About this project

The Oral History Project is founded on interviews with more than 100 residents of the Harbord Village, both present and former, who recall life in the neighbourhood between the 1930s and 1980. All of these interviews are available in two formats: as audio files that you can listen to online, and as transcripts that can be read.

The transcripts include 30-second interval timestamps to facilitate their use. The interviews and transcripts are organized both alphabetically, by the interviewees' names, and according to broad topics covered in the interview.

This website offers you several ways to explore their words and appreciate their experiences.

The Harbord Village Oral History Project was launched in November, 2013 with an exhibition at the Miles Nadal JCC titled Mapping Harbord Village: Stories of a Neighbourhood.

The exhibit, created in partnership with the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, closed on December 15.

Above: Louie Laki on his motorcycle in 1957, with his daughter Rose relaxing on her tricycle, on an empty lot south of where they lived at 91 Lippincott. Louie Laki Lane runs behind their later house on Major Street. Photo provided by Rose Laki Rodrigues. (See a collection of her family photos here.)

You can start by listening to short edited clips that combine several people’s memories about daily life in the area, on a wide range of topics. Click on the link for StoryPosts to see the titles, and choose which ones to listen to. (These audio clips are accessible via smartphone from plaques posted around the neighbourhood, bearing scannable QR codes.)
You can also listen to the original audio files of the interviews in their entirety, or scan through them to the sections that interest you. The interviews are listed by name, and also by some of their more salient themes.
If you prefer to read what people said, transcripts of the interviews are also available, with time markings that match those in the audio files.
A detailed index permits more serious research. It allows you to find where specific people, places, and subjects appear in the interviews. You can then either listen or read the section of the interview that is of interest.
In addition, the site also contains photographs contributed by neighbourhood residents, showing some of the people, places, and topics mentioned in the interviews. Other photos on the site come from the Toronto Archives and the Toronto Public Library collections.

ABOVE: Gerry Sperling is seated at front left of his Grade 5 class at King Edward Elementary School around 1947-8.
Photo provided by Gerry Sperling. (See a collection of his photos here.)



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