[Johnny Au]

At the intersection of Yonge and Dundas, there is a person carrying a megaphone who keeps talking about Jesus. Nearby, there is another person who kept saying that Jesus is in the Qur'an.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Well, if you want to save souls, you need to go where the sinners are. And the Yonge Strip has traditionally been sin central.


As an underaged kid during the seedy version of the Strip of the late 70's/early 80's, my experience wasn't about the bars/strip clubs or porn stuff. The things I remember are head shops, poster shops, clothing shops, record stores and mostly....the ARCADES!!!

There's nothing quite like the golden age of the arcade. Like the sign says...."WE ARE OPEN JUST FOR FUN". Around 1980 was when 1st gen. video games (Pac Man, Space Invaders, etc) and old school pinball games were popular at the same time. Walking into one of those giant dark arcades with hundreds of machines all making noise at once was music to any teenaged boys ears. It was a pretty narrow demographic in a pinball arcade...the only adult was generally the "quarters guy". The arcades must have made a killing in the hey day. Home video games had appeared by then, but the quality of the games and the atmosphere of the arcades were way more popular then. Plus in those days, kids didn't hang around the house...and the 70's were more relaxed in terms of kids running around on their own.

The other details about Yonge you don't really see any more was the blatant drug selling on the street. It was almost done as a slightly more subtle version of scalping. If you looked remotely like a stoner (which was basically anybody under 30), you couldn't walk down the street without constantly having people say "weed" or "acid" as you walked by.

I guess another aspect was how much "cruising" went on...especially on a Sat night. Oh...I don't mean that cruising (which was also popular). I mean hot rods, muscle cars. This was also the height of the short-lived custom van craze. It where people showed off their vehicles and people went to admire them.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Well, if you want to save souls, you need to go where the sinners are. And the Yonge Strip has traditionally been sin central.

As an underaged kid during the seedy version of the Strip of the late 70's/early 80's, my experience wasn't about the bars/strip clubs or porn stuff. The things I remember are head shops, poster shops, clothing shops, record stores and mostly....the ARCADES!!!

There's nothing quite like the golden age of the arcade. Like the sign says...."WE ARE OPEN JUST FOR FUN". Around 1980 was when 1st gen. video games (Pac Man, Space Invaders, etc) and old school pinball games were popular at the same time. Walking into one of those giant dark arcades with hundreds of machines all making noise at once was music to any teenaged boys ears. It was a pretty narrow demographic in a pinball arcade...the only adult was generally the "quarters guy". The arcades must have made a killing in the hey day. Home video games had appeared by then, but the quality of the games and the atmosphere of the arcades were way more popular then. Plus in those days, kids didn't hang around the house...and the 70's were more relaxed in terms of kids running around on their own.

The other details about Yonge you don't really see any more was the blatant drug selling on the street. It was almost done as a slightly more subtle version of scalping. If you looked remotely like a stoner (which was basically anybody under 30), you couldn't walk down the street without constantly having people say "weed" or "acid" as you walked by.

I guess another aspect was how much "cruising" went on...especially on a Sat night. Oh...I don't mean that cruising (which was also popular). I mean hot rods, muscle cars. This was also the height of the short-lived custom van craze. It where people showed off their vehicles and people went to admire them.

Great observations, and memories. It sounds like I'm a couple of years older than you, but what you note is what it was all about for me too starting around '77/'78 along with most Saturday nights at the Roxy for Rocky Horror Picture Show. Rarely would a weekend pass (usually, Sunday) where I'd not do the record store run from Music World at Gould St. up to Flipside, south of Bloor then spend the whole day watching movies, playing video games, grabbing a bite to eat and then heading home.

The car cruising on Yonge Street really only began to wane by the late 90's once the Entertainment District was in full motion. People still did it and walked the strip until late at night on weekends but Yonge Street wasn't gridlocked anymore, it was just busy. Once Maple Leaf Gardens was shuttered along with the Uptown (the last cinema on Yonge Street) it was as if the street went dark along with the marquees. Most of the lake night eateries, bars and coffee shops eventually closed leaving the Street a pretty unexciting place to be until Yonge-Dundas Square was completed and began to come into it's own, then eventually 10 Dundas St. opened, but above about Gerrard St. still not much happens at night anymore.

 

[Lenser]

that[/I] cruising (which was also popular). I mean hot rods, muscle cars. This was also the height of the short-lived custom van craze. It where people showed off their vehicles and people went to admire them.

