Then. Another Old Chinatown scene. Chestnut Street, south of Dundas West, looking north. Looks to be 1964-ish, judging from the car styles. Bore mode on.

Chestnut was not the main Chinatown drag — that was Elizabeth Street's honour — but, being one block to the west, Chestnut served as a sort of rump to Chinatown. There were some rundown stores here interspersed with rundown mid-19th century cottage style houses — little gingerbread trimmed bungalows. Many of the stores were run by old Chinese men — just eking out a living selling supplies to the Chinese community at prices a little less than the Elizabeth Street businesses. Many of the customers were Chinese of the less-well-off sort. It was here where, as a toddler, I learned my repertoire of Chinese cuss words in the "hillbilly" dialect of Cantonese known as Toisanese.

Nowadays we just buy imported soya sauce in a bottle from the supermarket; but in the '50s and '60s (and possibly earlier, but I wasn't around to see it) there was a thriving industry along Hwy 10 — Hurontario Street centreed around what is now the Central Parkway intersection; where soya sauce was made by a group of — again, old — Chinese men for local bottling and consumption. I used to help skim dead flies out of the fermenting soy sauce, while learning Chinese from what I realize now were the lowest sort of people. : ) Hmm. Hmm.


Now. March 2012. Those old homes were cleared away in the early '70s. On the right is social housing and a University of Toronto student residence. Bore mode off. Good day.