Urbanism: The Murder That Changed Yonge Street
Originally published in the Globe and Mail. Read the full text here.
The Vans flagship store at 245 Yonge St. bears almost no trace of its former self. In 1977, the property housed Charlie's Angels, a body-rub parlour above a storefront that offered massages, adult movies and "love aids." Today, the store's window displays skate shoes and designer hoodies. There isn't so much as a plaque to commemorate the tragic event that took place in the building 40 years ago. But for those who follow the history of Toronto, the address played a key role in a dramatic transformation of Yonge Street. And it all began with a murder.
For much of the 20th century, downtown Yonge Street was the closest thing Toronto had to an urban centre: a region of haberdashers, attorneys' offices, vaudeville houses and night clubs. Around the beginning of the 1970s, though, the strip south of Bloor became seedier and racier, a transition that began with the development of the Toronto Eaton Centre. Construction began in '73, causing massive street-level upheaval. Landlords across from the site figured it was a matter of time before they, too, were bought out by a shopping-mall developer. Instead of seeking permanent tenants, they offered monthly rentals to fly-by-night entrepreneurs. The stretch between Gerrard and Queen, where Charlie's Angels opened, became known as Sin Strip, a neon-lit Gomorrah of peep shows, peelers and porn theatres.
The decline of obscenity laws around the same time meant that these new businesses – many of them backroom operations in second- and third-floor walk-ups – could now brazenly advertise their services. Sex workers called out from doorways to potential clients, while handbills and storefront signage – much of it in bubbly Seventies typography – promised topless dancing and naked massages. "You saw sex written on the landscape in a way that you didn't before," says Daniel Ross, an urban historian who teaches at the University of Quebec at Montreal.
The public bought into it. In the era of Deep Throat, sex was entertainment, and Yonge had long been an entertainment district. "People were fascinated by the Strip," says Ross. "It was exciting. It was the place to go for Saturday-night action." The cops, having little by way of funding or legal mechanisms with which to crack down on vice, patrolled Sin City but refused to end it – until the dramatic summer of '77.
This is an excerpt. Read the full text here.