FishBottle

The corner of Baldwin street and Augusta in Kensington Market during the 1950′s(?) and 2011

I gave the owner of Casa Acoreana (the shop on the corner) a print of the old photo and he was thrilled to see it. “I’ve been meaning to ask people if they have any photos of our store as it may not be here much longer, the way the neighbourhood is changing” The photo is from the archives of The Toronto Telegram newspaper.

Much thanks to Colby Bayne for finding it and bringing it to my attention.

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.

…but still mostly there.
So much stuff still there, but the original purpose is no longer served. There are probably only two to four legible words left.

As I was taking this photo of snow collecting on the newly designed garbage receptacles in Kensington Market I was joined by a passerby who asked “how does it do that?” If I had to guess, he thought that the lip of the can was thinner than the buildup of snow, and he couldn’t understand how that much snow could fit on such a narrow lip. But that’s just a guess. After he asked the question for the third time I walked away. He kept asking it out loud as I walked away. I probably should have asked him what he meant but I just said “I’m not sure”