I was never into the arcades but I sure remember the massive popularity of them. And yes - two of the things I remember most vividly about Yonge in the late 70s was the showy car culture and the drug dealing. Lots of small time dealers working the street up and down Yonge, especially from Gerrard down to Queen. Pot and acid, mostly. But I'm sure there was more than that if you knew where to look for it. And the car thing - in terms of entertainmen, it seems almost quaint now. People would come in from the 'burbs just to do that strip, proud in their wheels, music blaring. Definitely a summertime ritual on Yonge. Finally, Yonge would likely never have been a destination for me had it not been for the vinyl emporiums. Didn't catch much live music on Yonge - for me the venues were The Cabana Room, The Edge, Larry's Hideaway, The Turning Point, The Horseshoe, The Rivoli. But I did step into the Gasworks from time to time to catch some of the more straight ahead, meat and potatoes rawk acts.

 

[Long Island Mike]

Yonge Street Strip memories...and comparison with NYC's Times Square...

Well, if you want to save souls, you need to go where the sinners are. And the Yonge Strip has traditionally been sin central.


As an underaged kid during the seedy version of the Strip of the late 70's/early 80's, my experience wasn't about the bars/strip clubs or porn stuff. The things I remember are head shops, poster shops, clothing shops, record stores and mostly....the ARCADES!!!

There's nothing quite like the golden age of the arcade. Like the sign says...."WE ARE OPEN JUST FOR FUN". Around 1980 was when 1st gen. video games (Pac Man, Space Invaders, etc) and old school pinball games were popular at the same time. Walking into one of those giant dark arcades with hundreds of machines all making noise at once was music to any teenaged boys ears. It was a pretty narrow demographic in a pinball arcade...the only adult was generally the "quarters guy". The arcades must have made a killing in the hey day. Home video games had appeared by then, but the quality of the games and the atmosphere of the arcades were way more popular then. Plus in those days, kids didn't hang around the house...and the 70's were more relaxed in terms of kids running around on their own.

The other details about Yonge you don't really see any more was the blatant drug selling on the street. It was almost done as a slightly more subtle version of scalping. If you looked remotely like a stoner (which was basically anybody under 30), you couldn't walk down the street without constantly having people say "weed" or "acid" as you walked by.

I guess another aspect was how much "cruising" went on...especially on a Sat night. Oh...I don't mean that cruising (which was also popular). I mean hot rods, muscle cars. This was also the height of the short-lived custom van craze. It where people showed off their vehicles and people went to admire them.

FCG: Great post and memory here...As a fan of the video games "Galaxian" and "Galaga" the most Arcades bring back many memories - and many a quarter spent playing...In my early Toronto visits in 1979,80 and 81 initially the Yonge Street Strip was one of the coolest things about Toronto and the car cruising scene there
was definitely one of the best things that I found and liked back during those days...and the head,poster,clothing and record shops fascinated me..

The biggest difference about comparing Toronto's Yonge Street with NYC's Times Square during that era was that TSQ was far more dangerous...

There was definitely a difference in the "street people" in both cities and instead of attracting people from all over Canada and neighboring states
like New York as Yonge Street did Times Square in NYC had become a place to avoid and that to some extent the criminal element ruled TSQ...

DTG: Good post also - and with a update on the Yonge Street car cruise scene being shifted to some extent to the Entertainment District...
I have noted the changes in the Yonge/Dundas vicinity and I agree that this could be Toronto's version of Times Square...

In closing I remember the sign above an arcade(?) that read "Yonge Street is Fun Street"...It felt that way for many of us-including me...

LI MIKE

 

[Lenser]

Having gone to school in NYC for a semester in the the fall of '81 I can attest to how seedy - and dangerous - Times Square was. Myself and two others were nearly robbed one night by a couple of guys who made like they had knives in their jackets and tried to prod us down an alleyway so that they could fleece us. We stood our ground, staying out in the open and I guess they lost their nerve. It was definitely a filthy place. Fascinating, too, I must admit. All that rich theatrical history, buried under tons of neon, sex show paraphernalia, gum wads and cigarette butts.

 

[Johnny Au]

Unfortunately, Nintendo and Sega single-handedly killed off the video arcade scene along Yonge Street, preventing the younger generations from enjoying the video arcade scene.

Video arcades nowadays are usually found in suburban locations and sometimes give out prizes to counter the popularity of video gaming at home and on portable devices.

 

[GenerationW]

FCG: Great post and memory here...As a fan of the video games "Galaxian" and "Galaga" the most Arcades bring back many memories - and many a quarter spent playing

As the greatest Galaga player on the planet (without cheating), I didn't need to spend a lot of quarters on that game. On the other hand, I wasted plenty on pinball and other video games in Yonge arcades.

Video arcades nowadays are usually found in suburban locations and sometimes give out prizes to counter the popularity of video gaming at home and on portable devices.

