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Islington -The way we were Part 2- 1912

Hello, I am Priya Prabhu. “Islington The way we were” are a pair of murals named Part One and Part Two respectively on opposite walls as you can see, Part One is located on the side 4972 Dundas Street West behind you and Part Two is in front of you on the side of 4984 Dundas Street West.

Part Two of this mural is particularly fascinating. Did you know that this mural painted by John Kuna in 2006 is actually based on an early photograph of Islington around 1912?

The most striking of all is the Islington Hotel with its two-story veranda that would have stood on the north side of Dundas. It was originally built as a grocery store in 1829, and was later converted to a hotel in 1873. In 1910 it was owned by Clarence and Emily Nolan. It remained as a fixture in Islington until it was demolished in 1986. What a vast contrast from the shops that stand here today! Let us go back in time for a moment and imagine what it must have been like to stay at the Islington Hotel in those days.

To the east of the hotel is its large drive shed. This shed also had a ballroom of two storeys. A few neighbouring shops are also depicted in this mural. To the west of the hotel is James Pinchin’s grocery store. This store plot was later sold to William Clayton as a butcher shop in 1922. It successfully operated in Islington for three generations of this family.

On the south side of Dundas street, shown on the left of the mural, a team of men are working on the road. Islington was to be developed into a bustling neighbourhood and building good roads connecting to it was inevitable.

Just behind these men we can see what is called a ‘hay ladder’ most likely belonging to a local farmer. These hay ladders were used to transport hay from fields to barns.

This sepia toned mural is rather different from the other colourful murals in the Islington Village neighbourhood. One look at it and we might feel transported back to the 1900s. Now imagine walking on Dundas street at the Cordova or Burnhamthorpe intersection back in those days. What would you be buying? What would you possibly be wearing? How many of the neighbouring families would you have known? One can only imagine.

Tags:   Village of Murals Village of Islington Etobicoke Toronto Ontario Canada Nice As It Gets-Level 1 The Way We Were Part II Priya Prabhu Murals Public Arts Public Arts Toronto Village of Islington Murals ArtworxTO Public Arts Ontario

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The mural depicts an old swimming hole once located at the Willow Dale Farm.

Tags:   Village of Murals Village of Islington Etobicoke Toronto Ontario Canada Elite Club Level 1-Photography for Recreation The Old Swimming Hole

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Aftermath – Hurricane Hazel

Hello, I am Richard Jordan. Hurricane Hazel, which struck Toronto on the evening of Friday, October 15, 1954, was the worst natural disaster in Ontario’s history. Eighty-one people died in the storm with Etobicoke suffering the majority of the deaths, mostly along the Humber River. Thirty-six people died when a subdivision was washed away on Raymore Drive just south of Lawrence Avenue. Seven died in Long Branch and five Etobicoke volunteer firefighters lost their lives while on rescue work near the Old Mill.


The weather forecast that day had called for record rainfall, but the rain received in the Toronto area was almost double the previous record. The real hazard however was flooding. No one expected normally placid rivers to turn into raging torrents, sweeping away everything before them.
In the aftermath of the storm, the militia was activated and some 800 part-time soldiers joined local first responders and community volunteers with rescue efforts. Their sad job mainly consisted of recovering bodies and burning huge mounds of debris that had once been homes and businesses.

Islington got off relatively lightly in the storm. The main damage was to the Dundas Street bridge over Mimico Creek which had its abutments washed out. The second floor of the Etobicoke Fire Department’s Islington station on Dundas Street West was transformed into the township’s make-shift morgue. Bodies were sorted by age and sex so that relatives identifying missing loved ones would be spared the horror of seeing all the many victims.

Recovery efforts also involved helping the over 1800 families that Hurricane Hazel had made homeless. Prior to the storm, there were no restrictions about building on the flood plains adjacent to watercourses. Many homes that weren’t washed away were damaged beyond repair. Church and other religious organizations joined with service clubs and government agencies to provide the necessities of life and then to help the affected people get back on their feet. There was an unprecedented, hugely successful fund-raising effort for victims of the storm.

One lasting aftermath of Hurricane Hazel was the creation of the Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (now the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority) which established flood plain guidelines and flood control structures, and encouraged appropriate upstream land use to curtail flooding. Large storms such as Hurricane Hazel will certainly reoccur, but this level of death and destruction will hopefully be a thing of the past.

Tags:   Village of Murals Village of Islington Toronto Ontario Canada Aftermath, Hurricane Hazel Richard Jordan Murals Public Arts Public Arts Toronto Village of Islington Murals ArtworxTO Public Arts Ontario

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Faith of Our Fathers II

Hello I am Evelyn Clarke. Like the stained-glass windows in Medieval churches, this mural of a Gothic window tells a story, the history of Islington United Church. The window's form unites the different ages of the church, to emphasize the common faith shared by the generations.

The lower portion of the mural shows the beginnings of the church community. At first, there was no building: from about 1818, circuit riders, ministers on horseback, brought religious services to the early settlers. Their visits provided community and common rituals of life; the baby in the woman's arms hints at baptism. By 1843, the settlers were able to build a small wooden chapel for the minister to use. This is the building in the lower left portion of the window. The back room of the Fox and Fiddle on Dundas Street now occupies the site.

Above the early days, the story continues with a photograph of the congregation in 1887. By now, Islington had become a village, rather than a collection of farms. The congregation had increased and in 1885, they were able to afford a permanent minister. The photograph marked the opening of their new redbrick church and manse. This was Islington Methodist Church, which stood just east of the mural.

By the 1930's, a larger church was needed to match the needs of the growing population. Islington had expanded; it was the centre of Etobicoke township, more businesses developed, and it was fast becoming a suburb of Toronto. Construction of the church was delayed by World War ll, but it was finally ready in 1947. In the upper part of the mural, the workers, themselves looking like figures in stained glass, build the scaffolding for the new building and construct the pillars and windows. The image culminates in the tracery of the completed windows.

The first minister of the new church was Rev. Stewart East, who had begun his career as a circuit rider in Saskatchewan. He is the model for the circuit rider in the mural. A very tall man, people said that when he rode, his legs were so long that the horse seemed to have six legs. Check this out in the mural! To mark the dedication of the church in 1947, he rode a horse up the entrance steps, showing the church's links to its origins, just as the lines of the window in the lower part of the mural continue in the lines of the new building above.

Tags:   Village of Murals Village of Islington Etobicoke Toronto Ontario Canada Faith of Our Fathers 2 Evelyn Clarke Murals Public Arts Public Arts Toronto Village of Islington Murals ArtworxTO Public Arts Ontario

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The mural depicts children tobogganing down the hill behind Montgomery's Inn. Artist: John Kuna 2011.

Tags:   Village of Murals Village of Islington Etobicoke Toronto Ontario Canada Tobbogan Hill

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