Leaside Today - March 2011

LEASIDE Today SPRING 2011

LeasidERS

rock!

• Splish, Splash

These days hot tub time is family time

• Our best

Garage bands strike a chord with youth

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Contents

Doreen Iannuzzi

Vice President of New Media

EDITORIAL Eric McMillan EDITOR-in-chief

Gordon Cameron MANAGING EDITOR

Kelly Gadzala

Special projects EDITOR

Shadi Raoufi

EDITORIAL ART DIRECTOR

PRODUCTION SERVICES Tony Lomuto Supervisor

Mark Winer Production

Advertising & Sales Don Bettger

Director, GROUP Sales

20

Quite the pair: Mother and daughter volunteer for Evergreen Brick Works FAMILY FUN: Have hot tubs become the modern kitchen table?

Kathy Kerluke

BRICK HOUSE: Leaside home styles are returning to their roots.

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14 29

PUB CRAWL: You don’t go to bed at 8 p.m. and neither does Leaside’s nightlife.

Plus lots more...

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he fifth anniversary of the Town Crier’s Leaside Today has arrived with a bang.

Always on the lookout for ways to improve our publications for readers like you, we have made several exciting changes to both the look and content of Leaside Today.

Not only have we switched to a compact, popular magazine format and added glossier pages, we have also expanded our content to include more pages and additional featurelength articles.

This year, we bring you engaging lifestyle stories about the people you sit beside at church or meet every day in the playground, from hockey moms to the men, women and even children volunteers living in and contributing to our community.

We have also put our finger on some emerging trends in Leaside, exploring the growing family backyard hot tub culture. But trends are not always about the new: as special projects editor Kelly Gadzala learned, Leasiders are opting for red brick exteriors when they construct or restore their homes, a look

that literally built the community 80 years ago.

And, a year after the final phase of the SmartCentre’s development on Laird Drive was completed, we take a look at the expanding consumer landscape and what that may mean for Leaside.

We trust you and yours will enjoy this year’s Leaside Today and welcome your feedback.

Here’s to another five years.

Lori Abittan Publisher

12

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On the cover: Daniel Krukziener, Alec German and Angus Gaffney See story page 4 (photo Francis Crescia)

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2011 LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier

No garage required

shawn star/town crier

BOYS IN THE BAND: Members of Yellow Dog Music’s younger group, clockwise from back left, Graeme Goodman, Jack Erickson, Riley Wolfe, Liam Wolfe and Brendan Roberts are getting a taste of what it’s like to play the music of the great rock musicians like the Beatles.

E

Playing their way

• BY Shawn Star ach member of the band is busy tuning his respective instrument. Two guitars, a bass, the keys, the drums — they’re all there. And when they start playing, you wouldn’t know it was the first time they’ve all played together.

The song they’re playing, appropriately, is “Come Together” by The Beatles. Oh and one more thing: they’re only 12 years old.

Welcome to Yellow Dog Music.

The words “The Garage” are painted on an overhang in the main office of the studio.

It’s here where owner Katrina Anderson, aka Kat from The Dog, says it all started once she gained sole ownership about seven years ago.

“When I took it over I went ‘Okay, so I can do whatever I want here now,’ ” she said, as two other rooms in the small second floor

LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier 2011

business emitted the sounds of piano and guitar lessons. “And the first thing I wanted to do was start a garage band.”

Having been in a garage band with her brother as a child, Anderson says she’s helping kids play the kind of music they want to, which isn’t happening when they play in school bands.

“It takes the right kid to be ready, then the family supporting them, and then the kid has to be able to survive in that band setting,” she said. “They’re the ones who are like ‘I want to put what I know to use, I want to jam, man, I want to be a band.’

“They’re passionate about it.”

And she’s right. At the corner of Bayview and Moore avenues, Yellow Dog has two garage bands going — one made up of pre-

dominantly of 12 year olds, and the other with older kids around 15 and 16.

“I started (playing) two years ago,” said Jack Erickson, the 12 year old keyboard player in the younger garage band. “I started with the piano, then I went on to guitar, and then I started on the flute.”

While giving the ivories a minute to rest, Jack said he sees a distinct advantage of playing in the garage band.

“It’s better than a regular music school because the teachers are a lot more interactive with you and they don’t use regular methods,” he said describing how Yellow Dog allows you to learn songs you want, instead of following notes in a book.

“I think it’s really fun.”

Daniel Krukziener, who plays guitar in

the older group, has been playing classical piano since a very young age and has expanded his instrumental repertoire to include bass and drums.

Though he could start a one-man-band, he says the yet-to-be-named group of four at Yellow Dog is a much better fit.

“I’m comfortable in this band, I feel like they’re my brothers, like family,” Daniel said of his band mates. “It’s pretty cool, we had ups and downs at first, like any band, trying to figure out each others’ music base.

But right now we have four members and everyone gets along really well.”

He says the band plays a punk rock style, drawing inspiration from bands like Green Day and even The Doors. But one thing Daniel says really benefits the group is their collective knowledge of instruments.

“It’s the cool thing about the band — everybody knows how to play each others’ instruments,” he said, confessing that only two “know how to play drums properly.”

Daniel acknowledges that becoming an overnight success is a difficult task, “except if your name is Justin Bieber,” he jokes.

All kidding aside, Daniel takes the music seriously, even outlining a difference between garage rock and a garage band.

