The Legend Of Stinky's Park
There is a little Cabbagetown park at the S-E corner of Sumach and Shuter Streets called "Stinky's Park." It's just a tiny little park that I can honestly say that I had a part in naming. Of course this isn't the official name listed at City Hall, at least I don't think it is. In the early sixties The Coulter Brass building stood on this site. It was torn down and in it's place a playground and small park were put in.
Across the street on the S-W corner was a variety store owned by this crazy old coot and there was a rather peculiar odor there to say the least. Actually, the joint stunk.
Back then kids bought their candy at the variety stores in the bulk form, large jars on the counter full of two or three for a penny stuff that the owner would put in a bag until you ran out of money. Well kids can sometimes take a while to make up their minds, and this old geezer would lose his patience and throw us out without finishing our purchase. One day he threw us out and Johnny yelled back at him "This place smells like you let off forty beer farts". The rest of us started to laugh our heads off as the old coot started chasing us up the street. After that we started calling the place Stinky's and it wasn't long before everybody in the neigborhood was calling it that.
I guess the old boy up and died because some new people bought the store that became friends of mine. When they started to renovate the place they found all kinds of cash in the walls and under the floorboards. See I told you the old coot was crazy. That name stuck even with the new owners and I felt sorry for them even though by this time the name was harmless. This happened about 1963 and believe it or not the park and the store are still called "Stinky's" So now you know how Stinky's Park got it's name.
The Mystery Tunnels
Due to urban renewal during the fifties the houses around Cabbagetown became vacant, we would go into them and explore. There were several houses on the south side of Dundas between Belshaw Avenue and Sumach Street. These houses had really long backyards that stretched down along all the backyards on Belshaw Avenue which was the street that Terry and I lived on. So we just had to hop our back fences to gain access to these houses.
After these houses were vacated we discovered a series of tunnels about 30 inches in diameter running out into the yards and connecting all the basements of these houses. Not only that but there were tunnels running about 75 feet down to about the halfway point in a couple of the yards. The only use I could possibly think of for these extended tunnels would be as escape routes. But from who or what? All together there had to be about 300 feet of tunnels dug which would be a lot of work for just a lark. Besides, the kid in me would like to think they were used by smugglers or escaped convicts which is what we pretended when we were exploring them.
One possible reason for these tunnels could have been that they were used to hide runaway slaves during the Underground Railway days. Does anybody out there know about these tunnels. This is a mystery thats been bugging me since the fifties. If any of you Cabbagetowners know anything about them, please EMAIL me.
