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Ted Plantos, a very passionate Cabbagetowner.
My little tribute to the man.
Soon after I started this Cabbagetown site I was contacted by Ted Plantos, who had been born and raised in Cabbagetown / Regent Park. I had never heard of Ted, nor he of me, but we seemed to remember and enjoy pretty much the same things from our old neighbourhood. He was a few years older than me but he had haunted the same restaurants, stores and movie houses that I did. We both knew the same families but had hung out in different circles mostly due to our age difference, so we had never bumped into each other, at least not that we could recall. We hit it off pretty well and went on for a couple of years discussing Cabbagetown, both past and present. Always through email, we never did get around to meeting each other face to face. Many times one of us would fill in the missing pieces in the other's memory, then off we'd go yapping about some long forgotten place or thing. He was really pissed off that the Yuppies had moved into the area just north of Cabbagetown and stolen the name, obviously they took it because it sounded so trendy. However, I told him I didn't really care about all that since the real Cabbagetown had been dead and buried for decades, all I wanted to do was keep those precious memories of the area alive. This freaked him out and we got into one of our frequent "not talking to each other" bouts. Finally, I challenged him to post his feelings on this site, which he did, although not as passionately as I had hoped he would. I have posted that response below. He also sent along some quotes from other Cabbagetown authors, then I added my two cents worth. Ted, as it turned out, was a successful author and poet. Although not as well known as Margaret Attwood or Pierre Berton, he still had quite a body of published work under his belt. He told me that all our discussions about Cabbagetown had inspired him to write a short story. He sent me a copy of the story which he called Ragtown. When I asked him why he didn't call it Cabbagetown, he said American's wouldn't buy a book about a Canadian place. Anyway, the story was published in his last book, The Shanghai Noodle Killing, (Seraphim Editions, 2000) although the finished story is somewhat different than the draft he sent me. The book is 125 pages with 18 short, but very interesting stories. Hey, I'm even mentioned in the aknowledgements at the front, and he used my real name as one of the Ragtown characters. So I'm a little bit proud of that. The Shanghai Noodle Killing can be purchased from Seraphim Editions at the below link. Ted had quite the immagination and it makes for a fun read. Anyway, I suddenly stopped getting emails from Ted and his website disappeard at the same time. Then I found out months later that Ted died of cancer early in 2001. I was very shocked since he had never told me he was ill. I'm going to miss Ted, especially the many times we locked horns over some stupid little unimportant detail. I guess we were both pig-headed and that made our conversations all the more fun. Here are a couple of tribute pages by others about Ted Plantos that say it better than I ever could. Ted Plantos By His Literary Friends The Great Cabbagetown Border DebateI had thought of deleting the stuff below
due to the fact that
I don't think anybody really cares about Cabbagetown borders anymore,
but I changed my mind and left it up in Ted's honor.
The great Canadian and Cabbagetown author, Hugh Garner, is the ultimate authority on the true historical boundaries of Cabbagetown. There was no confusion in his mind nor in mine about the boundaries. I was born in Cabbagetown seven years prior to it being levelled for Regent Park. So I recall from my childhood the Cabbagetown that Garner spoke of in his classic novel. One reason for the confusion about Cabbagetown boundaries has to do with the fact that Cabbagetown and the neighbourhoods north of Gerrard were once lumped together into St. David's Ward. However, aside from the geographical boundaries, the name Cabbagetown is also synonymous exclusively with working class culture. Hugh Garner understood this. So listen to Hugh Garner, read his book, and learn the historical truth about Old Cabbagetown." Ted Plantos ~~~~~~~~~~"Toronto's Cabbagetown remains only a memory to those who lived in it when it was a slum. Less than half a mile long and even narrower from north to south, it was situated in the east-central part of the city, its boundaries being Parliament Street on the west, Gerrard Street on the north, the Don River on the east and Queen Street on the south. The slum area south of Queen Street was once called Corktown and was inhabited by Irish Catholic immigrants. To the west of Parliament Street was and is Moss Park, a neighbourhood now the temporary home or lighting place of a more transient type of slum-dweller. This neighbourhood is sometimes referred to as Cabbagetown, as is the area north of Gerrard,but this is an error." From Hugh Garner's Preface to
his novel"Cabbagetown" ~~~~~~~~~~"Cabbagetown is not to be found on maps nor is it described in
surveys...The word was applied to that part of Toronto lying south of
Gerrard Street, north of Queen and east from Parliament Street to the
Don...The name was taken from the vegetable itself. In this area, which
must have covered a couple of hundred acres, nearly every back yard was
a garden of sorts and cabbages were the product most striking to the
eye."
J.V. McAree The borders of Cabbagetown
have become hazy due to some geographical juggling. This
caused what I have come to call "The Great Cabbagetown
Border Debate."
As a kid, Cabbagetown was my
neighbourhood, my turf, my stomping ground, but most of all
it was my home, and it was where I grew up. I walked those
streets from long ago, so therefore, I claim that I should
know the borders.
The original Cabbagetown
borders ran from the Don River in the east to Parliament
Street in the west, and from Gerrard St. in the north to
Queen Street in the south. These were the boundaries that
were told to me by my Cabbagetown elders and I have no
reason in the world to doubt the word of those that were
there before I was born.
The area north of Gerrard,
which now claims the name, was never considered to be part
of Cabbagetown. It was known as Don Vale, but quite often we
kids called it "Winchester" because the kids up there went
to Winchester Public School. Beginning in the 1970's, the
old houses in this area were renovated and the area became
very trendy and exclusive. Suddenly fancy boutiques and
expensive little restaurants and pubs sprang up on Parliament
between Wellesley and Gerrard and also along Carlton Street.
Figuring this area needed a trendy name, they decided to
call it Cabbagetown. Now the nice little tourist maps and
walking tour maps of the area exclude the real Cabbagetown
which lies to the south. Parliament Street is starting to
settle down a bit now, there has been a few bargain stores
popping up between the the ritzy joints of late.
West of Parliament Street was
known as Moss Park. I know a lot of people that grew up in
that area the 40's and 50's, and they're just as proud of
their heritage in Moss Park as those that came from
Cabbagetown. They have no desire to claim a Cabbagetown
background.
South of Queen Street was
called Corktown, but those living there were considered
Cabbagetowners. The area on the eastern side of the Don
River south of Gerrard was referred to as just Broadview. If
you wandered north of Gerrard Street, you were in Riverdale.
For the most part though, the whole area was just known as
"Across The Bridge" to the Cabbagetown kids.
That's not to say that
Cabbagetowners excluded people from other areas into our
groups or homes. We all had friends and relatives that lived
outside Cabbagetown proper, and there was always a flow of
people moving both ways.
Punchy
So there you have it, four
perspectives from from real Cabbagetowners who all seem to agree
on the borders of Cabbagetown.
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