“Garage rock is more getting together for fun as friends and seeing what comes out of it,” he says. “Garage band is with serious

legitimate ideas, getting together saying this is what we want to do, this is what we want to achieve, and this is how we’re going to do it.”

While the band is still putting together enough original material for a show, Daniel says ideally, he’d like to make a career of it.

“If we can make money through the band, that would be the ultimate dream — somehow get discovered and get on stage,” he said.

While fame and fortune are in the back of Daniel’s mind, for Anderson the idea of a garage band is more straightforward. “(A garage band) is a bunch of people getting together in the neighbourhood, gathering somewhere and playing whether it’s going to be a profession or they’re going to gig,” she said. “(I) try to stay true to that …

I’d like to keep the band in that authentic way, just get together, and jam.”

Though there are the two garage bands at Yellow Dog, Anderson says she’d like to add a third — a girls’ band. But for now she says she’s happy with the bands she has.

“I don’t know of anyone else that’s doing what we’re doing here, and I kind of like it that way,” she said, adding a simple bit of advice for getting a band going. “Get in the garage, pick up a real guitar — not Guitar Hero.”

francis crescia/town crier

REAL GUITAR HERO: Daniel Krukziener, who plays in Yellow Dog’s older band, hopes to make a career out of music using the skills he’s learning.

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• BY Kelly Gadzala en are doing it. Women too. Several times a week, even. And it’s all happening in Leaside — outdoors, too.

Don’t worry, we haven’t taken to spying on people in their backyards — but we have asked Leasiders to share their experiences about what seems to be a growing backyard lifestyle trend in the area: hot tubbing.

“At least half our sales are in Leaside proper,” says Jennifer Gannon, proprietor of BonaVista LeisureScapes on Eglinton Avenue East near Laird Drive.

Gannon guesses that one in 10 houses in Leaside have a backyard hot tub.

Why hot tubs are so, well, hot in Leaside isn’t perhaps as interesting a question as how Leasiders are using them — though increasing the property

value of an already valuable home is one reason Gannon offers for people putting tubs in.

Logistically too, a hot tub can accommodate the range of lot sizes, whether large or tiny, long or thin, garage or no garage.

“It seems people in Leaside want to make the most of their space as their homes merit that kind of attention both inside and out,” Gannon says.

But hot tubs could be a symbol of a demographic shift that’s been happening in Leaside for a number of years. As new, young families move in, they transform the interior and exterior of their homes in ways that suit their lifestyles.

As Gannon puts it, the general demographic using hot tubs is active,

healthy families.

“They’re playing hard but they’re relaxing hard,” she says.

“It’s for people who live large.

“The old fuddy duddy Leaside is being replaced.”

A prime example of that shift could be Andy Hamblin and his family.

The Sutherland Drive and Millwood Road area clan has had a hot tub tucked behind the garage off the deck for three years.

Hamblin plays hockey in the summer and winter and uses the tub year-round

“They’re playing hard, but they’re relaxing hard.”

Continued Page 8

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Cont. from Page 7

for muscle relief.

“It’s great to go in after a game and relax,” Hamblin says.

But the hot tub isn’t used just for therapeutic reasons. The whole family goes in, he says — he and his wife have two young children — and the kids splash around. The tub is safe, he adds, and can be easily locked.

The social benefits extend beyond his immediate family. On Christmas Eve they have this tradition, he says, where every one rolls in the snow and then jumps in hot tub.

“We get about a dozen people in there,” he says.

It’s common, too, to grab the bathing suits and take a dip after a dinner party with friends.

“We’ve had some of the most hilarious nights,” he says.

“It turns into the social epicenter of the backyard.”

That epicenter occasionally flexes beyond the confines of the backyard. There are four hot tubs on his block alone, Hamblin says — and yes, hot tub hops have been known to happen in the summer, with a dozen or so adults running down the street, drinks in hand.

He’ll even go in when it’s minus 20 degrees outside, he says. Simply put, a hot tub gets him outside when he normally wouldn’t be.

“It can be as relaxing or entertaining as you want it.”

Indeed, hot tub culture has changed over the years: in the 1980s it was all about sex; in the 1990s it was about family; now it’s about health and wellness, says Gannon.

People young and old are using them for stress management, to relax muscles and perhaps even as a sleep aid, she says. She sells bath salts with lavender, which her female customers gravitate towards, while men seem to prefer eucalyptus for muscle relief.

“It’s so cleaned up,” she says of the negative hot tub stigma.

So much so, in fact, that Gannon says several parents have told her that they’re actually scheduling family time in the hot tub as they say it’s one of the easiest way to relate to kids when the whole family is shoulderto-shoulder and the kids are completely unplugged.

“We call it the modern day dinner table,” Gannon says.

Andy Dennis, who lives with his wife and young son on Sutherland Drive, uses his hot tub with his family often — up to four or five times a week with his wife in the winter, he says, and with his son in the warmer months.

A year-round indoor beach volleyball player, Dennis says soaking in the tub helps ease sore muscles and aches and pains — in fact he says if he doesn’t soak in the tub he feels sore the next day.

When they first got the hot tub they went through a honeymoon phase,

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Francis crescia/town crier

FUN, FUN, FUN: Mom Ana Thomas and daughter Karina laugh along while Isabella plays with neighbour Hugh Tuckwell in the Thomas’ hot tub.

CHILLIN’: Isabella and her brother Christian relax by the tub’s jets.

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he says, when they would invite people over all the time to hot tub.

