what has this to do with " Christmas" you ask. Everything!

My life centred upon two things as a child. Summer holidays and the Santa Clause Parade. By the first of December I was eagerly looking skyward for the first flake while down in the basement found me rummaging around for the Christmas decorations. Mom had her Christmas cake prepared long ago in October and tucked away in her not-so-secret-hidy-hole.

Never concerning myself about the mysterious complexities of the calendar and retail merchandising, I trusted implicitly and without question my parents, policemen, teachers and our Minister, in that order.

So it was always a surprise when Dad would say one Saturday morning about the second week in December "Get yourself bundled up - Santas' coming to town". With a squeal of delight I would be off like a flash to ready myself, while shouting instructions at Mom for hot cocoa

to take. Bundled up meant long underwear, horrible woollen breaches and stockings, my plaid "trapper coat" and Mom's knitted toque, woollen muffler and mitts. Black, metal clasp "goulashes" completed my outfit. With Dad's metal "thermos" and a paper bag of Mom's home made shortbread cookies in hand, we piled into our /47 Chevy, Gale and I in the back, Dad and Mom in the front and off we went.

It was a long way downtown or so I thought. Travelling at 25 mph was top speed but there wasn't the traffic back then to contend with. Besides, we were only going as far as Victoria Park and Queen were we would catch the Queen car down to Yonge. Parking at "Pegasus Gas Station” we boarded the "newstyle" 1939 streetcar, affectionately called the "Red Rocket". Personally, I always looked forward to riding the old "DeWitt" cars, which had more character.

The car was already packed with other parents and their kids all in a festive mood. It wasn't long before someone started singing Gene Autry's all-time Christmas favourite, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Before you knew it, the whole car was humming and singing.

Mom always preferred the end of the parade by Eaton’s where Santa was ceremoniously ushered in amid the shouts and cries of his adoring followers. Upstairs in "Toyland” surrounded by his many Elves and "Pumkinhead" his assistant, Santa sat ensconced upon his throne ready to receive his subjects. What I dreaded the most was that big, black book where every bad deed that was committed was recorded and tallied at the end of the year "to see who was naughty or nice". For on Christmas morn you either found the present you asked for or a lump of coal!

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD II

The Drive-In Theatre was truly a remarkable North American invention evolving from their love affair for the automobile. Who would have thought of driving miles in your car just to park in a vacant lot to watch a movie shown on a large screen, out of doors? Sounded crazy to some, romantic for others.

I was about nine at the time Dad took us to the “drive-in”. We were living on Victoria Park Avenue across from the Golden Mile Plaza on Eglinton Avenue “Oh boy!” I exclaimed. “Gale! Gale! Dad’s taking us to the drive-in”, I shouted as I ran down the hall to find her. The thrill of staying up late to watch a movie outside appealed to my sense of adventure and wonderment.

Drive-in’s had their own peculiar set of rituals. Since the shows only started at dusk during the summer, one made their way around 8:30 or so to pick a favourite spot. One that was not too close or too far from the screen, the proximity of the concession stand for popcorn and soft drinks and the washrooms. Once the movie started and darkness descended any thoughts of candy and relief meant careful observation and awareness of where the car was parked to get back!

The spot carefully chosen, one next had to mount the “speaker” hanging on a post outside to the inside of the car door window enabling one to “hear” the movie. I wonder how many an embarrassed moviegoer drove off after the show with the speaker still attached!

The only pictures I recall seeing where of my father’s choosing. – Westerns and adventure. The western revolved around the failed search attempt for hidden money in some ghost town (I say failed because at the end of the movie the money, hidden under the boardwalk, is being consumed by fire), and the epic adventure took place somewhere in the Middle East amid the haunting beauty of Roman ruins. I am bound and determined to put names to these movies seen so long ago.

Cartoons always preceded the main feature and where aimed primarily for adults rather than to the children. Violence and sexual overtones have, alas, committed them to the historical vaults of cinematic celluloid.

A passage from Scarborough, Then and Now (1996) reads as follows:

The Scarborough Drive-In Theatre which was located on the east side of Kennedy Road, just south of Lawrence Avenue had a “Gala Opening” on June 19, 1952. It advertised having the biggest screen in Canada, a supervised kiddyland and “double car ramping” to bring you closer to the screen. The opening attraction was “Summer Holiday”, starring Mickey Rooney and Gloria DeHaven.

Drive-Ins were a fairly new concept at the time and were being marketed as the perfect form of family entertainment. Many of Scarborough’s residents through the 1950’s, 60’s and early 70’s enjoyed an evening at the Scarborough Drive-In. In 1963 the Drive-In began offering Sunday shows. However, by the late 1970’s, the changing community and increasing traffic on Kennedy Road made it difficult for the Scarborough Drive-In to continue operating successfully and the facilities were closed. Scarborough later acquired the property and built the Jack Goodlad Park and community centre.