Niagara Falls, then and now: old downtown

(click on photos to enlarge!)
Below: Looking east along Bridge St., towards Erie St., at a parade, ca.1919 or 1925. (NFLA) The Grand Trunk railway station is on the left, the Hotel Trennick is on the right. Note the tracks (railway or streetcar??) on the south (Bridge St. side) of the station.
Above: same view, Sept.14, 2007, by R. Bobak; the VIA station on the left is still in service; the yellow-bricked (former Trennick) Europa hotel on the right has been vacant for years. The streetcar tracks are long gone from this wide boulevard.
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Below: Looking under Michigan Central railway bridge towards Bridge St. and the Whirlpool bridge, seen in the distance, Sept.20, 1927. (NFLA) In the foreground is the International Railway station for the Great Gorge streetcar route. Tracks used the two east sections under the bridge, River Rd. ran under the west section.

Above: Same view, May 6, 2008, looking north along River Rd. under the now-abandoned Michigan Central railway bridge. Where the streetcar tracks once were, to the right, is now an entrance lane for cars entering the Whirlpool bridge to cross the border into the United States.

Niagara Falls, Then and Now: The old Post Office

(Click on photos to enlarge!)
above: former Niagara Falls Customs and Post Office, on the north-east corner of Zimmerman Ave. and Park St., circa 1919. Note that the street we know today as Zimmerman Ave. was then called Clifton Ave. Photo from the Niagara Falls Library archive.
above: same view, May 5, 2008, photo by R. Bobak. View is looking east along Park St., Zimmerman Ave. crosses left to right. A Michigan Central Railroad bridge is seen crossing Park St. in the right distance. Beyond the railway bridge, in the far distance behind the trees, is seen a high-rise building - this building is located  in the United States, across the Niagara River gorge!
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below: First "Trackless Train", displayed on the Park St. side of the old Post Office, ca 1925.
Niagara Falls Library Archive notes:
 "Funded by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the U.S. Tire Company, the Trackless Train operated like a truck, but outwardly looked like a locomotive train. It featured an engine, cab, and a combination dining and sleeping car. The trackless train made a cross-country trip from New York City to Los Angeles from March 1925 through March 1926, in order to promote the development of a national highway system as advocated by Herbert Hoover. In Dayton the National Cash Register Company allowed its 6500 employees time off to view the train. The Sandusky Register, June 24, 1925, reported that the rubber tires on the novel vehicle had been driven for 5850 miles without going flat." Details provided by Sandusky Library Archives. "
   So here was the foreshadowing of transportation yet to come... this vehicle (disguised, ironically, as a train) promoted the construction of future interstate highways, yet also consequently led to the demise of the train as a primary passenger carrier!
The very-busy-at-the-time Michigan Central Railroad tracks ran just behind the Post Office where the trackless train was displayed: the abutments of the railroad bridge which crossed Park St. can be seen at the far right in the old photos above and the new photos below.
The great Michigan Central line entered Canada just a block away behind this building. In fact, as this "trackless-train" was being displayed, the MCR had just built a brand new railroad bridge here in 1925, replacing their earlier Cantilever bridge over the Niagara river.
The MCR line ran from this location in Niagara Falls, through a straight cannonball run across southern Ontario farm country, all the way to Windsor, where it re-entered the United States again; this was part of their main route from New York City to Chicago. By 1999, the MCR bridge and the trackage all the way to Windsor were abandoned.


above: same view where the "Trackless Train" was once displayed, as seen on May 6, 2008, by R. Bobak. The Post Office building has sat vacant and boarded up for years. The date on a stone (seen above the middle window at the very top of photo) reads 1883. (Reports say the building's cost was $30,000, and it was was opened in 1885)
This building was also a police station until the 1970's.
below: The morgue scene, in the film "Niagara", was shot here, showing Marilyn Monroe walking into the building through those front doors on the corner, seen at the bottom right. The scene was filmed here on June 11, 1952, while many fans watched the exterior action, as the policeman, played by Irish actor Denis O'Dea, led Monroe into the "city morgue' to look at a body.
The photo below looks northwards along the east-side of Zimmerman Ave. At the far left is seen the former Imperial Bank of Canada building, which stands at the south-east corner of Zimmerman Ave. and Bridge St.

above: the same view as above, seen on Apr.9, 1959, with Niagara police officers standing by their cruisers (Chevys!) and motorcycles parked along Zimmerman Ave. in front of the then-active police station.

above: closer view of the former Imperial Bank of Canada building, at the s/e corner of Bridge St. and Zimmerman Ave. Click here for a view of the same building as it was seen in 1919. The Hamilton Travel Ageny building is seen at the far right.

below: W.J. Hamilton Travel Agency in Oct. 1975.

above: the W.J. Hamilton Travel Agency as seen Sept.28, 1965.

 The ivy-clad rear wall of the Imperial Bank building is seen at the far left.

below: 2010 - same building as a Christian fellowship center

below: Oct.27, 1975, looking at the J.A. Newport Ltd. offices. The Hamilton Travel Agency was in the building seen at the far left.

above: same view, 2010, now home to Affiliated Customs Brokers. A bit of the former Hamilton Travel is seen at the far left.

below: summer 2010 - residential building on the north-west corner of Zimmerman and Park St.: this building is directly across the street from the old Customs and Post office building seen previously. Zimmerman Ave. is seen running along the bottom.

