Tag: italy

Toronto For Italians

A few weeks ago Peter’s nephew Beniamino and his wife Anna announced that were coming to Toronto for 2 weeks at Christmas. It seemed a strange time to leave Italy and travel to Toronto and our cold and snowy weather. But we will be excited to see them.

Beniamino and Anna have entertained us countless times when we have gone to Italy. They have housed and fed us, driven us cross country, taken us to historic towns, classic concerts, and beautiful coastlines. They have even welcomed our friends and family into their lives. We owed them so much. How could we give them a similar experience?

First of all we told local family and relatives about the visit and everyone was excited to contribute to this holiday adventure. Then I decided to use my blog experiences to choose the best places in Toronto for Beniamino and Anna to enjoy. We started with the Eaton Centre. What visitor doesn’t want to buy a few souvenirs to take home?

From there we could walk over to the “old ” and “new” city halls, built in 1899 and 1965. But then I remembered our visit to Rome to see the oldest structure there, the Pantheon, built in 27 BC. Maybe we could show them our New architecture instead. We could walk south to King Street and look up at the glass and steel skyscrapers sparkling in the sun and almost touching the sky.

The AGO, Frank Gehry’s masterpiece, might be of interest. The Galleria Italiana, a long corridor made of glass and Douglas fir that cures along the front of the building and connects several galleries, shows off nicely. And maybe we could take them to a concert at Roy Thomson hall, another great modern building where the acoustics would highlight the sounds of “Bravissimo, a night at the Italian Opera. But how would it compare to a concert we had seen outdoors on a starry summer night in the courtyard of Cassamare, an old Italian convent built in the 1200’s?

What was the best way to show off Canada in the winter? Someone suggested a trip to Blue Mountain with cross country skiing and maybe a sleigh ride in the woods. Or we could do a day trip to Niagara Falls to see the lights. But what would Beniamino and Anna wear? Would they own tuques and mitts? Did Italians even know about thermal underwear?

Then I started thinking about food. For sure we would take them to Eataly for shopping and a meal. One day we would have to visit San Remo, an Italian bakery with huge line-ups and mouth-watering veal sandwiches. Or there was Queen’s Pasta on Bloor St for an elegant dinner. At home I cold cook minestrone soup and make polenta casserole.

Then someone casually mentioned that maybe these Italian visitors would like to sample some other choices in the most multicultural city in the world. Perhaps some Thai food? Or maybe a trip to Greektown. Or would they like to try a steak house? Or possibly some spicy Indian food.

Then other cracks began to appear in my carefully planned agenda. Would they have room in their suitcases for the shopping part? Do they like opera? Had I left enough time for them to visit other cousins and family members they know here? Had I allotted any time to just relax with an espresso?

In the end I made lists – places to visit, things to eat, people to see. Then I put the lists away. When Beniamino and Anna arrive we will give them big hugs and make espresso. And let the days go wherever they take us.

Sue

PS Happy Holidays dear readers. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t write next Tuesday. I may be busy rewriting my lists.

Little Italy

Peter is my unofficial agent for this blog. He makes suggestions for topics, he comes along with me on research adventures, and he reads my draft posts aloud so I can check for word duplication and syllable stress. So, when he asked me to go on a heritage walking tour of Little Italy, it was hard to say no.

While we have often wandered along Collee Street for pasta and gelato, we had never gone with a guide to learn about the history of Italian immigrants and where they chose to build their new lives in Toronto. On our tour we learned that Italians came here in 3 waves. The first one, 1870 to 1914, was created by Italians looking for jobs. The second, 1920 to 1930, occurred when the urge to explore picked up after WWI. And the largest wave saw almost 30,000 immigrants arriving on our Halifax shores from 1945 through 1970. This was Peter’s wave.

These new families tended to settle a little north-west of downtown Toronto. There they found jobs in construction and other industries, and affordable housing in flats or with one another. A community grew. Small grocery stores selling Italian bread, Brio, mortadella and squawking chickens popped up along College St. A Catholic parish, St. Francis of Assisi, was established in 1902. The parishioners soon outgrew their first church and a second, much larger one, was opened in 1913.

When families needed money, they had trouble accessing Canadian banks due mostly to the language barrier and occasionally to cultural slurs. So a few of the wealthier residents combined their money and created the IC Savings Bank which still has branches in the area. Then the city saw a need for language training and opened COSTI Immigrant services in 1952. This community hub provided English education, job training, and socialization. For entertainment the Royal theatre offered movies starring Sophia Loren.

By far the greatest asset to building this Italian community was the media. CHIN Radio was founded in 1966 by Johnny Lombardi. It became Ontario’s first foreign language radio station, broadcasting day and night. The shows covered news, weather, and entertainment in Italian as well as other languages, and were a godsend to Italian speakers. Johnny Lombardi was their hero.

CHIN is known to many non-Italian Torontonians for its annual picnic which was first held along College St. The event moved to the Toronto Islands in 1968 and then to the exhibition grounds in order to accommodate the 125,000 annual visitors. In 2015 the picnic moved back to its roots on College Street and became part of the 3-day Little Italy annual festival.

If you decide to investigate this festival next June, you will find Peter and me eating pasta at the Cafe Diplomatico, first opened in 1968.

Ciao.

Sue