John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS
"He [Hemingway] came back to Toronto in 1923 and he almost immediately regretted it"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ernest-hemingway-toronto-apartment-1.5091106
I came to Toronto in 1965, and I do know what he meant, even all those years later.
Toronto even at that later date well earned its nicknames of "The Belfast of the North" and "Toronto the Good." I wasn't a hell-raiser like Hemingway, not at all, quite the opposite, but Toronto was emotionally hard.
I came from Chicago, in those days the kind of blustery, cheerful place where strangers sitting near you on the bus might smile and start a conversion. Hemingway came from the affluent, nearby suburb of Oak Park, the same place where architect Frank Lloyd Wright lived.
I'm sorry, but it's just true, Toronto was a very cold, unfriendly place even in 1965, where often people looked down when walking by you on the sidewalk. No one ever talked to you on a bus.
I couldn't just up and leave as Hemingway did, being an early Vietnam war resister, so I stuck it out, but it was hard.
Ultimately, I did well, and I'm very grateful Canada was good to me. I never forget that, but I think it worth commenting on Hemingway's reaction because I do intimately understand it. Toronto, of course, as so many places, certainly including Chicago, has greatly changed. In today’s Chicago, you risk being shot on a bus.
It is interesting, the apartment building Hemingway chose. It much resembles a traditional Chicago apartment building, and I know there were very, very few like that in Toronto. I remember the immigration pamphlet describing Toronto as "a city of houses," and boy, were they right. It was very difficult to find what I considered a traditional, homey apartment. The choice was mainly either rooms in a house or an apartment in sterile new high-rises.
You may be interested in my extensive collection of memorabilia with lots of pictures to compare:
https://chuckmantorontonostalgia.wordpress.com/
https://chuckmanchicagonostalgia.wordpress.com/
________________________
Response to another comment:
Vancouver has its nice spots (I've been there a number of times), but "world class," I just don't think so.
Montreal very much is.
Readers may enjoy this intimate look at what I regard as Canada's premier city:
https://chuckmanmontreal.wordpress.com/
