Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Tom’s Place
April 10th, 2011
I sometimes get letters meant for Tom’s Place, the suit place, because our addresses are similar. Exactly the same if you are typo prone. I drop them off, and that’s usually my only interaction with the store; an impromptu mailman for Tom’s place. Someone once knocked on the door and asked to see what suits I had for sale. I suppose that comes with the casual business name, one can think that maybe it is just someone’s house.
Today I was lucky enough to stumble upon the owner giving a talk to a group of students (as you can see, they were not all as appreciative as I was) He talked about the history of his shop, founded in 1958 by Tom, his father. He himself came to Canada ten years later. He gave a few interesting numbers; when the store was opened; the rent was $25 per month, the hydro (electricity) bill was about $3 and a suit cost $3.50 (every suit came with 2 pairs of pants) He was clearly proud to be a member of the Kensington Market community. Apart from being a Market standard, it may still be the only suit shop within a stone’s throw of 3 fish shops.
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The Wall Street Bombing
May 1st, 2007
September 16 1920
A horse-drawn carriage containing 100 pounds of dynamite and 500 pounds of iron slugs exploded killing 38 people and injuring 400. The crime was never solved but widely blamed on anarchists. By the time of this bombing, over 10,000 suspected socialists or anarchists had been arrested in raids conducted by J. Edgar Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation over a period of 2 years.