In the 905? I don't know of any arcades remaining in the 416 burbs.

 

[Johnny Au]

In the 905? I don't know of any arcades remaining in the 416 burbs.

There are Chuck E Cheese's (throughout the Greater Toronto Area, with one at Sheppard and Victoria Park), Playdium (in Mississauga Centre), Dave and Buster's (in Vaughan Metropolitan Centre), Canada's Wonderland (next to Leviathan), Pacific Mall (in Markham, though across the street from Toronto), and the small video arcades within large multiplexes. They are the more modern video arcades though.

 

[Celeste]

Except literally across the street from that building there's BarVolo - arguably the best bar in Toronto and wildly successful, too.

We all agree that the current state of Yonge is disgusting and unacceptable, but the reason why this building isn't in good condition has everything to do with a negligent vision-less excuse of a landlord, and little to do with its location.

Yeah but it's not going to be there for very long because that building and everything behind it is going to be torn down up to the parkette.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Rarely would a weekend pass (usually, Sunday) where I'd not do the record store run from Music World at Gould St. up to Flipside, south of Bloor then spend the whole day watching movies, playing video games, grabbing a bite to eat and then heading home.

Yep...Yonge St met all the simple needs of a teenaged boy's ideal day. It could take you all day to go from Queen to Bloor. You reminded me that I forgot to mention one of the biggest elements of the Yonge St experience...films!

With the opening of the TEC Cineplex's 18 screens (largest in the world) in 1979, Yonge street probably boasted one of the highest concentrations of films in the world (44 screens along Yonge between Queen & Bloor). Across the street was the Imperial Six, and further up was the 5-screen Uptown/Backstage (one of the world's first multiplexes) and the Plaza 1 & 2 rounding out the first-run houses. The 10-screen Carlton Cinemas for independent and foreign films you couldn't see anywhere else. And the Coronet, Rio and Elgin were spewing out the greatest of the exploitation b films til 5:00AM, and then there was all the porno stuff. Pretty much covered all your film-going needs.

Once Maple Leaf Gardens was shuttered along with the Uptown (the last cinema on Yonge Street) it was as if the street went dark along with the marquees.

Yea...I forgot how much MLG helped contribute to the Yonge St vibe...hockey games and pretty much every important concert ever played in Toronto...kept that middle section of the Queen-Bloor stretch vibrant. I remember spewing out onto Yonge in 1979 after my first/only KISS concert (Dynasty Tour).

The car cruising on Yonge Street really only began to wane by the late 90's once the Entertainment District was in full motion.

I stopped being interested by that time. If I remember correctly, the "ricer" cars had become all the rage (and not my thing). The 60's/70's muscle cars are just too expensive for kids nowadays to own and operate. Plus I remember how everybody "jacked" their cars up in those days...something I believe became illegal shortly after.

As a fan of the video games "Galaxian" and "Galaga" the most Arcades bring back many memories - and many a quarter spent playing..

I remember Galaxian being a huge improvement over Space Invaders....so popular. One problem with the arcades was they were so packed and the best games were always busy.

The biggest difference about comparing Toronto's Yonge Street with NYC's Times Square during that era was that TSQ was far more dangerous...

There was definitely a difference in the "street people" in both cities and instead of attracting people from all over Canada and neighboring states
like New York as Yonge Street did Times Square in NYC had become a place to avoid and that to some extent the criminal element ruled TSQ...

Yea...while it had its "seedy" side, Yonge was never a no-go zone for anybody. It was very much a demographic "neutral zone" where everybody could be found. It was never perceived as dangerous...even at night. Yonge appraoched the edge, but never fell into the abyss. While NYC was Midnight Cowboy and Taxi Driver, Yonge was Go'n Down The Road (and it's excellent SCTV paraody).

In closing I remember the sign above an arcade(?) that read "Yonge Street is Fun Street"...It felt that way for many of us-including me...

That "Strip" reputation was earned in the roughly 30 year period from the mid 50's to the mid 80's. I wonder what it's like to walk down Yonge, aware of it's famous reputation, but never having experienced it during the time it was earning that reputation. There's still things going on and there's still tons of people, but as an experience, these are not the golden days on Yonge St. It seems to be changing, and it appears that Condomania is the main change going on. I'm curious to see what it turns into.


An interesting Yonge St story from last summer....

I get a call and it seems my 10 year old nephew is hell bent on getting a mohawk (his mother is confident it is a 3-week fad at best, and she was correct). Since that is hardly something you want your "mommy" to take you to get, I was recruited (I am his official bad influence). So We started off at House of Lords for the mowhawk (he was insistent on the radical real deal...not a "fauxhawk" as he put it).

