[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW7ZiCnkTns[/media]
[img]http://www.marketingmag.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Honest-Eds-e1431610985392.jpg[/img]
[quote]After 68 years of door crashers and loss leaders, Honest Ed’s will close its doors for the last time on Dec. 31. The city must make sure that what replaces it is truly visionary. [/quote]
[quote]When that happens, Toronto will have lost not just a piece of its history but some of its soul. And that’s a shame.
Sure, the ramshackle, rundown department store created by the brilliant and eccentric Ed Mirvish is outdated and no longer fits easily with the shiny new reality of the city’s central core. But in its day Honest Ed’s was outrageously uncommon, and provided a needed discount service to generations of immigrants who flooded into its cramped quarters for its famous “door crashers” and “loss leaders.”
It wasn’t just a store; it was a destination. It was nothing like what you’d find on the Champs Elysées or Fifth Avenue — or anywhere else for that matter. But it attracted visitors from around the world because of its uniqueness, and its heart. As Mirvish’s famous sign put it: “There’s no place like this place, anyplace!”
As Mirvish, who died in 2007 at the age of 92, explained in a column he wrote for the Star in 2002, it all began in 1948 when he went into the business of selling “bargains.”
He placed a hand-painted sign over the store’s entrance that read: “Name your own price!! No reasonable offer refused.”
Then he sat down to write his first ad: “Our building is a dump! Our service is rotten!! Our fixtures are orange crates! But!! Our prices are the lowest in town!! Serve yourself and save a lot of money!!”[/quote]
[quote]Honest Ed’s had a grand run. But it’s time is over, as the city and the neighbourhood around the store changed dramatically. Mirvish’s son, David, sold the building and the block around it to the Vancouver-based developer, Westbank Corp., three years ago.[/quote]
[quote]Initial plans call for an ambitious development of 55 buildings of residences, restaurants and shops organized around a grid of laneways and a covered public market reminiscent of 19th-century Toronto. It is to include 1,000 much-needed units of rental housing in a city with a vacancy rate of only 1.7 per cent.
It will be an enormous change for the area, and a big test for how the city handles such major projects – covering more than a square block at a landmark intersection in the city’s core.[/quote]
[url=https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2016/12/28/so-long-to-iconic-honest-eds-editorial.html]**SOURCE**[/url]
The proposed look of the new mixed use complex:
[img]https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/uploads/2015/3/3/1000-honest-eds-two.jpg[/img]
Of course, it's Westbank Corp., who repeatedly moved goalposts once building permits were approved in Vancouver on several developments, plus like the other big ones in town like Cadillac Fairview and Concord Pacific they lean towards the "foreign" markets for buyers, so the ambitious rise in the vacancy rate is pink noise because most of us won't be able to afford the rental units anyways.
Real shame. I heard they wanted to save the sign like Sam the Record Man, but that they're not sure if the sign will survive being taken down. I've been in there a few times, it was really easy to get lost in there. The place was like a maze. I remember going into the bathroom there once and seeing holes in the floor where more toilets used to be back before they had to put in handicapped stalls, and there was barely enough room to get into them anyways.
Damn.
The only time I've been, I went with some friends, I wandered off from the group and what resulted was about an hour's worth of being lost looking for them
I bought some pillows from the store a few weeks ago. Place looked real empty and run down, kinda sad... but at least I got one trip in before it did shut down.
[QUOTE=Daemon White;51599803]I bought some pillows from the store a few weeks ago. Place looked real empty and run down, kinda sad... but at least I got one trip in before it did shut down.[/QUOTE]
The place looked run-down even when it was full.
Wonder when Toronto will become nothing but high rise apartments like that Sim City 3000 city
[QUOTE=DaCommie1;51599825]The place looked run-down even when it was full.[/QUOTE]
I remember Guelph's Len's Mills building in the 90's. Basically an early 20th century factory crammed with fabrics and craft supplies but without all the cleanliness or renovations you'd expect in operating out of such an old building so the basement where all the foam was stored was a dungeon you could walk around in.
Shame they're losing a landmark but from the sounds of things those apartments are really needed.
Shit, I was hoping I could go to Canada and see it some time, I first heard about it from reading Scott Pilgrim and was baffled that it was an actual store, sucks big time that it's closing down but it seems like it'll do the people of Toronto good to have those new apartments. Plus as a Scott Pilgrim fan there's always Pizza Pizza and Second Cup for when I visit Canada in 2017.
