Hello from historic Gibson house, one of the City of Toronto’s many fine museums. I just went over to the historic plaque, to see why it was historic. Gibson came here from Scotland in the early 1800s and built this farmhouse. A Jamaican woman and two white women wandered by and were complaining that it cost too much money to go into the museum. They did read the plaque though, and the Jamaican said to her two friends, “This is the kind of history I was telling you about — the immigrant’s history.” Then I heard one of the other woman saying “Immigrants used to have to go through proper channels to get into the country….” I don’t know what happened next, as I was already on my way over to the mall at North York Centre to get a coffee. It’s adjacent to Mel Lastman Square, which is full of all kinds of people and weird landscaping outcroppings. “You’ll never get bored with all the doo-dads and wizzy McWhirly’s in Mel Lastman Square” should be the pitch.
There is a place across the street called “Empress Walk,” and if I recall, it has an impressive escalator. I think this area is one of the more interesting in Toronto. Tiny, single family homes like 50 feet from Yonge and Sheppard station, and massive (and some well done) buildings rising behind old-time Canadian main street stretches of Yonge, which has fattened over the years to a robust Los Angeles caliber.
If you are in the area, we’ll be here for the afternoon. It’s quiet today, so we’d like you to talk to us about Toronto, or North York, or McWhirly. Gibson House is tucked away behind a big parking lot, down a long leafy lane. Behind it rises the most wonderful white 1960s curvy apartment building, like those ones in Brasilia. At any rate, Gibson, says the plaque, was a big supporter of William Lyon MacKenzie and his Rebellion of 1837. So he’s a real Toronto patriot, and even had his house burned by the Governor General at the time, and deserves our belated support.
