HARBORD VILLAGE PROJECT: ENTRY # 8

FINAL THOUGHTS FROM THE EDUCATION TEAM

BY: KEELY BLAND AND HILARY WALKER

      One of the great things about the Harbord Village project has been the ability to split into groups and each take responsibility for a different part of the project. Hilary and I are both very interested in education, interpretation and public programming, and we were able to improve our skills with this course. 

Week 1. Image courtesy of Keely Bland and Hilary Walker.

      We had the opportunity to give tours of Mapping Harbord Village to three different groups from Lord Landsdowne School; we welcomed classes from grade 6, grade 7 and a group of students that are involved with the school’s Tech Club. The Tech Club even filmed Hilary and I conducting the tour for footage to use in the celebrations for Lord Landsdowne’s 125^th anniversary. It was great to be able to share some of the residents’ stories and hear from the kids about their experiences with Foodscapes, Laneways and Porch Life in their own neighborhoods. 

Week 2. Image courtesy of Keely Bland and Hilary Walker. 

      The last class that we took through the exhibit was a grade 12 class from Harbord Collegiate Institute. Their class is about local history and archives, so we talked about the importance of studying and preserving local history for generations to come. We also listened to some of the StoryPosts that were created by the HVRA and had discussions about the changes and similarities in life – like dating – from the past to today. Check out some of the StoryPosts on the HVRA’s History website. 

Week 3. Image courtesy of Keely Bland and Hilary Walker.

      Another interpretive element that we worked on was the interactive map of Harbord Village. The map showed the neighbourhood – with all of its streets and laneways – on a large piece of vinyl that hung on one of the exhibit’s walls. Post-it notes were placed beside the map with instructions for visitors to write out their own personal memories relating to Harbord Village and stick them on the corresponding spots on the map. Because the exhibit only covered material from the HVRA’s oral histories, and because these oral histories only covered memories from the 1920s to the 1970s, we wanted to use the map as an opportunity to share other residents’ and visitors’ current and past stories. Essentially, this map was created to demonstrate that Harbord Village is still a living, vibrant, and dynamic neighbourhood.  

 Image courtesy of Keely Bland and Hilary Walker.

   
     We put up the map when the exhibition was installed, and checked back once or twice a week to ensure that there were no inappropriate comments on the map and to make sure that there were enough Post-it notes and pencils for future visitors. The success of our map interactive was incredibly exciting and inspiring. We loved coming in to the exhibit to see how many more comments had been added. The photos below show the map during the duration of the exhibit and include some of our favourite comments left by visitors.

HARBORD VILLAGE PROJECT: ENTRY # 7

COMING SOON! HARBORD VILLAGE EVENTS

INFORMATION PROVIDED BY: KEELY BLAND

The panels have been sent to the printers, the postcards given out, the invitations sent, the window clings have been made and the day is almost here. This Wednesday, November 20th, we will be busily installing Mapping Harbord Village: Stories of a Neighbourhood at the JCC. And we could not be more excited for all of you to see it.

Mapping Harbord Village Information Postcard, 

designed by Adrienne Costantino.

Mapping Harbord Village Information Postcard, 

designed by Adrienne Costantino.

Just because the exhibit install is happening this week does not mean that all our hard work is done. There are many events still happing in the coming few weeks. Hopefully you will be able to make it out to at least one of them!

Opening Reception – November 26, 6:00pm to 8:00pm
Come out to the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre, Jacobs Lounge, 750 Spadina Avenue on Tuesday November 26 for the opening reception to the exhibit. You will be able to hear representatives from the Harbord Village Residents Association (HVRA), our professor, Irina D. Mihalache and some of the student curators talk about the collaboration and the exhibit. In case you needed more incentive, there will be kosher food and wine served (I’m looking at you grad students).

iSchool Information Day – November 23, 11:00am to 12:30pm
The iSchool is hosting one of its many Information Days on November 23rdfor prospective students to learn more about the program. These lucky prospective students and their guests will be able to hear about the experience of working on Mapping Harbord Village from Hilary Walker and myself. This event is full but to sign up for the next Information Day on January 18, 2014, click here.

Mapping Harbord Village at the iSchool – December 3
Wondering how six Masters of Museum Studies students went about creating an exhibit around oral histories that were collected by the HVRA? Are you wondering how the HVRA connected with the Faculty of Information? Come out to this informal talk to hear the answers to these and more questions about the process of creating the Mapping Harbord Village Exhibit. Snacks will also be provided at this event (you are welcome).

