More than a century ago had you told an Irish labourer, Jewish peddler, or African-American washerwoman—all residents of “the Ward,” Toronto’s impoverished and squalid downtown immigrant quarter—that one day in the future their discarded soda pop bottles, broken dishes, shoes, furniture, and toys would be considered a “treasure trove” by archaeologists and historians, they surely would have howled with…
Allan Levine
Allan Levine is the author of Toronto: Biography of a City and Seeking the Fabled City: The Canadian Jewish Experience.