Toronto Lad
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Tennis anyone?
I thought I’d post a thread that covers my love for history, tennis and the green and yellow clubhouses or “shelters” found in public parks all over Ontario.
In the 60’s and 70’s my family played tennis at Moore Park Tennis Club in Toronto, my father served as treasurer there for a number of years and he helped to organize some tournaments. I’ll post some pictures from that time along with some club records, meeting minutes from 1925 onward and information that I hope some of you will find interesting, I’d welcome any comments or pictures from anyone here or any (ex) members.
About the neighbourhood, most of which has been covered somewhere in the 800+ pages of Mustapha’s epic Then and Now thread, I’ll go over it here very briefly.
There’s many a point of interest in Moore Park, to name a few; three hundred meters east of the courts you’ll find the location of the long defunct Beltline Railway and Moore Park Station, the brainchild of James David Edgar.
It’s also the location of the old Heath street bridge (replaced twice I believe) that spanned the Spring Valley ravine over the railway, both of which pre-date the tennis club by some time. To me living on Moore Ave just west of Mt Pleasant in the early 60’s it was the road to the Leaside club at Trace Manes park, the “white elephant” and to Cy Leonard’s hobby shop on Bayview ave.
While any signs of Moore Park Station, the railway and the original Heath Street Bridge are gone, as is the white elephant, there are some pictures in circulation which I’ll post here. First, here’s a pretty descriptive quote about the neighbourhood’s namesake, Mr. John Thomas Moore.
”Moore was instrumental in building the Belt Line Railway, Toronto's first commuter train. He personally oversaw the construction of the Belt Line's showpiece station at Moore Park. Moore leveraged all his money on the Belt Line, predicting it would bring many buyers to his Moore Park subdivision. However, shortly after the Belt Line opened Toronto suffered through a horrible Depression and the Belt Line went bankrupt. This setback postponed the building of homes in Moore Park until the early 1900's. By the 1930's, Moore Park was completely developed”.
About the park itself, a quote from Donna Barker’s “Historic Moore Park” is a good place to start;
On Moorevale Park: “Mrs. Cooper then urgently took up the cause for a community park. She urged that the city buy the remaining land, which was now held by a real estate firm and valued at $65,000. She repeatedly carried the issue to City Council and the subject became a controversial one. Finally, on Monday, January 26, 1925, the purchase was approved by Council, which passed it 23 to 4. The park was opened with a carnival and games, sponsored by the Moore Park Rate Payers Association.”
Let’s start with the obligatory “Then and Now” pictures, or in this case as I don’t have a good “Now” picture, “Then and 1968 in colour” – which hopefully is just as good... if not then please consider it a partial “Then, Later and Now” to be amended next time I’m in the area.
Then Pics; Opening day May 1925
This picture was wide, about 8 inches high but probably 20 inches wide, it was found along with two note books of Meeting Minutes at my parents house after my father passed away. The minutes scanned well but I did a poor job shooting pictures of the single photograph, oh well here’s all I have, this is the centre frame of the full picture. It took 5 frames to capture the full width so if anyone wants to try and stitch it together as one let me know and I’ll send you the other four.
FWIW I remember a conversation with my father about things being thrown away at the club that he thought were important, I assume at that time my father decided to hang on to these items and there they sat for some 40 years until I found them after he passed. I no longer have this picture or the notebooks, when I found the material I returned it to the club which is where I thought it belonged and where hopefully it will go to good use.
Here’s the “shelter” in July 1930 (shared with lawn bowlers on the right side) from the Toronto Archives, as you can see it wasn’t present in this form in May of 1925 on opening day of the club, so it’s less than 5 years old in this picture.
I never knew nor did I ever hear any mention that the clubhouse once had an open porch, but I will say that in it’s original form I think it’s a work of art.
Later Pics; Spring 1968
This is the best picture I have that shows the front of the clubhouse.
By this time the entrances to the washrooms were moved inside behind the walls of the building that now encompass the old porch and locker rooms/showers were built in an addition off the back. Also included inside was a kitchen/snackbar on the north wall (thanks to Ed for the egg salad sandwiches and my to dad for his tab).