Hilary and I are also looking forward to hosting tours from Harbord Collegiate Institute and Lord Lansdowne Public School over the three weeks that the exhibit is open.

Hope to see you at one of the events!

HARBORD VILLAGE PROJECT: ENTRY # 6

HARBORD VILLAGE EXHIBITION THEMES

BY: MELISSA SMITH AND ELLEN HLOZAN

     
            The Harbord Village Residents; Association collected approximately 100 oral histories from different residents in the neighbourhood. The history of the neighbourhood is rich and is reflected in the recorded conversations. We chose the topics for the exhibition by listening and reading the transcripts of the oral histories. Our goal as curators, was to represent shared experiences across time and space in Harbord Village. Many residents referred to food, laneways and porch activities. By focusing on these themes, we felt we could represent the community identity and use of neighbourhood spaces. It is interesting to note that many of the oral histories have converging experiences and it is clear that Harbord Village has a specific character.

     Food is an omnipresent aspect of daily life and acts as a signifier of identity. We heard many references to kitchens, dining rooms, and gardens. This made us think about the various spaces used in a neighbourhood and home for food production. In exploring this theme, we felt we were able to represent the many shared activities and traditions in Harbord Village. For example, there were many references to Thursday shopping in preparation for Shabbot dinner Friday night. No one can really deny the joy of shared food rituals.

      Laneways aside from being a leitmotif through out the oral histories, are very characteristic of the area. We felt they represented the history, evolution, and playfulness of the neighbourhood. Originally meant for horses and deliveries, the laneways evolved into playgrounds where children gathered. In the past, children would ride the local dairy delivery horse and families would notice their heads bobbing above the fences. Later, during chestnut throwing battles children would take bagel breaks. More recently the laneways have evolved from spaces for horses to spaces for cars. The laneways have always been filled with activities that represent the Harbord Village identity.

      Finally we focused on porches, transitional spaces between the privacy of the home and the public space of the neighbourhood. Often taking the place of air conditioning in the summer, they were a stage for conversation, games, and gossip. Some of the oral histories related various life lessons that were taught on the porches, the unofficial classrooms of the neighbourhood. Fostering a sense of community, they were the right distance from the sidewalk - not too close to the road and not too far from the street, perfect yelling distance. 

     
      Some of our challenges in creating the exhibition related to representation. We wanted to fairly and accurately represent the community and the themes we chose were our solution for addressing the varied stories of the residents. 

Learning how to engage with communities 

Learning how to engage with oral histories

How to effectively exhibit oral histories

Making sure that we were representing everyone fairly

HARBORD VILLAGE EXHIBITION PROJECT: ENTRY # 5

CURATING MAPPING HARBORD VILLAGE:

STORIES OF A NEIGHBOURHOOD

BY: ELLEN HLOZAN 

      This past week, while working on our exhibition Harbord Village: Stories of a Neighbourhood,  we made our final image selection for the exhibition! To build a visual representation of the oral histories that have been collected from Harbord Village residents, we are using photographs collected from residents depicting daily life in the neighbourhood. The three themes we have decided to highlight are based on the importance and frequency these themes reoccur in resident oral histories. Our final exhibition themes are: porch life, laneways and foodscapes. We chose these three themes because they represent essential spaces of gathering and interaction in the neighbourhood. Furthermore, porch life, laneways and foodscapes document the use of these spaces within social history of the neighbourhood and demonstrate the deeply embedded patterns of social interaction in Harbord Village across a span of six decades.

      We chose to represent porches as a major theme because gathering on your porch, or a neighbour's porch was a major form of socialization and entertainment on hot summer nights after dinner. Don't forget, no air conditioning! Parents would play games and talk while children played in the yard or on the porch before dark. 

Neighbourhood kids with adults on porch outside 95 Lippincott, June 1957. Image by: ?

          
      Laneways were an ingrained social space for children, who were released into the back lanes to play every morning and returned only for meals and to participate in supervised play on neighbourhood porches at dusk.

Playing in Poretta Lane across from 180 Robert Street, 1962. Image by: Sylvia Poretta.