Now, it’s definitely more of a family thing. In the summer months he and his wife turn the heat down so their five year old son can use it like a pool, and after he goes to bed they dial up the heat and go in as a couple, Dennis says.

“It’s a good time to wind down and get caught up.”

Broadway Avenue resident Ana Thomas would tend to agree.

Thomas says she and her husband and children ages 5, 10 and 12 use the hot tub together regularly.

“On Fridays, it’s kind of like our family day,” she says.

“The whole family goes in the hot tub.”

The kids chat about their week and the whole family catches up, she says.

“It brings us together in a fun way,” she says.

“It’s not like sitting at the table.”

As to whether or not the trend towards hot tubs in Leaside is heating up, from what we’ve heard, families hear about and experience hot tubs from their neighbours and then — quite literally — they take the plunge and get their own.

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Joys of Leaside Wildcat parents hit the road to support their kids’ ice dreams

I

• BY Tristan Carter

tristan carter/town crier

SHE SHOOTS, SHE SCORES! Hockey moms like Wendy Reid, left and Anne-Marie Opara, right, spend countless hours in the rink so their daughters Olivia Reid and Holly Opara can play the game they love.

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t’s Friday night and a group of parents stand chatting in a hallway of Rinx on Orfus Road. They’re watching their daughters through glass as their coach runs them through a variety of hockey drills.

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LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier 2011

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being a hockey mom early mornings and late evenings, with children and hockey bags in tow. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our games are all over,â&#x20AC;? said parent Wendy Reid. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We go to Kingston, Brockville, Belleville, Coburg.

With two practices and two games every week, few of which are actually held in Leaside, a family can easily spend 12 hours at the rink or en route, sometimes waking up as early as 4:30 a.m. To make things more manageable, the ladies often share the hockey duties with their husbands. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have three children so we have to divide and conquer,â&#x20AC;? said Reid.

Still, the commitment has benefits for both the players and the parents. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quite social,â&#x20AC;? said Anne-Marie Opara. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The families are great and we all support our children and have a lot of fun with them.â&#x20AC;?

To Opara, giving up a few hours of

sleep is a small price to pay to see her daughter Holly play hockey. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t look at it as a sacrifice,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I look at it as giving to my children and helping them develop.â&#x20AC;?

The kids have to give up their time as well in order to play, which leaves them with less time for schoolwork.

However, neither mom is concerned that hockey will hurt their girlsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; grades. In fact, they both believe the tight schedule helps study habits. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think when the children are involved in sport they become very disciplined because they know they have these commitments,â&#x20AC;? Opara said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s one of the positive aspects of being involved in a sport. It does help, certainly, to set your priorities.â&#x20AC;?

Neither Opara nor Reid, who played hockey herself in Leaside as a kid, are worried for their daughtersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; safety in the rockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;em sockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;em game

that made the likes of Don Cherry famous. â&#x20AC;&#x153;(Olivia) can handle herself out there,â&#x20AC;? Reid said about her daughter. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t worry too much about her.â&#x20AC;?

While both moms say theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen incidents of overzealous parents yelling at the refs and trying to interfere with the game, this pair leaves the coaching to the coaches.

That doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help their daughters prepare for games as only a mother can. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We feed them well,â&#x20AC;?

Opara said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We make sure theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re rested. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Those are the things that we can do to help improve their game.â&#x20AC;?

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LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier 2011

inda Ramoutsakis is two weeks away from moving into her new home on Rykert Crescent. Posing in front of the half stone, half brick rebuild, the young woman smiles up at her new red brick home.

“I was fixated on that,” Ramoutsakis says of the new look of the home she’s lived in for the last few years.

“I love the traditional Leaside look.”

Ramoutsakis isn’t alone. Whether people are building or buying, they’re going back to the red brick look that Leaside was literally built on.

Longtime Leasider Patty Rulli of Rulli Contracting, Ramoutsakis’s builder and next-door neighbour, builds at least two homes a year in the area — always in red brick, she says.

“Brick is solid and lasts forever,” Rulli says.

However, it wasn’t always so. In the 1980s the Tudor style was big, she says, and after that it was stone and stucco. But today the red brick look reigns, she says.

About 80 percent of the builds or renovations Wiltshire Development Group’s Tony Kedzo does in Leaside are done in a traditional red brick exterior, he says.

“I can’t think of any one doing stucco” Brick is just better than stucco, he says. It’ll cost you about 60 percent more than stucco but the benefits include better heat retention and longevity, he says.

Red bricks will command a higher selling price, upwards of $2 million, says Claire-Ann Rose, sales representative at Chesnut Park Real Estate specializing in Leaside.

“That look is a big draw for people,” says Rose. “People who are buying and renovating are doing all in their power to preserve the traditional look.”

Rose credits former city councilor Jane Pitfield, who rallied for the red brick cause, with convincing builders to preserve the distinctive Leaside style.

Rose says some locals plead with her to make sure new home buyers in the neighbourhood retain that traditional look — something which she adds is beyond her control.

Bosley Real Estate broker Patrick Rocca, who specializes in Leaside, says there’s a strict yet unwritten code of construction in Leaside when it comes to the look of a house, and that people in the commu-

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nity get involved and do their best to ensure a reno or rebuild conforms with the look of the neighbourhood.

“You see more of a mash in other areas,” says Rocca. And while you may see a few oddballs in the area, they won’t sell well, he says.