Looking at this picture now and thinking about some of the members, the two people on the left of this photo are Mr. and Mrs. Wodzicki (?), I remember my mother telling me they came here after the war and although they always looked like they had been through so much, I can tell you they were the kindest people you’d ever meet.
Here’s another one from the same roll of film, from court #1 looking south west, looks like it’s Saturday morning lessons early in the season and some kid forgot his white shorts... worse still he’s really dropping that racket head, you can be sure he heard about both after the lesson.
One more from the same roll, yes that’s your humble scribe hitting a forehand (racket face far too open and left arm all limp) from Jane O’Hara, who’s giving a Saturday morning lesson to the sons and daughters of the faithful.
I’ll pass along a few memories of the club and post some pictures from my time there and encourage anyone else to do the same.
We moved to Sudan and Mt. Pleasant in 1962, at that point I think my father, who had been playing at Rosedale, decided to switch clubs. A couple years later we moved on to Moore Ave and later up to St. Germain, but until the mid-70’s (with the exception of 1966 when we were in Montreal) we always played at Moore Park. As far back as I can remember my father was playing tennis, he started my brother and I fairly young also, my first tennis racquet was a Dunlop badminton racquet that my father cut down built up a new grip.
Here’s my father and I at Moore Park before the start of his 1964 season, NE of the clubhouse looking north onto Moore Ave, most of those trees are still there...
Moore Park was full of “tennis families” and “tennis people”. The kind of people who spent every sunny weekend between May and October at the club. I remember many working days in the summer my father would take the subway home, diner would be ready and as soon as we were done we’d be off to the club until after dark. We played tennis and went to tournaments while away on summer holidays. As kids we’d pull up at the park and before the car was stopped we’d have already surveyed the parked cars and knew exactly who was there.
As it may still be today, Moore Park was a community of mostly likeminded people who loved tennis and enjoyed playing tennis and hanging out, talking and eating, all while the kids conveniently entertained themselves, sometimes we playing under the old Heath St. bridge or eating raspberries from the bushes on the path out to Heath street. They were people whose children enjoyed lessons and birthdays together, who had dinner at each others house and many became lifetime friends.
Over the years there were some well known people amongst the membership at Moore Park and many others involved in organizing tennis in Canada often frequented the club.
It’s hard to remember them all but people like Mr. Philpot, Mr. Worthington, Dr. Macdonald, Ken Sinclair, Lawrie Strong, John Sharpe, Don Fontana, if could only remember the rest...
The club had some of the best players in Canada at the tournaments, Dale Power, Keith Carpenter, Harry Fauquier, Mike Belkin, Brian Flood, Faye Urban and Jane O’hara (apologies to those I can’t remember, especially the women). The club also hosted a couple of players from the US, Peggy Michel comes to mind, who would go on to win Wimbledon doubles with Evonne Goolagong.
I have plenty of great memories of the place, Mr. Wettlaufer calling me into to a jammed clubhouse to find that, for the first time I could remember someone had carried in a tv set, to watch coverage of the moon landing. Tournaments where you could watch right up close and meet top Canadian players. Mr. Worthington and all the talk about the Telegram / Toronto Sun, Mr. Sniderman talking about the music business on Yonge St., Mr. Elms who owned the Texaco at Yonge and Millwood and who it seemed had a new car every season.
There was Mr Unsworth owner of Furniture Specialty Co (still in business today) who supplied Toronto with Danish style teak furniture in the 1960’s. He also outfitted many Toronto stores, restaurants and businesses with custom furnishings. I spent many late 60’s winter Saturdays in his factory as he graciously allowed my father to drop in and work on his “projects”. He always gave me things to do so I’d be out of everyone's way and sometimes took me to that great greasy spoon in a strip mall on the south east corner of Midland and Lawrence.