      
      Foodscapes illustrate the habitual gathering, making and eating of food in the neighbourhood. Food preparation and production was an ingrained domestic practice of recycling and tradition. Be it making sausage in your neighbours basement, making wine from grapes in your backyard, hand making sauerkraut, canning your gardens summer harvest for winter or simply gathering all 12-15 of the houses residents for dinner!

Family Passover Seder, 1936. Image by: Marsha Bronstein Ginsberg.

HARBORD VILLAGE PROJECT: ENTRY # 4

LANEWAYS IN HARBORD VILLAGE

BY: BRIAN JOE

     Mapping Harbord Village: Stories of a Neighbourhood is an exhibition currently under development by the Harbord Village Resident’s Association (HVRA) and the University of Toronto Master of Museum Studies program. This exhibition deals with community memory viewed through three basic concepts: porch life, laneways, and foodscapes. In order to understand these concepts in context, the Planning and Promotions team, Adrienne Costantino and Brian Joe, explored the neighbourhood as it stands today. This in situ exploration has broadened our understanding of what kinds of memory and development we are dealing with, while highlighting the need to deal with urban evolution alongside community memory. Prior to this exploration, exhibition development has mainly been done in a second-hand way. It has become apparent that in order to tell stories of the neighbourhood, we must take into account its current status. How has Harbord Village changed, and what do those changes mean with regards to our key theme of community memory.

      Urban evolution is an implied theme of Mapping Harbord Village. We have yet to explicitly speak on this theme, but much of our development has dealt with memory over time. The HVRA has collected oral histories from longtime village residents. Not all interviewees currently live in the neighbourhood, but they must have lived there for an extended period of time between 1920 and 1970. The exhibition has not been developed to serve as an epitaph to the neighbourhood, rather, we have taken a living history approach the stories we tell. As such, it is important to develop an understanding of the village in its current time and place; who lives there now, and how has the HVRA shaped the story they want to tell?

      One of the HVRA’s significant projects has been adding street signs and naming laneways. As laneways are a focus in our exhibition, it is important to understand current attitudes towards these long-standing, public, neighbourhood spaces. It is without question that these spaces have changed overtime; urban evolution and gentrification happens, and the neighbourhood reflects this. As we explored the village laneways, both named and unnamed, and were able to contextualize our thoughts in reality. These are stories of a living neighbourhood, and it was important, and enlightening to visit the community as it currently stands.

HARBORD VILLAGE PROJECT: ENTRY # 3

SOCIALIZING THEN AND NOW

BY: MELISSA SMITH

      The iSchool and the Harbord Village Residents Association have partnered to create an exhibition about the history of the neighbourhood. The project is based primarily on a collection of oral histories and pictures that were collected from families that have lived in the area. 

I live in the Harbord Village and the neighbourhood has become so much more meaningful after working on this project. Past social activities have appealed to me, particularly when comparing past practices to current activities. One resident related a story about where people went out to have fun during the war:

      “The Canteen for the soldiers, during the war. And we used – first of all, you had to be   

      interviewed, and some people didn't get in. I did. I was very proud. And I used to go Saturday 

      nights, and we used to serve them [soldiers] coffee, and ask them to dance, and you couldn't date 

      them, and you couldn't go home with them, and that was fun.”

      Learning about where people socialized at specific times in history and before restaurants and bars were popular in the area has been very interesting because those periods are removed from our lived experience today.

      Another oral history relates that young women would organize social clubs. They used to put ads in the paper advertising for girls who wanted to join a social club and hold meetings. The resident states that it seems funny now: 

       “It was ridiculous. So many people did it then. It was very funny when I think about it now. I    

       don't know what we did. We wanted to meet boys.”

      Social activities that relate to meeting people are still relevant today. We can associate the ads in the paper to the present use of social media, for instance. We use Facebook and dating sites to meet new people.  But after restaurants and bars opened in the area they acted as social venues, where people met and formed relationships. Since starting our project, I recently revisited Free Times Café and Future’s Bakery. Both sites are frequented by people in the neighbourhood and students from U of T. They are locations that allow for people to come together and socialize with good food and drink. So although, we have moved away from independent social clubs the desire to socialize and meet people always already stays the same. 

Corporal and Mrs. Rogers Nuttal, November 19, 1944, Photographer: John H. Boyd. 

