…. I was surprised to see that someone had made a short film about …My old street..It was great!!!…. You captured the life of the street very well…
I lived there from the 1950s into the '70s and my family continued to reside there into the '80s…. . I remember a lot of shops and stores that have morphed into other things over the years.
Montrose Ave and the area have changed and not changed at all. Montrose Ave school wasn't there when I went to school--we had to walk to Clinton Ave. school (since torn down and replaced). When I was a kid, Montrose Park before the school was built was a sort of split level park. I can recall the details of what it looked like quite vividly but have no photos of it. Bickford Pk school on Bloor wasn't there when I was a kid. There was actually a grain mill at the northeast corner of the park!! Even the slope of the hills has been reduced….. I remember a lot of shops and stores that have morphed into other things over the years. (There).was one of the first large grocery stores in the city, another grain mill in the laneway a few feet north of College, etc. etc.
Did you know that the section of Crawford just south of Dundas is actually the top of a large bridge? Apparently, the city was too cheap to demolish it when they decided to fill in the river ravine that stretches from L. Ontario all the way up through Trinity/Bellwoods, Montrose Ave. Park, Bickford Park and Christie Pitts that they just chose to bury the lower sections of it. Every so often, someone wants to dig it out and return it to its former glory. Now that would be very cool!!!
The corner stores are still there--in those days we knew the shop keepers. Sam the Record man's first store was on the north side of College between Montrose and Crawford. I used to go there with my cousin who listened to records in the listening booths at the back before making a purchase. So many stories!!! When I was a kid lying in bed at night, I could hear the sound of the streetcars coming around the gradual corner at Grace Street and to this day, it's still a comforting sound to me….
Interestingly enough, for all of us, even though we've gone on to good careers, bigger/better homes, travel, etc. our years on Montrose Ave were the best years of our lives!! My sister would move back in a heartbeat. Perhaps, that accounts for us holding on to our memories of those years on Montrose.
G.T.
Hello, I just got back from taking my children to see "Montrose Avenue" in Nyack, NY as part of the NY Children's International Film Festival.
I wanted share with you how much we loved it. It's very inspiring and very much reminds me of the neighborhood I grew up in Brooklyn.
