[PHOTO] The old St. Charles Tavern firehouse tower, Yonge and Grosvenor

[rfmcdonald]

Tamar Harris' Toronto Star article of 21 June 2018, "Yonge St. construction unveils heritage landmark, stirs memories of Toronto’s complicated LGBTQ history", took a look at the historical import for the LGBTQ communities of the old firehouse tower revealed by condo construction at Yonge and Grosvenor.

Construction of Halo Residences at Yonge and Grosvenor Sts. this month revealed the entirety of the 19th-Century firehouse tower that once stretched above the St. Charles Tavern, a landmark in the history of Toronto’s LGBTQ community.

A heritage clock tower at Yonge and Grosvenor Sts. is being restored and revealed by demolition for a new condo development.

Gay patrons gathered at the tavern “under the beacon of the clock tower still standing” from the late 1950s into the ’80s, according to a blog post from the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. For years, the gay bar was also the site of homophobic violence — a place where hateful spectators gathered to pelt arriving patrons with eggs and rotting fruit, and patrons leaving could risk being arrested.

The clock tower — which was built as part of the Yonge Street Fire Hall in 1872, and has a heritage designation — will be preserved and integrated into the condo’s design, according to the developer.

“We believe that it is a privilege to restore and showcase Toronto heritage, and made sure to include the clock tower to our architecture in the best way possible — to showcase its value and its beauty,” said Maria Athanasoulis, president of Cresford Developments, in an email.

Dennis Findlay, president of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, was a patron of the St. Charles in the 1970s. He said the firehouse clock tower is a historic monument, but cautioned against conflating its history with that of the tavern below.

“Below that tower there were moments of queer history and those of us that were a part of that queer history don’t want to forget it,” he said. “But we also don’t want to memorialize it, in the sense that it was a step on the road to where we are now and where we’re going to in the future.”

In Torontoist in 2016, Jamie Bradburn looked at how, over the 1960s, the St. Charles Tavern transformed itself over the 1960s into a prominent feature on the LGBTQ scene.

While the St. Charles Tavern continued to serve Chinese-Canadian fare after Hemstead sold it, the clientele began to change. When the Westbury Hotel (now the Courtyard Marriott) opened down the street in 1957, it included a bar in the basement. The Red Lion Room soon drew a reputation for homosexual clientele, earning it the nickname “The Pink Pussy.” Provincial liquor regulations ruled that beverage rooms which sold no food, like the Red Lion, had to close for an hour and a half each evening, to theoretically allow patrons to go home for dinner, or stumble to a proper restaurant. Cocktail lounges like the St. Charles sold food and could stay open.

Years later in The Body Politic, Gerald Hannon reflected on the shuffle between bars along Yonge:

Many men who probably found the family ambiance at the St. Charles hard to take (at the time it housed a popular Chinese restaurant) headed back to the “Pink Pussy” promptly at eight. Others, who found its attempts at chic somewhat more to their taste (the bar lights were shaped like violins) stayed, settled in, and became the beachhead that eventually made the St. Charles the gay bar it is today.

Ontario’s liquor laws also discouraged a female presence in beverage rooms, lest they be too corrupted by demon booze or allow men to fall prey to prostitutes. While some bars included a “ladies and escorts” room, others became strictly male domains. This inadvertently, as gay rights activist George Hislop noted, “played right into our hands.” The laws also forbade any obstructions which prevent anyone from having a full view of the beverage room. “Open vistas,” activist Rick Bébout observed, “amply abetted another vice: cruising—except that no one but a waiter was allowed to stand up and walk around with a drink.”