To: teycc@toronto.ca January 20, 2017
I am pleased to support designation of 698 Spadina and I look forward to this entrance building to Harbord Village Heritage Conservation District being incorporated - skillfully - into the structure and life of the proposed students' residence at Sussex and Spadina, in ways that will respect its architectural and cultural contribution to its community.
With regards,
Richard L.
Brunswick Avenue
Toronto ON
Co-founder, Harbord Village Heritage Conservation District Phase 1
Past President, Architectural Conservancy Ontario
______________________________________________________________
To teycc@toronto.ca January 23, 2017
Dear Members of the Toronto and East York Community Council,
I am writing in strong support of the heritage designation of 698 Spadina Avenue, at the corner of Spadina Avenue and Sussex Avenue.
This building is integral to the history and character of the South Annex neighbourhood. It has provided crucial retail space--first as the John James Funston grocery store, and since 1984 as the Ten Editions Bookstore-to our community since 1885. The building is a classic example of South Annex architecture that is well worth preserving, especially the decorative brickwork so typical of this area and its beautiful green space. Ten Editions has become a neighbourhood fixture, and is a needed resource for the South Annex/Harbord Village and University of Toronto communities. Designation of this building will ensure that its design, heritage, and commercial contributions to our community can continue for many years to come.
Please feel free to contact me if you require any addition information or input on this matter.
Best regards,
Melissa D.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Walter C.
Sent: 20 January 2017
To: teycc@toronto.ca
Subject: Agenda Item - 2017.PB20.10 - 698 Spadina
Greetings:
I am writing to support a heritage designation for the building at 698 Spadina Avenue. To allow this building to disappear would be a loss that cannot be rectified.
The history of the building itself is not fully recorded ... We know that it was, first, the establishment of John James Funston, a grocer, and that his family lived above it. This store served the neighbourhood for 75 years. Then it reopened without significant interruption, as far as I can tell, as a coin laundry and subsequently in 1978 as a used book store - now the last in a neighbourhood which supported about a half dozen of them a scant 30 years ago.
The building combines elegance and utility, elegance that is often not well valued in humble structures. One need only look at the building’s proportions and its fenestration to appreciate this ... but looking further there is a good deal of carefully thought out detailing throughout the building’s exterior. Loving detailing, actually; perhaps aspirational. The placement of the entry door is a point of itself - diagonally at the corner. Useful - providing a welcome to customers on both Spadina and Sussex Avenues and uninterrupted floor space inside for the merchant to display his wares. And it is also a genuflection to the corner.
With its good proportions and its well-placed entrance, this building does two things that likely the original builder/architect did not have in mind. It provides a welcome entrance to this part of the Annex, not unlike U of T’s sign projected south from the Graduate Centre welcomes people to the U of T campus to the east, but without ostentatiousness. It is, in effect, the transition from the busyness of Spadina Avenue to the serenity and family orientation of this neighbourhood.
It also tells a story - a story of how people lived and worked in this neighbourhood, before “bigness” overtook it. There are numerous houses here with the relics of first-floor businesses. It was not an uncommon way of life ... then. Resident merchants played important roles in the community, as well as being purveyors of necessary good and services. They were go-to people. They cared for the street, as well as being eyes on it. They provided useful and informal places for neighbourly connection.
Though I did not grow up in this neighbourhood - nor in this country for that matter - I have lived in the Annex almost exclusively since the mid 1980s - mostly in #666 Spadina Avenue. That said, I recall vividly the “corner stores” of my youth in suburban Boston. Many were called - aspirationally I suppose “spas”. They were the convenience stores of their day, but with soda fountains. Many of them had “specialities” - e.g., home-made pickles or home-made toffee, both of which I recall with true fondness. These stores of my youth were owned and run mostly by people who immigrated to the USA as a result of the Armenian genocide, and they seemed to engender friendly, spirited competitiveness. They gave their owners a foothold in a new country, a new community, and gave this young person an insight into history - not just of unbelievable cruelty but also of the determination people call on to survive and thrive despite extreme adversity. What is John James Funston’s story? What are the stories of his children and successors? What are the stories of the other shopkeepers of this part of the Annex? What roles did they play in people’s lives?
What role now is the Ten Editions Bookstore playing?
698 Spadina Avenue has a story, history, endurance. It should not be silenced or “disappeared”.
Walter C.
Spadina Avenue