By way of example, he mentions a blue home in the area and the home that sold next to it for a lower price than expected.

“People talk about it.”

Following the red brick road can be a rocky ride in another respect.

Longtime Leasider Sheree Cerqua, also an agent with Royal LePage in Leaside, suggests there can be hack brick jobs and superior brick jobs.

The problem with bricks that are 80 to 100 years old, she says, is that it’s difficult to get new bricks to match the colour exactly — and the cost is too exorbitant to clean the old ones.

When Cerqua put a back extension on her red brick home, she hired a brick tinter recommended by Belvedere Home Improvements in Leaside who hand painted the new bricks to exactly match the hue of the old.

“I was blown away,” she says of the final result.

People who live in Leaside are very community-oriented, she says.

“They are definitely house proud and want to maintain consistency in the neighbourhood.”

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2011 LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier

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A road reborn

Laird’s new vibe Ex-industrial strip has reinvented itself as a commercial haven • BY Joshua Freeman joshua freeman/town crier

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hough it might seem funny to move a business named after the street where it’s located, the choice was a no-brainer for Davenport Kitchens owner Jeff Jackson.

“It just got to the point where the rent has gotten sky high all around the Yorkville area,” says Jackson. “We just figured it was time for a move.”

After looking all over the city, he found the perfect spot to relocate, a place that offers 90 square metres more space for less rent: A little stub of Parkhurst Avenue, just east of Laird Drive.

If one looks around the lot, it might seem like an odd spot for a luxury kitchen business. Surrounded on one side by an empty field, the store stares at an old auto body shop across the street.

But set to move in this spring, Jackson is just one of the business owners who have cottoned on to the changing shape of Laird Drive.

Once a bustling industrial zone, the area languished for a number of years as industry relocated and the strip struggled to find a new identity. But recently things have changed.

“The street’s really just sort of blossoming,” Jackson says, noting the move makes sense for him because his business is boom-

joshua freeman/town crier

OLD STYLE: Laird Drive still has many of the businesses that made it a destination.

ing in Leaside anyway. “All the banks seem to be moving into the area, the major retailers as well,” he says, pointing to the new TD Bank nearby, recently opened in a revamped heritage building.

And if one looks just past the empty field next to Jackson’s lot, the most visible sign of change touches the horizon with its pink stucco skin.

A decade in the works and completed just last year, most people in the area say the new Smart Centre has been a game changer for the street.

“The whole thing is intended to make Laird a more attractive roadway, make it more pedestrian friendly,” says councillor John Parker, who was heavily involved in fitting the project to the community. “Laird has been allowed to descend into the status of a back alley over the past generation or so.”

If the plan is to bring people to Laird, it seems to be working so far.

“We could have leased that centre many times over because it’s such a popular centre from a tenant perspective,” says Sandra Continued Page 16

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INCREASED TRAFFIC has helped some businesses along Laird Drive.

Cont. from Page 15

Kaiser, vice president of corporate affairs for Smart Centres, herself a Leaside resident.

Kaiser says with an attractive mix of retailers, such as Sobeys, Best Buy, Home Depot and Sport Check, area residents have made the place their own.

“Sometimes I’ll go to the centre in the morning and there’ll be 50 people on bicycles all hanging out at the Starbucks as a meeting place before they take off,” she says. “It’s also one stop neighbourhood shopping for people. People can go and get pretty well a wide range of goods they’d buy on a weekly basis at that centre.”

Kaiser points out the complex serves the local community rather than as a destination shopping spot for the rest of the city. She’s also quick to add that despite its convenience, the new complex is not trying to sup-

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NEW LOOK: Big retail has given Laird Drive a renewed purpose.

plant the Bayview shopping strip just to the west.

“The stores on Laird are a totally different type of store from those on Bayview,” says Kaiser. “I shop on both. I’ll park my car and do one side of Bayview and then the other. I’ll do a lot of shopping because it’s boutique shopping. But then I’ll go to Laird and I might go do my grocery shopping at Sobeys.”

Even where there are similar types of stores on both Laird and Bayview, the new shopping centre hasn’t necessarily won that battle.

“It just hurt us when they first opened up and now we’re good,” says a manger at a Bayview shop who didn’t want to be named as the owner was away. “I guess everybody just went there to check things out. It was only for like a week or two.”

But so far on Laird, it seems a sort of symbiosis has taken effect MORE Page 32

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www.crestwood.on.ca 2011 LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier

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Faith and fun

Leaside lives

Mike McCreary

francis crescia/town crier

• BY Kelly Gadzala

I

t’s funny how volunteerism and humility seem to go hand-in-hand.

Take Mike McCreary. The Donegall Drive resident has been actively involved in his local church for a decade, sitting on board of management as chairman of the board at Leaside Presbyterian Church before becoming a church elder.

But McCreary says what he does pales in comparison to what some of the other church volunteers and members do, namely the ladies who organize fundraisers and community lunches.

“The church’s ministers really do the heavy lifting on a day-to-day and spiritual basis,” McCreary says.

The lofty way of describing what he does as an elder, he says, is attend to spiritual needs of congregation.

But his favourite duty is manning the BBQ at the church’s annual “Get back to Church” event in September.

“It’s an upbeat, youthful church with a lot of energy,” he says.

A labour lawyer at Watson Jacobs McCreary LLP in Toronto, McCreary is also involved as a volunteer with the two sports teams his daughters, ages 12 and 15, play on.