There were the practical jokers and the single guys, some of whom were also the ”guys who drank too much”, big Mike and his football buddies out on the lawn, all the members who would get upset with the juniors that constantly used the change room walls as a backdrop (probably because they couldn’t get “seniors privileges”).
Then there’s the only lady I had ever met that smoked cigars, another gentleman who would take 7 or 8 kids at a time for a ride in his convertible Parisienne down the Bayview extension and up to the top of Pottery Rd for ice cream, all the much older people (mostly lawn bowlers) who seemed to have so much patience for the kids... I can even remember talk of a couple mini-scandals within the membership, but being a gentleman I would never elaborate...
I’m indebted to many of these people for so many great memories, and to few of them even more so... that’s you Mrs Hogler and others whose names sadly I cannot remember.
I should also mention that while it really was almost always fun and games, occasionally it wasn’t. I remember being pretty shocked to learn that you don’t need to be an old man to pass away, as the whole place went quiet when we found out Mr. White had died suddenly of a heart attack, and again shortly after that when the same thing happened with Dr. Macdonald. I also remember the tragedy that struck the Hudson family and their relatives, and what happened years later to our friend and neighbour Margie Lawson...
Here’s some more pictures from my time there.
An unused 1970 membership tag, my father was treasurer that year and knowing him this is probably the first unused tag, so my guess is there were probably 327 members that year.
Here’s a poster for the 1970 “Moore Park Invitation” done by one of the members who was a graphic artist and player, Suzanne de Verteuil (I hope I have that spelling correct), I think she did more than one poster but this is the only one I have, it’s been “touched up” so I think it’s the original and was used to make copies?
These two are from that 1970 tournament – Men’s singles, both shots on court #2 looking south east, the first picture is Dale Power vs Lawrie Strong in the second picture.
Again same 1970 tournament, I need help with this one but I think it’s the women’s doubles finals (?). I’m pretty sure that’s Faye Urban in the middle and that the lady in the glasses was a member at Moore Park, but the names escape.
Seated in the bottom left with the dark sunglasses is the club coach Mr. John leziak (again, god I hope I have that spelling right), a tough coach but a gentleman nonetheless. That’s my dad with his back to the camera in his OLTA blazer, I can’t remember the gentleman’s name to my fathers right, who was also present at the 1971 tournament at the finals.
I stand to be corrected on the date but I’m pretty sure these two are from the 1971, the women’s finals of the Moore Park Invitation.
This first one is Toronto’s Jane O'Hara on court #3 in the Women's singles final match against Peggy Michel from the US. Jane was always our favourite Canadian player, a really fluid player and someone we loved to watch.
A side note about the 1971 tournament; it was at the beginning of this tournament that despite him saying I was “too tall and gangly”, my father gave me my big break as ball boy at the net, but this time my tournament would be short lived... As I went onto the court the first time my dad reminded me that, when at the net, it was especially important to stare straight ahead across the net and remain motionless once the player prepared to serve. Which of course I did, so mercifully shortly after that I didn’t see the serve coming that hit me directly in the side of the head and knocked my lights out.
Unfortunately that delayed the game and left my dad shaking his head but I still felt I was making progress having been out there... as I was only out for a few seconds, the powers that be decided we should go out for dinner afterwards with a couple of the players, instead of to the hospital for my concussion, but I think it worked out alright in the end...
With further convincing and numerous promises I was able to convince my father to go out on a limb and get both my younger brother and I plum patronage appointments as Canadian Open ball boys for a few years, both at the Toronto Lawn and at the Cricket Club, in my case without too much merit. We did pretty well as what we really wanted to do was meet the players and see the match from courtside seats and we certainly did that.
This match was a tough one for us because we had always rooted for Jane O’Hara no matter what, but this time it was a bit different, Peggy Michel was also family friend so I didn’t know who to cheer for, if I should be happy or what to say when it was over. Here’s Peggy Michel who defeated Jane O’Hara in that match, I think Jane’s face says it all and I give her a lot of credit because losing with grace is not something everyone can do. Again, I can’t remember the gentleman’s name but hopefully some else will.
