Children Playing Street Hockey on Major Street (circa 1910).   Toronto Archives: Item 84.34 Series 2119, William James lantern slides.

In the Toronto Star, 10 May 2015: A story by Katie Daubs outlining how Harbord Village brought its history to life, including this photo of a street-hockey team 30 years later (compare with the historic photo on our site).

For the "In Your Neighbourhood" section of CP24: A video story by Tina Yazdani, "Putting Harbord Village's History on Display." The clips include scenes of the 10 May 2015 celebration of our StoryPosts, with interviewees and members of the History group.

On the HVRA History Project webpage: The Harbord Village History team celebrates two 2014 Heritage Toronto Awards for our project, and an Award of Excellence for our webmaster Wendy Smith's Park Lot Project. Meanwhile, in Ottawa, we were given an honourable mention in the Governor-General's History Award for Community Programming. In April 2016, the Toronto Historical Association presented us with its Peggy Kurtin Memorial award.

 

Eleanor Levine

On our PROJECT TEAM webpage: Our interviewer ELEANOR LEVINE was honoured in Fall 2013
at our MPP's 2nd Annual Community Appreciation Event.

In our EXHIBIT section:

Photos and notes from participants at the opening of the exhibit MAPPING HARBORD VILLAGE: STORIES OF A NEIGHBOURHOOD. The event included several stories told and performed on the spot, including Alf Kwinter's telling of The Carp and the Tub, about Grade 2 Show & Tell Day at King Edward School, 1953. *Unfortunately, the videos of these storytellings are no longer available.*

Harbord Village History is sponsored by the Harbord Village Residents' Association of Toronto. We are a group of local residents who share an interest in how our neighbourhood has grown and developed over time. (Read more about the present neighbourhood here.)

In 2012 the Ontario Trillium Foundation awarded us a grant for the Oral History Project. The grant allowed us to record stories from people who lived in the area prior to 1975. This website presents interviews with over 100 residents and makes them accessible in both audio and written form, with a searchable index.

The grant also enabled us to present an exhibit based on those interviews, and to install StoryPosts throughout our community that highlight residents’ memories of life in Harbord Village.

Our project has received several awards since its completion:

With installation of the StoryPost plaques in Spring 2015, the project also received media attention: see the right-hand bar for links to a Toronto Star story by Katie Daubs and a CP24 video story by Tina Yazdani.

The results of our first project are now available for all who share our interests in local history. Those who wish to participate in future projects of the Harbord Village History group are warmly encouraged to contact us.

A few photos from our interviewees (see many more here):

1929. Charles Sharp, Jr., Norman Cook's grandfather, driving his new Ford. A note on the back of the photo identifies the others (from left to right) as Auntie Dot (Hazel Sharp), Aunt Dora (Dora Sharp), Grandma Sharp (Rose Holland Sharp), Cecil Sharp, and Mrs. Harris. Photo provided by Norman Cook. (See a collection of Norman Cook's photos here.)

1950. Sam and Rose Bronstein on the front porch at 169 Major St., where they lived with their six children and two tenants. Photo provided by Marsha Bronstein Ginsberg. (See more photos of the Bronstein family here.)

1959. Giuseppe Porretta in the meat and grocery store he ran for several years at 93 Harbord before opening Porretta's Pizza next door; shown here with his sons Sal and Nick. This location became a barber shop, then a woodworking and hobby-supply business, then a psychiatrist's office, eventually a restaurant called simply 93 Harbord, and now another one called Magic Noodles. Photo provided by Mario Porretta. (See our collection of photos from Mario Porretta, with more from his sister-in-law Sylvia Porretta and from the related Giannone family.)  

 

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