He coaches and sponsors his eldest daughter’s hockey team in the Toronto Leaside Girls’ Hockey Association. Being a sponsor, he jokes, gave him naming rights for the team, which is called the Jets after his hometown team in Winnipeg.

“It’s a great league.”

He’s also coached his youngest daughter’s softball league for the last five years. Girls, he says, seem to have better hand-eye coordination than boys and listen better too.

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“In my generation girls didn’t play softball.”

His volunteerism, he says, is for selfish reasons. When he drives the girls back from games, they don’t discuss the world order or anything, he says — they just talk.

“It gives me an increased connection with my kids.”

Still, people have an obligation to do something in the community, he says, and Leaside is very active in that regard.

“I don’t think I’m unique in spending time volunteering.

“That parental involvement in the community is what sets Leaside apart.”

McCreary also participates in the annual “Men with Brooms” curling event in Leaside that raises funds for Bessborough School.

“We’re all terrible at it,” he says.

“I’m just one of the bad curlers.”

Howard Birnie

Having a ball francis crescia/town crier

• BY Brian Baker

H

e’s the gentleman of Leaside baseball.

Howard Birnie, an active volunteer in the association since 1964, still loves the game no matter what curveballs are thrown at him.

Originally a player for the since-folded Western City Senior League at Christie Pits, Birnie then coached at Pape Playground before moving on to Bayview and Eglinton looking for something more competitive.

“I came to Leaside because it was the best league in the city and run as baseball league whereas the Playground was run at the time by the city as part of their recreation program,” he said.

Not pleased with the way things were run, he picked up the coaching reins on Leaside’s junior nine and had instant success.

For three years in a row, 1964-66, Leaside’s juniors were Toronto’s hot team, winning the right to play in a tournament south

of the border in Pennsylvania.

In 1971, Birnie and his squad won the provincial championship.

“From a coaching standpoint those were kind of the highlight years,” he said. “Then I coached one more year and became president.”

Still, even after his departure as bench boss, the league has had ample success, including back-to-back senior champs these past two seasons.

“I’m proud of the reputation we have in the province and beyond the province,” he said.

That reputation has come from the hard work of volunteers like Birnie, who will be found tending to Howard Talbot Park when the snow piles and salt stains on the roads disappear.

“It’s a unique park and it’s got a lot of character,” he said. “People always remember it.”

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The first diamond, closest to Leaside High School, was built in 1946. Three or four years later the bigger lot would be carved into the geographic divot at Bayview and Eglinton.

Though he’s been involved in the midtown baseball organization for 47 years, Birnie notices the volunteer base is petering out.

“The overall role has grown because the number of volunteers in general has shrunk, for whatever reason,” he said. “It just seems not as many people have the time or inclination to volunteer.”

And it doesn’t take much time to help sports fans stay active.

“These are all kids you want to keep off the streets and keep busy,” Birnie said. “All organizations like ours need help even if it is one night a week. It’s just some of us there are getting a little old, and we’re not going to be there forever.”

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FACE TIME: Mona Dhanjal and her six year old daughter Emily volunteer together at the Evergreen Brick works.

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Dynamic duo • BY Kelly Gadzala

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t’s a frigid Saturday morning in January at the Evergreen Brick Works and Mona Dhanjal is face painting and teaching young kids how to make beads out of used newspaper and holiday gift wrap.

She’s busy.

Today the kids seem more interested in the face painting. But moments later Dhanjal’s six year old daughter, Emily, shows off a necklace she’s made of paper beads and starts working on a new project with a wee friend at the small craft table nearby.

Emily’s face is already painted to look like a cute puppy dog.

When she poses with her mom for the camera, she sings out the word “Evergreen” again and again, flashing a huge toothy grin in the process.

The little girl’s enthusiasm is infectious in this indoor winter market.

As far as Dhanjal can tell, they’re the only mother-daughter volunteer duo at the Evergreen Brick Works.

Dhanjal started donating her time to the environmental community and urban sustainability centre located in the Don River Valley as she says she was looking specifically for a volunteer opportunity she could do with Emily.

“I wanted to expose her to community service,” Dhanjal says.

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Cont. from Page 21

Involved with the Evergreen Brick Works for about two and a half years, the Leacrest Road resident teaches kids eco crafts every few weeks at the Saturday market. She also helps with the centreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Nature Nut Club, which connects kids with nature by touring the site.

Volunteering has been good for her daughter, Dhanjal says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It means something to her. â&#x20AC;&#x153;She feels that sense of pride â&#x20AC;Ś and has developed that sense of empathy.â&#x20AC;?

Granted, the early Saturday mornings are tough. Though Dhanjal jokes she could practically throw herself into the Don Valley from where she lives, accessibility can be a challenge for those who, like her, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t drive. But she and Emily use the free Evergreen Brick Works shuttle bus near Broadview subway station, and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re waiting for it on the Saturdays they volunteer by 8 a.m.

Dhanjal is a huge booster for the project. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I tell every one about (it),â&#x20AC;? she says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s definitely a family-oriented site.â&#x20AC;?

When sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not working at Emilyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s school, Rolph Road Elementary, Dhanjal is putting the final touches on a program sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been developing for two years called the Peace Chain Project, a sustainable living project she hopes to soon roll out to local schools and libraries. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is so much information that is missed,â&#x20AC;? she says of green programming in schools, adding that we underestimate what kids can handle.

