“Junction City” Centennial Media Links

 

JAF Roots artist helps pen Junction Arts Festival theme song: new

Junction legends provide history lesson for TTC commuters this weekend new

Local Option Art Tour

Walk Junction City with the men and women who built it.

Junction City Centennial Weekend in Snap

Mayors Clendenan and Baird and the key to the Junction in 24hrs

Centennial claimed for WTJHS on CBC’s Metro Morning. Contains Humberside Rap.

Second mention in the Villager. Mayor Baird on his Blackberry. Review of the Media Launch.

Villager again. Cara Reeves live at Latitude 44: Spirit of the Junction.

Note: To view the video click on the tiny logo of old steam locomotive below video screen.

Not Centennial directly but Ryerson interview with scruffy historian in WTJHS Archives about Junction history.

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Official Ceremony

April 14, 2008

All photographs: David Bridge

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Mayor's Proclamation

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JUNCTION TRAIN
By Neil Ross

(Adapted from L'envois: The Train to Mariposa by Stephen Leacock)

It leaves the Junction station every day at five o'clock in the evening, the train to the North. Strange that you did not know of it, though you come from Junction City -- or you did, long years ago. Odd that you never knew, in all these years, that the train was there every afternoon, puffing up steam in the Junction station, and that you might have boarded it any day in your old home. No, not "home," -- of course you wouldn't call Junction City home now. Home means that big red sandstone house of yours in the costlier part of Toronto. Home means in a way this high school classroom where you sometimes talk with me of the times that we had in Junction City.

Of course very few people know about the Junction Train. Hundreds of them know that there is a train that passes by at five o'clock, but they mistake it. Ever so many of them think that's just a suburban train. Lots of people who see it every day think it is just the train to the golf grounds. But the joke is that if you look closely enough, you'll recognize the Junction train, thundering and pounding towards the north, hemlock sparks pouring out into the darkness from the funnel of it. Don't tell me the speed is only twenty five miles an hour. I don't care what it is. I tell you and you can prove it for yourself if you will that that train of mingled flat cars and coaches that goes tearing into the north is the fastest train in the world.

But think of where the northern train comes from. Imagine a night in Junction City . . . with the cream of society jostling with railway men on the wooden sidewalks along Dundas. The mud from the street splashing everyone from Heintzman to switchman. There's D.W. Clendenan, founding father and first Mayor of the Junction, passing the time with the lovely Dr. Minerva Reid, while that retired Mountie, Chief of Police Josiah Royce, steps into the Junction Hotel to get his boots shined. The firemen's bell rings for the third time, marking the closing of the Junction day.

Before you know it you're yearning to return, to feel the sharp slackening of the train as it swings around the curve of the last embankment that brings it in to the Junction Station. See too the row of flashing lights and the bright windows of the depot. And as the train rumbles in and stops, hissing and panting at the platform, you can hear above all other sounds the cry of the brakemen and the porters.

"West Toronto Junction. West Toronto Junction."

And as we listen the cry grows fainter and fainter in our ears and we are sitting here again with friends in this high school classroom dreaming of the railway town at twilight that once we knew.

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LOCAL OPTION ART CAN BE VIEWED AT THE FOLLOWING PARTICIPATING DUNDAS STREET WEST BUSINESSES:

Picture It Framed
The Relax Shack
Agora Restaurant
Early Learning Centre
Taylor Shoes
The Hair Lounge
The Organic Beet
Triple Z Roti
Pascal's Bagels and Baguette
Athens House of Beauty
Optometrist- Dr. Feldman
And Associates
Latitude 44 Gallery
Forever Interiors
Blockbuster Video
Hole in the Wall
Phil's Espresso Bar
Pandemonium Books and Discs
Super Submarine
West End Holistic Centre
The Local Option/ Shox's Bar and Grill

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