The Never Ending End of Honest Ed’s
It was in the late 80’s when I had made friends with a bunch of Torontonians, and several times a year, I would make the six-hour journey down the sleep-inducing 401 highway from Montréal.
As the 401 changed from two lanes into three, the light in the distance got brighter, and the sign for the Don Valley Expressway came into view, we knew we had arrived in Canada’s largest city. It was bigger than Montréal, Torontonians claimed it was better, thus solidifying the love/hate rivalry between the two divided Anglophone and Francophone cities.
Toronto: We have the CN tower!
Montreal: We have the Olympic Stadium!
Toronto: We have the Maple Leafs!
Montreal: We have the Habs!
Toronto: We have the best roti!
Montreal: We have the best poutine!
Toronto: We have Honest Ed’s!
Montreal: We have —
When I saw Honest Ed’s for the first time, with its red and yellow façade sparkling with all its lights aglow, I didn’t know what it was. Was it a circus? Who was Ed? Was he really honest? Did such a person even exist, or was he a made-up caricature?
I was told it was a Toronto landmark where my friends went to shop when they needed to buy stuff for cheap. It had deals on everything under the sun — from grandma underwear to Yoyo’s, toilet brushes to TV & radios, pots & pans to magic trick kits. It was crammed to the gills with stuff.
It was Toronto’s quintessential discount warehouse, owned, opened, and operated for over 60 years by Toronto entrepreneur, Ed Mirvish. I got lost every time I entered the labyrinth of confusion because the aisles of merchandise were so dense and never-ending. It was a veritable ‘fun house’ without intending to be, or was that its intention? I was never quite sure.
It’s been 10 years since Ed Mirvish passed away in 2007, and after nearly 70 years in operation, Ed Mirvish’s son, David, decided to permanently close the Bloor and Bathurst Streets landmark on December 30, 2016. But a four-day celebration was announced to take place February 2017 including an art-maze that would have well-wishers and nostalgia enthusiasts wandering around all three floors and its byzantine stairwells. It was the perfect place for a maze because essentially, that’s what it was — a 70-year-old maze.
As I locked my bike a block away, I could see the iconic building looming in the distance –like Melville’s whale, a mysterious powerful legend and at one time, a profitable commodity in the centre of the city. A symbolic spectacle for surviving so long in gentrifying Toronto. Now it was going to accept its fate, be torn down — and made into… (drum roll, please) — condos!
Art and exhibitions now took over the vast space that remained mostly to the sides of the rooms and in the corners so people could enjoy the steps they used to walk. It was hard to imagine that these spaces that once stored all the tchotchkes, housewares, and unmentionables over seven decades were all empty. It was incredible to see how much these three floors actually held.
Apart from the Artmaze with its light projection installations and interactive displays, other rooms to explore included Ed’s old office with its retro stained plush carpet, old black & white pictures loosely transfixed on the wall, and kooky novelty items kicking around.
But it was neither the Artmaze or the nostalgic set-up that jumped out at me. It was the masses who had come to say goodbye to a part of their upbringing, part of their childhood — a part of their Toronto. To them, Honest Ed’s represented an Old World order, one that sometimes resembled chaos and disorder, even with those iconic and often comical yellow, blue, red, white hand-painted signs and labels for each on-sale item. It was the timelessness that people wanted to come back for — to visit and say goodbye to a space and place that had never really changed — until now.
As I walked around, examining each exhibition and trying to take it all in, I realized a different type of art was echoing from the crowd in the open spaces — the art of storytelling.
“I used to come here with my grandmother!”
“It didn’t fit the neighbourhood anymore,”
“Wal-Mart has better discounts now.”
“I bought all my dress patterns here!”
I realized, the public wasn’t there for the art, but to get one last glimpse of the legendary institution and to share in the personal stories this cheerful mausoleum had created in so many Torontonians (and uh, some Montrealers).
As the tremendous whale that housed so many memories and stories prepares to be reduced to rubble, time and memory will persevere as the relationship between past, present, and future comes into play. The reality is the memories will dissipate, but hopefully an oral tradition will carry on and a communal appreciation of Honest Ed’s will remain forever and a day.