People talking about "the good" these condos will do need to realize that Toronto is building over 100 condo/high-rise buildings right now as I type this, with demand fuelled by foreign investors, and is the most expensive real-estate market in Canada. The city is slowly turning into what DHB said, and condos/high-rises are destroying numerous old buildings. Hell, my university tore down an iconic record store to put up the ugliest glass monolith possible that looks like it's going to fall into the street one day.
gentrification indicates that these condos will be built for the property value and not to actually alleviate the housing shortage
Genuinely heartbreaking to see this go. I bought a sign as a memento. Even if I'd only ever bought something thrtr once or twice its such a part of the city I can't imagine seeing it go for a few high rises in the middle of bloor.
I understand the necessity of new housing, don't get me wrong. But this still makes me really sad. Honest Ed's had a huge amount of character with its amazingly gaudy visage. Even with the benefits of new residential areas, it still kind of feels that Toronto will lose a little bit of its character.
I hope the new complex finds a way to replicate the charm of the old establishment, if only by a little.
What a shame. No plans for moving it elsewhere?
[QUOTE]Then he sat down to write his first ad: “Our building is a dump! Our service is rotten!! Our fixtures are orange crates! But!! Our prices are the lowest in town!! Serve yourself and save a lot of money!!”[/QUOTE]
now [I]this[/I] is a fucking ad
[QUOTE=latin_geek;51600560]What a shame. No plans for moving it elsewhere?
now [I]this[/I] is a fucking ad[/QUOTE]
Even if it moved, it wouldn't be the same. That whole neighbourhood is named after the Mirvish family because of Honest Ed Mirvish and his influence there through that store.
It's worth noting too that the Mirvish family owns most of Toronto's performing arts theatres. Honest Ed's has made that family very wealthy.
[QUOTE=DaCommie1;51600360]People talking about "the good" these condos will do need to realize that Toronto is building over 100 condo/high-rise buildings right now as I type this, with demand fuelled by foreign investors, and is the most expensive real-estate market in Canada. The city is slowly turning into what DHB said, and condos/high-rises are destroying numerous old buildings. Hell, my university tore down an iconic record store to put up the ugliest glass monolith possible that looks like it's going to fall into the street one day.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=StrawberryClock;51600388]gentrification indicates that these condos will be built for the property value and not to actually alleviate the housing shortage[/QUOTE]
Wow that's awful, the fact that these aren't even to help the housing shortage first is disgusting. Honestly sucks to see that happen, you need to have the older icons remaining to preserve the history of the city, without it then you lose not only a piece of history but you lose some of the life of your city as well.
It was time for Toronto to drown in the sweet sorrow of Honest Ed's!
[img]http://gleanernews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Scott-Pilgrim-4.jpg[/img]
What a cultural icon. Should become a historical site.
20$ says highrise penthouses that does shit to fix the city's housing problems but sell out in 5 minutes to chinese
[QUOTE=Sableye;51602750]20$ says highrise penthouses that does shit to fix the city's housing problems but sell out in 5 minutes to chinese[/QUOTE]
I really wish there was a crazy high tax on property for non citizens (citizen as in born or permanent resident)
[QUOTE=viperfan7;51607790]I really wish there was a crazy high tax on property for non citizens (citizen as in born or permanent resident)[/QUOTE]
Vancouver put in a 15% tax on foreign buyers. Even that was a hard one to pass because the chinese knew exactly who this was being enforced on (them, because they're bottom feeding scum) and started screaming "WAAAAAAAAAA THIS IS RACIST!"
I mean, the 15% has hit sales here month over month but the more wealthy and risk taking prospecters see it as chump change.
Were they liquidators? This definitely came first but it reminds me of the Ollies Bargain Outlets we've got.
[QUOTE=McSkinny;51602192]It was time for Toronto to drown in the sweet sorrow of Honest Ed's!
[img]http://gleanernews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Scott-Pilgrim-4.jpg[/img]
What a cultural icon. Should become a historical site.[/QUOTE]
They should definitely preserve the sign or some other iconic aspect of it, but the building itself feels like a deathtrap. Having been in it, I can say that it is extremely run down and hard to navigate, but at the same time that's also a lot of its charm.
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