To be continued...
I thought I’d post a thread that covers my love for history, tennis and the green and yellow clubhouses or “shelters” found in public parks all over Ontario.
In the 60’s and 70’s my family played tennis at Moore Park Tennis Club in Toronto, my father served as treasurer there for a number of years and he helped to organize some tournaments. I’ll post some pictures from that time along with some club records, meeting minutes from 1925 onward and information that I hope some of you will find interesting, I’d welcome any comments or pictures from anyone here or any (ex) members.
About the neighbourhood, most of which has been covered somewhere in the 800+ pages of Mustapha’s epic Then and Now thread, I’ll go over it here very briefly.
There’s many a point of interest in Moore Park, to name a few; three hundred meters east of the courts you’ll find the location of the long defunct Beltline Railway and Moore Park Station, the brainchild of James David Edgar.
It’s also the location of the old Heath street bridge (replaced twice I believe) that spanned the Spring Valley ravine over the railway, both of which pre-date the tennis club by some time. To me living on Moore Ave just west of Mt Pleasant in the early 60’s it was the road to the Leaside club at Trace Manes park, the “white elephant” and to Cy Leonard’s hobby shop on Bayview ave.
While any signs of Moore Park Station, the railway and the original Heath Street Bridge are gone, as is the white elephant, there are some pictures in circulation which I’ll post here. First, here’s a pretty descriptive quote about the neighbourhood’s namesake, Mr. John Thomas Moore.
”Moore was instrumental in building the Belt Line Railway, Toronto's first commuter train. He personally oversaw the construction of the Belt Line's showpiece station at Moore Park. Moore leveraged all his money on the Belt Line, predicting it would bring many buyers to his Moore Park subdivision. However, shortly after the Belt Line opened Toronto suffered through a horrible Depression and the Belt Line went bankrupt. This setback postponed the building of homes in Moore Park until the early 1900's. By the 1930's, Moore Park was completely developed”.
About the park itself, a quote from Donna Barker’s “Historic Moore Park” is a good place to start;
On Moorevale Park: “Mrs. Cooper then urgently took up the cause for a community park. She urged that the city buy the remaining land, which was now held by a real estate firm and valued at $65,000. She repeatedly carried the issue to City Council and the subject became a controversial one. Finally, on Monday, January 26, 1925, the purchase was approved by Council, which passed it 23 to 4. The park was opened with a carnival and games, sponsored by the Moore Park Rate Payers Association.”
Let’s start with the obligatory “Then and Now” pictures, or in this case as I don’t have a good “Now” picture, “Then and 1968 in colour” – which hopefully is just as good... if not then please consider it a partial “Then, Later and Now” to be amended next time I’m in the area.
Then Pics; Opening day May 1925
This picture was wide, about 8 inches high but probably 20 inches wide, it was found along with two note books of Meeting Minutes at my parents house after my father passed away. The minutes scanned well but I did a poor job shooting pictures of the single photograph, oh well here’s all I have, this is the centre frame of the full picture. It took 5 frames to capture the full width so if anyone wants to try and stitch it together as one let me know and I’ll send you the other four.
FWIW I remember a conversation with my father about things being thrown away at the club that he thought were important, I assume at that time my father decided to hang on to these items and there they sat for some 40 years until I found them after he passed. I no longer have this picture or the notebooks, when I found the material I returned it to the club which is where I thought it belonged and where hopefully it will go to good use.
Here’s the “shelter” in July 1930 (shared with lawn bowlers on the right side) from the Toronto Archives, as you can see it wasn’t present in this form in May of 1925 on opening day of the club, so it’s less than 5 years old in this picture.
I never knew nor did I ever hear any mention that the clubhouse once had an open porch, but I will say that in it’s original form I think it’s a work of art.
Later Pics; Spring 1968
This is the best picture I have that shows the front of the clubhouse.
By this time the entrances to the washrooms were moved inside behind the walls of the building that now encompass the old porch and locker rooms/showers were built in an addition off the back. Also included inside was a kitchen/snackbar on the north wall (thanks to Ed for the egg salad sandwiches and my to dad for his tab).