City of Toronto Archives Fonds 1266, Item 93460

HARBORD VILLAGE PROJECT: ENTRY # 2

COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY

BY: ADRIENNE COSTANTINO

Alongside recorded oral histories, photographs provide the background under which Mapping Harbord Village is set. These glossy coated images capture and record moments of Harbord Village past and present. Yet pictures capture so much more than a visual record of a time and place, they hold memory for a person, a family, or in this case a neighbourhood. Every photograph tells a story.

      
In the last week I have traveled through Harbord Village collecting high quality scans of residents’ photographs for the exhibition. Meeting residents face to face, being invited into their homes and being witness to their memories is an experience that I can only describe as surreal and humbling. For the past two months I have stored, categorized and committed to memory some 200 photographs collected by HRVA member and interviewer Eleanor Lavine. 

Hockey, Carlos Fernandes, Paulo Fernandes, Tommy (neighbour) in front of 

100-102 Major Street, Late 1970s

     
After meeting with residents Celia Denov, Paulo Fernandes and Marsha Ginsberg, their photographs now offer a new level of interpretation. Paulo’s hockey picture no longer offers the singular representation that laneways were used for play. The photograph now speaks to the sibling relationship (brother Carlos left, Paulo center) and camaraderie (neighbour Tommy right) experienced at 104 Major Street in the late 1970s.

For Marsha Ginsberg looking at the photograph of her family’s Passover dinner in 1938 brings back a flood of memories.  Each face, unknown to me, comes alive as she describes each family member. Sitting at the head of the table holding Marsha’s older sister (age one) is Marsha’s bubbee Sylvia Levine, who Marsha describes with a smile as “the sweetest person.” To the right of Sylvia are Marsha’s parents (Rose and Same Bronstein) and two older brothers (Harvey, the oldest, is now 85 years old).

The memories that I have been witness to have helped me understand the history of neighbourhood, and allowed me to imagine what life might have been growing up there. While these stories merely scratch at the surface of Harbord Village’s history, I can only express excitement at the opportunity to hear more stories from community members during the opening reception on Tuesday, November 26, 2013 from 6-8pm. Indeed a picture hold a thousand words, and thousands more have yet to be spoken. 

Passover Dinner, Sophie and Philip Levine (pictured at the head of the table)

Grandparents to Marsha Ginsberg, 1938, 75 years ago, Street unknown.

HARBORD VILLAGE PROJECT: ENTRY # 1

COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, AND COORDINATION

BY: HILARY WALKER

      The exhibition opening is fast approaching - Mapping Harbord Village: Stories of a Neighbourhood launches in ten days! Although the past week was the Faculty of Information’s Fall Reading Week, the members of our exhibit team came together in multiple meetings to finalize the exhibition text and make plans for the upcoming week and a half. This entire project has greatly stressed the importance of collaboration during exhibit development; although group members have their individual responsibilities, almost all of the key elements of the exhibit have been completed through efficient and effective teamwork. Even when group members have been physically separated from one another - as was the case this week when I went to Ottawa - we have found alternative ways to meet and communicate our progress. Skype proved to be a useful tool during Reading Week, as I was able to video conference with Professor Mihalache and fellow interpretation/education team member Keely Bland. During this meeting we planned to finalize our text for the interactive elements of the exhibit as well as the educational programs that we will be offering to select schools in the neighbourhood. 

Hilary Walker, Professor Irina D. Mihalache, and Keely Bland work on educational programs
for Mapping Harbord Village: Stories of a Neighbourhood. Courtesy of Hilary Walker.

       Planning the exhibit’s educational programs for two local schools and the iSchool has proven to be a great test for our coordination skills. Keely and I have been communicating with staff from Harbord Collegiate Institute and Lord Lansdowne Public School over the past month in order to better understand their programming needs, and we have regularly discussed and developed ideas for an iSchool event with our project team (mark your calendars for December 3rd!). Taking into account stakeholders’ personal schedules, facilities availability, and program requirements, our team has made significant progress in terms of finalizing the programming schedule and developing content for the tours, educational packages, and presentations that will be delivered in the coming weeks.

Many Harbord Village residents have memories of Lord Lansdowne Public School, pictured here in 1924. 

The interpretive/education team is thrilled to be working with the school for one of the exhibit’s 

educational programs. Image courtesy of Arthur Zimmerman. Courtesy of Hilary Walker.