Still, we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to overwhelm or burden them with realities, she says, so her approach is about using gentle persuasion through play and activities. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You have to keep in mind theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re new souls.â&#x20AC;?

â&#x20AC;&#x153;(Volunteering) means something to her.â&#x20AC;?

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• BY Kelly Gadzala

I

f there were such a thing as a poster girl for community involvement in Leaside, Dorothy Robertson would be a prime candidate.

A Leasider for over 25 years, the Hanna Road resident is so involved in her community it will make your head spin: she’s volunteered as a local Guider for over 20 years, has served as treasurer for the Leaside Lawn Bowling Club for two years, and volunteered as a Scout group committee member through the Leaside United Church for the past 10 years.

That’s when she’s not working eight months of the year at her paid job at the Leaside Curling Club.

Volunteering, it seems, is in Robertson’s blood.

“My mother volunteered extensively,” she says.

As a longtime member of the Girl Guides of Canada, Robertson has led various Brownies units over the years and also held several administrative positions at the district and divisional levels. Currently she’s a leader of the 198th Toronto Brownies Leaside unit that meets weekly at the Leaside United Church.

A Brownie and a Ranger growing up, Robertson became involved with Girl Guides as a leader when her eldest daughter wanted to join. She saw both her daughters through Brownies and stayed on after they finished because she says she really believes in Guiding and the empowering message it sends to young girls 24

LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier 2011

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francis crescia/town crier

that’s encapsulated in its motto, “Girl Greatness Starts Here!”

“It’s really evolved over the years trying to make the program more current,” Robertson says of Guiding.

“I like that.”

Working with three other leaders as well as holding the treasurer role for a unit of seven and eight year olds, Robertson says the only reason their numbers are so high is because they have four volunteers to run the group.

“We’re lucky,” she says.“One of the reasons units have to close is lack of leaders.”

Community work, she says, is still important to Guiding. A spring community service day is coming up soon; that’s when the girls will do activities like planting flowers at a retirement home or writing Valentine’s to the vets at Sunnybrook.

And on February 22, World Thinking Day, Guiders around the world raise money for Canadian World Friendship Fund. On that day all the Leaside units will come together for an event.

Though she received an award from the Girl Guides of Canada for her volunteer work, Robertson is humble about her contribution. Simply out, she says she keeps doing it because she enjoys it.

“It makes me feel good that the girls like the program.”

“It makes me feel good that girls like the program.”

2011 LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier

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Barb Warren

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s far as Barb Warren is concerned, building homes for lowincome families means so much more than mere bricks and mortar.

The longtime North Leaside resident started volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in 2006 as a volunteer coordinator on building sites. Within six months she was a crew leader supervising a team of eight to 10 volunteers during the actual build.

She’s always volunteered, she says, but Habitat for Humanity is her favourite.

“I’ve been so inspired by the way they thought through something so mindfully,” Warren says of the group’s homeownership program, which, among other things allows low-income families to pay for their homes by contributing 500 sweat equity hours to the building of that house.

Even small children in the family can participate, she says, and add to those hours by getting good grades.

Allowing families to essentially pay for their homes in this way raises people to a whole new level of dignity and gets them out of the cycle of poverty, she says.

“I get such a high,” she says of her weekly volunteering around the GTA. “It’s so much better than writing a cheque.”

A retired magazine publisher who left the world of media to stay at home with her young teenage boys seven years ago, Warren says she got involved with Habitat for Humanity a few years into her retirement when her boys were a bit older.

Even though she had no previous construction experience, she

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says she’s always liked mucking around in the garden and such.

“I like getting my hands dirty,” she says. “I guess there’s a bit of guy in me.”

Now working on her sixth site in Toronto, Warren recently signed up for a women’s-only build in South Carolina in May. She’s participated in similar builds before and says they’re a great way to involve women in the cause without intimidating them.

“Construction is by nature a man’s world … (but) every one is welcome here.”

Aside from learning a tonne about construction, Warren has recruited about five or six girlfriends and also staff from her sons’ school to the cause.

“It’s just infectious.”

She’s volunteered intensively before, for her sons’ school and a local church, but Habitat for Humanity is different, she says: aside from the amazing feeling of gratification she gets, she likes that her volunteerism doesn’t directly benefit her or her family, but rather complete strangers.

“There’s something about it that’s pure.”

When she’s not slugging drywall or installing windows, Warren is working on getting a youth mentorship program called Step Up off the ground.

Today’s youth need strong role models and it’s our responsibility to take ownership and mentor them, she says.

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francis crescia/town crier

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LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier 2011

_ _ _ I L L Q \ Q W V W V T Q V M K W U

Leaside after dark

Watering holes

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• BY Kelly Gadzala s there such a thing as Leaside nightlife?

Those living in other parts of the city may think the idea oxymoronic. Leaside, they may say smugly, is a sleepy little place where the sidewalks roll up early and the saloon doors — if any can be found — bang shut at 10 p.m.

Leasiders, of course, likely know better.

Truth is, Leaside is home to a host of pubs, bars and restaurant that appeal to the younger families coming into the area as well as to the older generations. Though by no means exhaustive, here’s a run-down of the some of Leaside’s longstanding and up-and-coming night hotspots:

• Fox & Fiddle

190 Laird Dr. www.foxandfiddle.com

Continued Page 30

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kelly gadzala/town crier

SKY HIGH: Fox & Fiddle owner Param Ratna is looking at possibly opening a roof top patio.

