Friday, August 29, 2025

I'm reading a library book 'Toronto Street Names - An Illustrated Guide to Their Origins' and under Jack Layton Way, it includes Jack Layton's moving quote in his final letter to Canadians which captured his outlook on life:

'My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world.'

Another interesting fact regarding Joe Shuster Way, the Toronto native along with writer Jerry Siegel created the Superman comic. Apparently in the original version, Superman's mild-mannered alter ego, Clark Kent, worked for the Daily Star , which was based on the Toronto Star and that the inspiration for the fictional Metropolis, Superman's home city, was Toronto!!!
It doesn't stop there...'The Superman' name was reused for a new character - the man of steel...where Shuster modelled the hero on the incredible Douglas Fairbanks Sr.,(!!!) and based Clark Kent, Superman's alter ego on a comabination of actor Harold Lloyd and himself.

So, Sir Henry Mill Pellatt was the eccentric creator of Casa Loma! Apparently, the castle is made up of Spanish tiles, thousands of stones ($1 each) from Scotland, mahogany stalls and nameplates for the horses are engraved in gold...whoa...

Scarlett Road is named after John Scarlett (known as the 'Father of the Junction', the neighbourhood around Dundas and Keele. this is why Dundas and Keele is known as the Junction.

The last and personally, most important takeaway note is on Steeles Avenue (as I lived the current majority of my life off Dufferin and Steeles locale)...the Steeles family came from Yorkshire, England as farmers. Bought an inn at the northwest corner of Yonge and Steeles (currently Centrepoint Mall) that is now a major transit point for travellers going north to Thornhill, Richmond Hill and Newmarket.

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