Looking at this picture now and thinking about some of the members, the two people on the left of this photo are Mr. and Mrs. Wodzicki (?), I remember my mother telling me they came here after the war and although they always looked like they had been through so much, I can tell you they were the kindest people you’d ever meet.
Here’s another one from the same roll of film, from court #1 looking south west, looks like it’s Saturday morning lessons early in the season and some kid forgot his white shorts... worse still he’s really dropping that racket head, you can be sure he heard about both after the lesson.
One more from the same roll, yes that’s your humble scribe hitting a forehand (racket face far too open and left arm all limp) from Jane O’Hara, who’s giving a Saturday morning lesson to the sons and daughters of the faithful.
I’ll pass along a few memories of the club and post some pictures from my time there and encourage anyone else to do the same.
We moved to Sudan and Mt. Pleasant in 1962, at that point I think my father, who had been playing at Rosedale, decided to switch clubs. A couple years later we moved on to Moore Ave and later up to St. Germain, but until the mid-70’s (with the exception of 1966 when we were in Montreal) we always played at Moore Park. As far back as I can remember my father was playing tennis, he started my brother and I fairly young also, my first tennis racquet was a Dunlop badminton racquet that my father cut down built up a new grip.
Here’s my father and I at Moore Park before the start of his 1964 season, NE of the clubhouse looking north onto Moore Ave, most of those trees are still there...
Moore Park was full of “tennis families” and “tennis people”. The kind of people who spent every sunny weekend between May and October at the club. I remember many working days in the summer my father would take the subway home, diner would be ready and as soon as we were done we’d be off to the club until after dark. We played tennis and went to tournaments while away on summer holidays. As kids we’d pull up at the park and before the car was stopped we’d have already surveyed the parked cars and knew exactly who was there.
As it may still be today, Moore Park was a community of mostly likeminded people who loved tennis and enjoyed playing tennis and hanging out, talking and eating, all while the kids conveniently entertained themselves, sometimes we playing under the old Heath St. bridge or eating raspberries from the bushes on the path out to Heath street. They were people whose children enjoyed lessons and birthdays together, who had dinner at each others house and many became lifetime friends.
Over the years there were some well known people amongst the membership at Moore Park and many others involved in organizing tennis in Canada often frequented the club.
It’s hard to remember them all but people like Mr. Philpot, Mr. Worthington, Dr. Macdonald, Ken Sinclair, Lawrie Strong, John Sharpe, Don Fontana, if could only remember the rest...
The club had some of the best players in Canada at the tournaments, Dale Power, Keith Carpenter, Harry Fauquier, Mike Belkin, Brian Flood, Faye Urban and Jane O’hara (apologies to those I can’t remember, especially the women). The club also hosted a couple of players from the US, Peggy Michel comes to mind, who would go on to win Wimbledon doubles with Evonne Goolagong.
I have plenty of great memories of the place, Mr. Wettlaufer calling me into to a jammed clubhouse to find that, for the first time I could remember someone had carried in a tv set, to watch coverage of the moon landing. Tournaments where you could watch right up close and meet top Canadian players. Mr. Worthington and all the talk about the Telegram / Toronto Sun, Mr. Sniderman talking about the music business on Yonge St., Mr. Elms who owned the Texaco at Yonge and Millwood and who it seemed had a new car every season.
There was Mr Unsworth owner of Furniture Specialty Co (still in business today) who supplied Toronto with Danish style teak furniture in the 1960’s. He also outfitted many Toronto stores, restaurants and businesses with custom furnishings. I spent many late 60’s winter Saturdays in his factory as he graciously allowed my father to drop in and work on his “projects”. He always gave me things to do so I’d be out of everyone's way and sometimes took me to that great greasy spoon in a strip mall on the south east corner of Midland and Lawrence.
