[yyzer]

just came across this article on the CityPulse website about a shoeshine business in the Arcade building being forced to vacate....whatever are they talking about? (my highlights)...after checking, there is a similar article on the Toronto Sun website, which mentions that the building's 'new owners' will not be renewing leases with their tenants in August, but there is no mention of a redevelopment by the Sun....

Yonge Street Institution Could Soon Stop 'Shining' After Close To 85 Years


Tuesday May 20, 2008
CityNews.ca Staff
Unlike Joe Pesci's legendary Tommy DeVito character from Goodfellas, Matthew Morra has never had any problem going to get his shine box.

His father Nick was the same way, and between the two of them the Yonge Street Arcade Shoeshine Stand at 137 Yonge has been going strong for 82 years.

When Nick Morra started the business back in 1926, customers parked their buggies on the main strip and paid just 10 cents a shine.

Now, Matt's 72 and still running the show, though redevelopment plans could put an end to all that tradition as soon as August.

"They can build 50 stories on this site and it's only 10 stories high now," Morra lamented. "That's progress."

And if things do progress in that fateful direction, seats that held the likes of Sammy Davis Jr., Pierre Trudeau and Paul Anka would all fall by the wayside.

"He (Anka) told us how he wanted them done," Morra recalled. "So we told him that we did it my way."

Longtime customers like John Doig, who called the spot "the best shoe shine in the city," are hoping at worst Morra will be forced to relocate, but the man himself says he may not have it into find another appropriate space.

"There's too much history here to just let it die," Morra sighed. "I like it, it's my life ... right now it is."

 

[jaborandi]

I walked by there on the weekend and there is some signage which may have indicated a renovation. I wasn't really paying too much attention as I was more interested at looking at how the LEDs had been attached to the exterior. I love that building and would hate to see it bite the dust. It certainly needs some help in the concourse area which has looked pretty shabby for some time. Does anyone know if the building is listed for heritage designation?

 

[yyzer]

here's the Sun article...

The Canadian establishment is about to lose its shine as a landlord closes doors on an 82-year-old family business

By MICHELE MANDEL


For 82 years, the captains of commerce, law, politics and show business have come to the Yonge Street Arcade to have their shoes shined in this narrow shop, heavy with the scents of leather and wax.

They used to arrive by horse and buggy, arriving at a grand, skylight-lit Victorian building erected in 1885 to have their wingtips polished and their hats cleaned by a hard-working Italian immigrant named Nick Morra.

Through the Depression they came, for shoeshines at 10 cents a pop, and during World War II, soldiers shipping out used to line up out the door for their turn at a mirrored spit and polish.

Even after the original building was demolished in 1955 and replaced by an ugly modern office tower with shops on its main floor, even after old Nick died and his son Matt took over, the Barons of Bay St. and beyond have continued to visit the Arcade Shoe Shine and Repair at 137 Yonge, heeding the sign that still hangs on the old burgundy wallpaper: "Unpolished shoes are the open fly of footwear."

Since 1926, a Morra has kept Toronto footwear as polished as silver. But not for much longer.

He and his fellow tenants have learned that the building's new owners have decided not to renew their leases. As of August, the business begun by his father so long ago will be no more.

Morra is 73, a stocky man with dancing eyes, black suspenders and a head of grey hair. From 8 a.m., six days a week, he stoops where his father once did, running his brushes and cloths over the city's well tread.

"This whole place is a memory," he says wistfully, looking around the shop lined with a row of six raised red vinyl seats, six pairs of brass footrests and a worn wooden stool that dates back to the very beginning.

His dad was just 16 when he got a job shovelling coal on a ship bound from Naples to New York City. After making his way to Toronto, the Italian community found the uneducated teen a job shining shoes. When his future mother-in-law discovered he had no real way of supporting her daughter, she lent him the $1,500 he needed to buy his own shop in 1926.

"He raised eight of us on this business," his son says proudly.

When he was just 4, Morra remembers his dad taking him to the roof of the grand building to watch King George VI and Queen Elizabeth parade down Yonge St. He remembers working Saturdays at the cash, ringing in 10 cents shines all day, with his dad collecting the nickel tips. But back then, he says, the biggest part of his father's business was cleaning men's fedoras.

In the tiny back room, the old Landis shoe repair machines are squeezed together, but the hat-cleaning equipment is long gone.

"Everybody wore hats in those days," Morra recalls. "He used to wash them in naptha gas and then spin them to shake out all the stuff. Today, you'd have to wear a moonsuit to do that. And," he adds with a laugh, "he used to smoke at the same time. But he died at 86, so go figure."

When the building was demolished, his father opened a second shop up the street at Bloor and then ran both after reopening in the new tower on 137 Yonge, working 10 hours a day, six days a week.

"As his old man used to say, the job is dirty but the money is clean," notes longtime employee Rudy Fisher.

As the years went by, the business changed. When U.S. President John F. Kennedy showed up at his 1961 inauguration without a fedora, men abruptly stopped wearing hats and Morra had no more to clean. So he concentrated on shining and repairing shoes and the man of few words was soon renowned. Country singer Tommy Hunter would trust his ostrich skin cowboy boots to no other and G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate infamy once left his autobiography as a tip.

At the height of his fame, even Pierre Elliott Trudeau wandered in to have his shoes shined. "He was a quiet kind of guy. And short, very short," Morra recalls. "I said 'Is that you?' and to prove it, he sent us this photograph."