From there, we headed down Yonge to Sugar Mountain, where we proceeded to acquire all the latest 10 year old candy needs (which included a baseball-sized jaw-breaker thing, which takes them a month to consume and they just carry it around in their pockets...completely disgusting). As a hypochondriac, I admire how 10 year olds waste zero time worrying about "germs".

Then we hit the comic book stores. We luck out, as this is "comic book week" or something, so there are people dressed up as comic book characters running around Yonge St...he gets his picture taken with a Storm Trooper (funny how 1977 creeps in eh).

Calories are needed (and 10 year olds can consume super human quantities), so we hit an ice cream shop. He has also been enjoying all the compliments he's getting on his mohawk from strangers as we cruise down Yonge (he is thinking he is sooooooo cool).

We hit HMV, but sadly not to look at records...but the latest Wii games (sigh).

He is a Jays fan, so we find a place that sells official Blue Jays stuff. I get him the cap he wants, but then he realizes his dilemma...mohawks and hats don't work well. He decides he will figure that out later.

We hang around Dundas Square for a while and then we hit the Eaton Centre and browse around for a while, until more calories are needed. Large quantities of poutine and root beer are consumed.

Time to hop on the Dundas streetcar and deliver said child back to it's owners. You know, despite everything said, I think we managed to have a "Yonge Street is Fun Street" day.



Just in case you thought I was making that story up............

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Yep...Yonge St met all the simple needs of a teenaged boy's ideal day. It could take you all day to go from Queen to Bloor. You reminded me that I forgot to mention one of the biggest elements of the Yonge St experience...films!

With the opening of the TEC Cineplex's 18 screens (largest in the world) in 1979, Yonge street probably boasted one of the highest concentrations of films in the world (44 screens along Yonge between Queen & Bloor). Across the street was the Imperial Six, and further up was the 5-screen Uptown/Backstage (one of the world's first multiplexes) and the Plaza 1 & 2 rounding out the first-run houses. The 10-screen Carlton Cinemas for independent and foreign films you couldn't see anywhere else. And the Coronet, Rio and Elgin were spewing out the greatest of the exploitation b films til 5:00AM, and then there was all the porno stuff. Pretty much covered all your film-going needs.

If your counting the Eaton Centre Cineplex just off Yonge, in the 70's & 80's there was also the Towne (just off Yonge, at Bloor), Biltmore, Cinema 2000 (now HMV, though they were tiny early cineplex-like cinemas), the New Yorker (later the Showcase, today it's the Panasonic) and until about '74'ish, the CineCity (now McDonalds/Starbucks at Charles & Yonge) and the Odeon Carlton which was demolished, apartments built and still houses the Carlton cinemas @20 Carlton.

 

[Celeste]

I don't think anything about Yonge Street's seedy underbelly is going to change unless people start caring about what's going on in their neighbourhoods. At this point nobody cares about anything but making money.

 

[Mississauga Slim]

While NYC was Midnight Cowboy and Taxi Driver, Yonge was Go'n Down The Road (and it's excellent SCTV paraody)

"Awwww, geez, Joey!!! What're we gonna do now????"
"Don' worry 'bout it Pete! Have another beer!!!"

 

[Bruno Republic]

Unfortunately, Nintendo and Sega single-handedly killed off the video arcade scene along Yonge Street, preventing the younger generations from enjoying the video arcade scene.

Sorry but that's entirely incorrect. The videogame industry as a whole - both home and arcade - suffered a cataclysmic decline starting in 1983, long before Sega and Nintendo established themselves as console manufacturers here. Read up on the crash of 83; this wiki article is a good start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983 . Arcades began shutting in droves as people began to perceive videogames as a fad which had run its course. Home machines didn't fare any better, and it wasn't long before the dominant consoles of the day (Colecovision, Intellivision, Atari) were discontinued (Coleco, which only a couple of years early saw huge success with Cabbage Patch Kids, was eventually bankrupted by the failure of their ADAM computer/videogame console). For a couple of years, video games were reduced to a niche industry.

When Nintendo first brought the NES to North America, it got off to a slow start with a lot of people viewing a video game console as somewhat anachronistic. It took a couple of years to take off, but the rest is history. With the success of the NES and subsequent consoles, the focus of video gaming shifted from arcades to consoles. Freed from the business need to suck quarters out of pockets as quickly as possible, games themselves moved from short, fast-paced action titles to longer, drawn-out, more immersive experiences.

So, Nintendo and Sega didn't kill videogames, but resurrected the business. The arcade didn't survive, but it was already on life support by that point.