There were the practical jokers and the single guys, some of whom were also the ”guys who drank too much”, big Mike and his football buddies out on the lawn, all the members who would get upset with the juniors that constantly used the change room walls as a backdrop (probably because they couldn’t get “seniors privileges”).
Then there’s the only lady I had ever met that smoked cigars, another gentleman who would take 7 or 8 kids at a time for a ride in his convertible Parisienne down the Bayview extension and up to the top of Pottery Rd for ice cream, all the much older people (mostly lawn bowlers) who seemed to have so much patience for the kids... I can even remember talk of a couple mini-scandals within the membership, but being a gentleman I would never elaborate...
I’m indebted to many of these people for so many great memories, and to few of them even more so... that’s you Mrs Hogler and others whose names sadly I cannot remember.
I should also mention that while it really was almost always fun and games, occasionally it wasn’t. I remember being pretty shocked to learn that you don’t need to be an old man to pass away, as the whole place went quiet when we found out Mr. White had died suddenly of a heart attack, and again shortly after that when the same thing happened with Dr. Macdonald. I also remember the tragedy that struck the Hudson family and their relatives, and what happened years later to our friend and neighbour Margie Lawson...
Here’s some more pictures from my time there.
An unused 1970 membership tag, my father was treasurer that year and knowing him this is probably the first unused tag, so my guess is there were probably 327 members that year.
Here’s a poster for the 1970 “Moore Park Invitation” done by one of the members who was a graphic artist and player, Suzanne de Verteuil (I hope I have that spelling correct), I think she did more than one poster but this is the only one I have, it’s been “touched up” so I think it’s the original and was used to make copies?
These two are from that 1970 tournament – Men’s singles, both shots on court #2 looking south east, the first picture is Dale Power vs Lawrie Strong in the second picture.
Again same 1970 tournament, I need help with this one but I think it’s the women’s doubles finals (?). I’m pretty sure that’s Faye Urban in the middle and that the lady in the glasses was a member at Moore Park, but the names escape.
Seated in the bottom left with the dark sunglasses is the club coach Mr. John leziak (again, god I hope I have that spelling right), a tough coach but a gentleman nonetheless. That’s my dad with his back to the camera in his OLTA blazer, I can’t remember the gentleman’s name to my fathers right, who was also present at the 1971 tournament at the finals.
I stand to be corrected on the date but I’m pretty sure these two are from the 1971, the women’s finals of the Moore Park Invitation.
This first one is Toronto’s Jane O'Hara on court #3 in the Women's singles final match against Peggy Michel from the US. Jane was always our favourite Canadian player, a really fluid player and someone we loved to watch.
A side note about the 1971 tournament; it was at the beginning of this tournament that despite him saying I was “too tall and gangly”, my father gave me my big break as ball boy at the net, but this time my tournament would be short lived... As I went onto the court the first time my dad reminded me that, when at the net, it was especially important to stare straight ahead across the net and remain motionless once the player prepared to serve. Which of course I did, so mercifully shortly after that I didn’t see the serve coming that hit me directly in the side of the head and knocked my lights out.
Unfortunately that delayed the game and left my dad shaking his head but I still felt I was making progress having been out there... as I was only out for a few seconds, the powers that be decided we should go out for dinner afterwards with a couple of the players, instead of to the hospital for my concussion, but I think it worked out alright in the end...
With further convincing and numerous promises I was able to convince my father to go out on a limb and get both my younger brother and I plum patronage appointments as Canadian Open ball boys for a few years, both at the Toronto Lawn and at the Cricket Club, in my case without too much merit. We did pretty well as what we really wanted to do was meet the players and see the match from courtside seats and we certainly did that.
This match was a tough one for us because we had always rooted for Jane O’Hara no matter what, but this time it was a bit different, Peggy Michel was also family friend so I didn’t know who to cheer for, if I should be happy or what to say when it was over. Here’s Peggy Michel who defeated Jane O’Hara in that match, I think Jane’s face says it all and I give her a lot of credit because losing with grace is not something everyone can do. Again, I can’t remember the gentleman’s name but hopefully some else will.
To be continued...
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