None of the people I know are talking about Retail or how hard it is for non-chains to get established, hell I would venture that none of them are even aware of that article or the issue. All they are doing is bemoaning the passing of their youth. Which is fine, they’re allowed to do that, and I’m allowed to roll my eyes at them for doing so.
And yes, I’m concerned for Mirvish Village tenants too (Beguiling is responsible for TCAF after all). But they are getting the longest notice in tenant history, so hopefully they’ll be able to relocate, I’m going to assume to Leslieville or Lansdowne.
I don’t know anyone that has shopped there in the past few years and yet everyone is upset to hear it may go, remember, it’s not sold yet, nothing has happened, yet. /eyeroll
I remember stepping in there a couple of years ago, and even then it seemed like an artifact of a bygone age whose time had long since passed.
I might think more fondly of the long-gone Sam the Record Man and its spectacularly flashy frontage. At least they were selling stuff I might actually want to buy.
This reminds me of what happened with Sam the Record Man. The patriarch passes away and the store falls into the hands of a much inferior son. Then the business hobbles on for a few years and disappears not with a bang, but a whimper.
In the 60s Mirvish Village still had artist studios on the top floors. David Mirvish Books’ Boxing Day sale was the highlight of my year, the only place a student could build a collection of art books by spending Christmas money. I remember lining up there for hours in the snow waiting for the doors to open.
Honest Ed always had cheap crap – that was its point – it was started to sell things to Eastern European immigrants that came to Toronto in the aftermath of WWII and didn’t have much to spend. Things like Walmart didn’t exist then
I too have very fond memories of the David Mirvish Books’ Boxing Day sale. I don’t think I shopped there much any other time of the year, much to their chagrin! I see DMBooks do still sell online at ABEbooks, though perusing the website listing is no substitute for a meander through a well stocked bookstore.
I also have lots of fond memories shopping at Honest Ed’s. First and foremost, it was my aunt’s stomping ground, and she took me and my sister there as kids since she worked nearby at the Stitsky’s fabric store, also long gone now. Honest Ed’s was part of the myth and mystique of the big city.
When I moved into the neighbourhood, I regularly shopped there for my groceries and hardware, and I even made friends with some of the regular staff. I often wondered if they noticed when I left town. Someone comes to town, someone leaves town, indeed.
And then there was the time a group of friends of mine piled into the store, taking snapshots at every turn. Now if we could only figure out a way to turn the store into one big Instagram photobooth!
I was chatting with the guys at Suspect video yesterday about the whole thing, and they claimed that it was David, not Ed, who had been the real proponent of Mirvish Village. Ed had, allegedly, been very mad that he could not turn the land he had bought into a parking lot (which was why he had bought it in the first place) and threatened to simply let it sit vacant. Apparently it was David who had argued for making Markham a hub for small creative businesses… So perhaps he will work with the developers to preserve the street. I’m not holding my breath, but who knows?