Part of a franchise, the Laird Fox & Fiddle has been around for just over 20 years, with current publican Param Ratna having owned it since 2004. Part pub, part family restaurant serving lunch and dinner and weekend brunch, the place attracts a

range of different customers.

Famous for: If it isn’t yet, it may be famous for it soon: a place with lots of rugby fans, the Laird Drive Fox & Fiddle has successfully negotiated the rights to broadcast the entire 6 Nations Rugby tournament in February and March.

Vibe: Traditional English style pub look with a long wooden bar and dim lighting.

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Cont. from Page 29

Night to go: Tuesday night dart night.

Fixings: Four dart boards; 23 beer on tap; 16 TVs including two big screens; a patio seating 18.

Most memorable moment: For Ratna, when Doug Gilmour, Toronto Maple Leaf great and also a Leasider, came into the pub.

What’s coming up: Ratna is looking into the possibility of putting in a rooftop patio.

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LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier 2011

• Highway 61

• Chick ‘n’ deli

1620 Bayview Ave. www.highway61.ca

For just over 30 years, the place with the huge chicken on the roof has been entertaining area locals with its regular entertainment programming. Older people like the live jazz on Sunday afternoons, while the younger set dance up a storm to live DJ music on the weekends.

Famous for: You guessed it: wings and entertainment.

Vibe: Retro rec room feel with lots of wood, a huge clock at the back with “Chick ‘n’ Deli” printed on top and two large golden chicken wall hangings playing the sax.

Night to go: Tie between Big Band Mondays, when a 20 piece Big Band starts at 7:30 p.m. and customers swing dance all night, and Sundays at 5 p.m. when legendary Robbie Lane and The Disciples play.

Fixings: 16 beer on tap; six TVs, with two extra TVs on the patio in

Opened almost two years ago as family friendly resto that closes between 10 and 11 p.m., Highway 61 serves up smoked ribs the southern barbecue way. The joint is named after the famous Highway 61 running from Thunder Bay all the way down to New Orleans that was traveled by many of the famous blues singers in the past.

Famous for: Barbecue and blues. The smokers open at 6 p.m. nightly and bands play upstairs four nights a week.

Vibe: Once you get past the mouth-watering smoky smell, you’ll find two levels with a real down south look that’s actually clean and contemporary. Real barn board on the walls house retro blues posters from the owner’s personal collection.

Night to go: Fridays, when Dylan Wickens & the Little Naturals start playing at 8 p.m.

Fixings: three TVs but manger

744 Mount Pleasant Rd. www.chickndeli.com

New! Integrated Preschool Programme: We are now accepting enrolment.

the warmer months; small dance floor; outdoor patio seating 60.

What’s coming up: Manager Crystal Lorusso says she’s hoping to start a weekly jazz night.

You may not know: Once a construction worker in the area saw people on the roof, who were, in reality, repainting the chicken. But the worker thought they were trying to steal it.

Life...in the heart of the city.

kelly gadzala/town crier

CHEERS: McSorley’s owners John Anderson, left and Simon Hanlon toast to the success of their establishment.

Matthew Clappison says they’re the biggest on Bayview; 12 Ontario craft drafts, with two rotating microbrewery drafts.

Coming up: Second anniversary bash.

Most unforgettable moment: From Clappison’s perspective, being slammed on opening night and running out of barbecue meat by 7 p.m.

• McSorley’s Saloon & Grill 1544 Bayview Ave. www.mcsorleys.ca Celebrating its 20th anniversary this June, owners Simon Hanlon and John Anderson say the bar/restaurant was inspired by one of the oldest bars in New York state, called McSorley’s Old Ale House, that was frequented by the likes of Abraham Lincoln back in the day.

Vibe: Casual, comfy, colourful and unpretentious family resto and bar in the spirit of small town USA. Grab your peanut bowl at the door, scoop up those unshelled peanuts from the big bucket and then toss your shells on the terrazzo floor.

Night to go: Wednesday nights, from 6-9 p.m., for the weekly magic show. Close second: $20 “Man versus Lobster” event in August.

Fixings: 15 TVs, one pool table; four video games; 19 beer on tap, colourful outdoor patio; and inside, an old outdoor lamp fixture to boot.

What’s new: Czech beer Pilsner Urquell, touted as the best beer in the world, is now on tap.

Most memorable moment: Opening night, when they ran out of beer and glasses and even had to order ice as the ice-maker they had couldn’t keep up with the orders.

• Originals 1660 Bayview Ave. www.originalsbar.com Manger Frank Hill says the biz started as a fine dining establishment called the Playhouse Café in the space currently occupied by Moms to be … and More, moving into its current location a few doors north 26 years ago and morphing into Originals Santa Fe Saloon with a spaghetti western theme before it became what it is today.

Famous for: Supervised kids’ room on the second level.

Vibe: Family resto and bar with three levels a huge central rectangular-shaped bar on the main floor.

Fixings: 15 TVs and 15 beer on tap; two pool tables; a stage; two video games, and patio for 35.

Most memorable moment: For Hill, the disco party event a few years ago where clients donned their best disco outfits and danced to live music by The Travoltas.

You may not know: The big painting of the train and the cowboys hanging over the pool tables is actually drywall, leftover from the spaghetti western days and literally pulled off the wall and framed.

What’s coming up: A new menu and upgraded and expanded wine list.