Other famous customers included Sammy Davis Jr., who stopped by when he was in town. "He was a nice guy. He would crack a joke all the time and he'd leave a $50 tip."

When Morra's dad died in 1995, the former high school teacher took over the Arcade fulltime. "I didn't want to close it, there's too much history here. And I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty."

A shoeshine now costs $6, and while his father once paid $35 a month in rent, Morra says he has to shell out $2,000. There may be a stigma to the job for some, but he loves the work and the people he meets. "What am I going to do, sit home and watch TV?"

He has sat at the foot of Toronto's powerful, from Bay Street lawyers like Eddie Greenspan to politicians like John Tory. "We have three generations coming in here.

"And now we've got to go."

On this busy weekday, a steady stream of clients climb into the chairs to sit back and enjoy a few minutes of grooming. They fill a book with their names and contact numbers just in case Morra finds a new location with a reasonable rent -- though he's discovering there really is no such thing left in downtown Toronto.

"It's quite disappointing," laments Harold McNamara, a retired businessman. "It's hard to get a good shoeshine any more."

The art of shoe polishing is dying on its feet and, with it, a little piece of Toronto history is about to pass on.

"I know progress has to go on," Morra shrugs, as he sadly casts an eye over decades of memories. "But I grew up here. It's my life."

 

[LowPolygon]

i've never liked that building, partly because it such a sad example of an 'arcade'. of course, its actually not an arcade in the classic sense at all--its just a grim and pokey dump of a small indoor mall.

arcades look like this:

The building that used to be there, the one that was destroyed to build the thing that sits there now, was however a genuine arcade.

 

[Archivist]

Certainly one of the sadder destructions of our city. Imagine what a selling point an indoor arcade would be at that site now. But it's hard to lament the current building, or to be honest, the shoe shining place.

 

[adma]

Wow, a demolition photo I'd never seen before.

In all honesty, I *do* have some feeling for the shabbily homespun old-world-Toronto quality of the retail--definitely pre-PATH. (Another thing to note: the driver's licence bureau moved down the street a month or so ago.)

 

[Tewder]

arcades look like this:

...or this:

 

[ShonTron]

The Lister Block in Hamilton still has an interior arcade, if that building is ever renovated. I have seen other arcades in Cleveland (looks spiffy) and Providence, and they are great. Buffalo has an arcade-like building as well on Main Street across from Shea's, and another arcade courtyard on the south side. There's a few good North American examples left.

There's also the Passport Office in this building. I also got my driver's licence renewed here last year as well.

 

[maestro]

Certainly one of the sadder destructions of our city

yeah, the interiors spaces before the fire is something you just don't see in Toronto today

 

[adma]

There's also the Passport Office in this building. I also got my driver's licence renewed here last year as well.

And as I said, the licence bureau moved down the street a month or so ago. But re the passport office, I'd always recommend that Sarkis photographer: he uses the antique camera so that everyone gets that "classic" appearance.

It may be banal compared to its predecessor or other great arcades, and it may presently be emptying out, but the Yonge St Arcade is still very, uh, Seth-ian in its retail. And that's a plus for those jaded by the heavy-corporate rotating Flintstones backgrounds through the PATH (Starbucks, Shoppers, Laura Secord: lather, rinse, repeat)

 

[jaborandi]

Yonge St Arcade is still very, uh, Seth-ian in its retail. )

When you say Sethian, are you refering to the one who describes himself as a personality energy essence not focused in our reality or someone else?

 

[Hipster Duck]

It may be banal compared to its predecessor or other great arcades, and it may presently be emptying out, but the Yonge St Arcade is still very, uh, Seth-ian in its retail. And that's a plus for those jaded by the heavy-corporate rotating Flintstones backgrounds through the PATH (Starbucks, Shoppers, Laura Secord: lather, rinse, repeat)

I dunno. I always thought that PATH was a bastion of forgettable mid-market non-chain shopping.

It may not be evident under FCP or TD or whatever, but under the Winnipegish York and Adelaide street Are Be Centres, these kinds of stores are out in lurid force.

 

[Urban Shocker]

There used to be a small, charming interior arcade thingy called Gloucester Mews on the east side of Yonge at Gloucester. According to the Canadian Architect Award website it was done by Adamson & Associates in '72. I had my ear pierced there, on the second floor, in 1973. There was also a small arcade on the west side of Yonge, just south of St. Clair ( Tudor style! ) when I arrived here in '70; a dear old queen ran a wonderful antique shop there on the second floor and we used to chat about his netsuke and his autographs of Charles I and Hitler.

 

[jaborandi]

There was also a small arcade on the west side of Yonge, just south of St. Clair ( Tudor style! ) when I arrived here in '70; a dear old queen ran a wonderful antique shop there on the second floor and we used to chat about his netsuke and his autographs of Charles I and Hitler.

Oh yes, with that lovely fountain at the rear. I seem to recall that it was called El Patio, not to be confused with the El Patio club on Yorkville Avenue directly west of the Yorkville Mews.

Wasn't there another arcade a la Lister Block at the South East corner of Bay and Bloor before the Manulife Centre? I recall a 5 or 6 storey commercial building being there and Bay Bloor Radio was located there.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I don't remember that, but then I'm much younger than you.