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More to come Cont. from Page 17

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LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier 2011

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between different sized businesses rather than an eradication of small ones on the strip.

“We’re a destination store, but the drive by on Laird is very, very good for us. It’s great — more driveby kind of helps us,” says Craig Sandy, a managing partner at Rack Attack on Laird, a shop specializing in car racks for sporting equipment.

Though as an area resident he worries about increased traffic on local streets, Sandy is cautiously optimistic that if managed properly, new shopping centres can be a good thing for small business in the area.

And although some residents still might balk at what they see as a sea of parking space in the middle of the centre, almost any business owner in midtown Toronto, Sandy included, cites a lack of parking space as one of his top concerns.

And it seems the need for parking in the area will only increase.

A new shopping centre is planned at the site of the old train yards at 85 Laird Dr. With the old heritage building on site to be incorporated into the complex, Parker says the project will have a village-like feel.

And although Smart Centres might have completed the final phase of the centre at Laird and Wicksteed Avenue, the company still owns a large parcel of undeveloped land adjacent to the site. Kaiser says they have no plans for it at the moment, but they will probably develop it down the line.

That would suit Jackson just fine.

If Smart Centres develops the rest of its land, he says that would put him smack in the centre of the action.

“If you look at what the Smart Centre has done in the area, it’s really changed the landscape,” he says. “We see it as a long-term thing there and we see the area growing and coming into its own.”

The name game

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Or visit us on the web: Francis crescia/town crier file

BAYVIEW AVENUE takes its name from the 50 acre estate of James Stanley McLean know as Bay View.

www.uppercanadachildcare.com m

Our streets • BY Jeanne Hopkins • Bayview Avenue Until 1930, Bayview Avenue was known merely as the Second Concession Road. At that time, it was a country lane leading to Bay View, the country estate of James Stanley McLean (1876–1954), president of Canada Packers from 1927–1952.

The First Concession Road, known now as Yonge Street, had been surveyed and laid out by Governor General John Graves Simcoe and his company of Queen’s Rangers. True to military fashion, Simcoe laid out the north-south and east-west concession roads in York County. All the streets in the Town of York were designed in a square grid-like pattern; thus early Toronto had no curving or winding roads. The Second Concession Road was almost impassable for many years, marked by dense forests and many ravines.

Named for its view of the Toronto Bay, Bay View was built in 1928 on a 50 acre estate near Lawrence Park. The 20 room mansion was designed by young architect Eric Arthur. In 1931, James McLean and his family of three children moved into the house that remained in the McLean family until 1967 when Edith (Flavelle) McLean died. It was then sold to Sunnybrook Medical Centre and was rented out for conferences and social events, the proceeds going to medical research.

• Beth Nealson Drive Beth Nealson Drive, located on the edge of the Leaside Business Park, was named in honour of Beth Nealson, the last mayor of Leaside, serving from 1963 until the town was incorporated into East York in 1967.

Nealson ran for mayor of the new municipality against incumbent East York mayor True Davidson, but was unsuccessful.

Continued Page 34

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416-226-4140 2011 LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier

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Cont. from Page 33

• Hanna Road Like many streets in Leaside, Hanna Road was named for a railway executive. David Blythe Hanna (1858-1938) was born in Thornliebank, Scotland and came to Canada at the age of 24 to work in the audit department of the Grand Trunk Railway. In 1902, he was offered a position with Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann, both railway executives, with their company that included the Grand Trunk, New York West and Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal Companies. The trio supported the model town idea that was built into Leaside.

Hanna was called the railway’s most illustrious executive, earning his nickname when the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway built its line from Saskatoon to Calgary, with Calgary becoming one of the most important divisional points along the line. The town of Hanna, Alberta, named after him, has become an important trading, farming and ranching centre.

In 1918, when the Canadian government bought the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway, Hanna resigned. Four

francis crescia/town crier

HANNA ROAD’s namesake, David Blythe Hanna, reminds residents of the area’s important railroad past.

years later, he was appointed chairman of the LCBO but he retired in 1928 when his health began to fail. He died on Dec.

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LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier 2011

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2011 LEASIDE ToDAY Town Crier

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Claire-Ann Rose

& ASSOCIATES

Helping Your Dreams Blossom

Commitment, professionalism and the highest level of service to my Buyers and Sellers has helped my client base grow dramatically. In order to ensure my clients continue to receive exceptional service, I am pleased to announce…

Mary-Kate Rose has joined me as my Buying Agent, and Leesa Gaspari Edwards as our executive assistant.

Mary-Kate Rose

Mary-Kate is a sharp and contemporary addition to my team in order to better serve my growing clientele and the ‘next generation’ of buyers and sellers. She possesses a special blend of old-fashioned customer service and modern-day technology, we are very excited to have Mary-Kate with Claire-Ann Rose & Associates. marykate@claireannrose.com

Leesa Gaspari Edwards

Leesa has been ‘behind the scenes’ in Real Estate since 1991 and in front of the camera since 1997 with Improvisational Theatre/Comedy, Acting and Performing. We’re delighted to have Leesa as our full-time Client Care Manager and Administrator… whatever you need, she can help. leesa@claireannrose.com

My Recent Sales

Main: 416-925-9191 Direct: 416-925-8427 x 2540 ClaireAnn@ClaireAnnRose.com Chestnut Park Real Estate Limited 1300 Yonge Street, Suite 100 Toronto, ON M4T 1X3

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