above: same view, Oct.1975, when this was home to Fred's Custom Cycle shop, at 4567 Zimmerman Ave.
Thirty years before this photo was taken, back in 1945, this same building was a gasoline service station run by A.D. Franks. In 1938, this was the Robin Hood Service Station, the address at the time being 567 Clifton Ave. (later, the street name was changed to Zimmerman Ave., and still later, the city street addresses were prefixed to make them four-number addresses.)
Note, at the far-upper-left distance, the top of another building is seen; this building faced onto the south-side of Park St., and in the 1970's was part of St.Jude's men's shelter; it was torn down in May 1976 - see more here.
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I hope you have enjoyed reading about these aspects of Niagara's past.
Thanks for visiting Right in Niagara!
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Niagara Falls Then and Now: Rosbergs

above: looking at north-east corner of Erie Ave. and Queen St. in 1907. The block of buildings at the near right would become amalgamated into the Rosberg's department store. Note streetcar tracks (starting at far left (west) of photo) turning corner from Queen St. onto Erie Ave. - where they also cross a set of Michigan Central railway tracks! The tracks are shown coming from the bottom right of photo and going along Erie Ave. at a north-west angle; the tracks quickly veered off to the west (left) halfway down the block (between Queen St. and Park St.), then continued N/W and crossed Park St. just west of Erie Ave., then they went west parallel to Park St. (in behind houses) The tracks continued west, (between Park St. and Bridge St.) crossing Crysler Ave., passing in front of houses along Park St. and continuing north-west where it crossed the intersection of Bridge St. and Victoria Ave. at a 45 degree angle. The Michigan Central had a station on the south-east corner of Erie St. and Queen St., just to the right of where the above photo was taken, and where the tracks in the foreground are coming from. At the far end of Erie St. in the photo above can be seen the Niagara Falls CN railway station, which sits parallel to Bridge St. in the distance. This same CN station building is still in service.
above: Rosbergs in 1958.

Above: Rosbergs in May 1965 before exterior renovation. (NFLA)

above: same corner; Rosbergs Department Store under renovation, date unknown (must be pre-Sept. 1977, though; see photo further below after reno) Photo from NFLA . Note tracks are still seen in front of Rosbergs along Erie Ave. in older photos.

Above: Rosbergs in the glory years: Sept. 1977. (Niagara Falls Library Archive-NFLA)

Above: Rosbergs Department Store, as seen on May 5, 2008, at the north-east corner of Queen St. And Erie Ave. Niagara Falls Ont. Building has been vacant for years. The tracks are no longer in place on Erie Ave. Note the same tilted tree at the right, still growing by the side of the building, along Queen St., thirty-one years later. Photo by R. Bobak

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The Rosbergs building was destroyed by fire on Oct.4, 2009 - see more here

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Greenbelt vassals pay tithe to Liberal Lord Bradley

Below: visitors tour the peach orchard at Nokara Farms, on Lakeshore Rd. in St. Catharines, May 4, 2008.
Below, Joe Ferretti talks to visitors. A sign behind reads 'Good things used to grow, in Ontario'.
Below: a view of the crowd from Lakeshore Rd., gathered in front of the barn at Nokara Farms. About a hundred people attended two farm tours given that day.

I wonder if St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley has any comments regarding the May 3, 2008 story in the St. Catharines Standard, “Where do we grow from here?”

I didn’t see Bradley at Joe and Kathryn Ferretti’s May 4, 2008 public tour of Nokara Farms to view the acres of peach orchard, now in bloom, which the Ferrettis will be forced to pull out due to the CanGro plant closure.

Bradley hasn’t publicly explained how his “greenbelt” “helped” Nokara Farms … to bulldoze their own orchards!

Remember when good ole Greenbelt Bradley was smugly fear mongering that “The Tories can't wait to get the bulldozers revved up and start plowing this land." (St. Catharines Standard, Oct.19, 2005)?

Well, it is Liberal MPP Jim Bradley who is driving the bulldozers today, on farms right in Niagara; right in his own riding!

Remember good ole Greenbelt Bradley, bragging how his greenbelt would 'save the cucumber trees'?

 

I guess saving peach trees – or the farmers that invest, grow, and tend them – aren’t on Bradley’s priority list these days.

Maybe Bradley can run and hide from the CanGro closing by deferring it to Kim Craitor, because the plant is/was in Craitor’s riding.

Maybe Bradley can activate his magical cloaking device and vanish from view when it comes to respond to the Duffins, because they’re fruit farmers from Pelham. (They recently said Bradley’s Liberals “walked away” from the table when the Duffins were trying to save CanGro)

But Nokara Farms is in St. Catharines, in Bradley’s own riding – and still, Ole Greenbelt Bradley was invisible!

What's Bradley's excuse now?

Kalvin Reid wrote in “Greenbelt protecting endangered trees”, (St. Catharines Standard, Feb. 1, 2006):

“Ontario's greenbelt was established to protect rapidly-vanishing natural areas of southern Ontario, and that's exactly what it's doing, says St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley.

Particularly in the case of the red mulberry and cucumber trees, which are listed as endangered in Ontario and are protected within the bounds of the greenbelt.

"The greenbelt is there to protect natural areas of the province in perpetuity," said Bradley, the minister of tourism with responsibility for the greenbelt foundation. "Without it, urban sprawl would continue to creep out, step by step, onto environmentally-sensitive lands."

Yet today, under Bradley, the farmer is the one "rapidly-vanishing" and 'creeping out' of existence. Bradley’s greenbelt supposedly 'protects endangered trees' - but what does it do to "protect" the endangered farmer? Bradley's 'greenbelt' never mentions much about the actual farmer, does it?

"The wilderness we have out there would simply disappear without the greenbelt," Bradley rationalized then. Yet today, Bradley runs and hides when asked to provide details how his greenbelt “helped” the Ferrettis. Farmers and their trees are now 'disappearing WITH' Bradley’s greenbelt!

The “endangered species” is now becoming the farmer! Yet, where is Ole Jim Greenbelt Bradley’s voice?

The St. Catharines Standard editorial of Nov.25, 2003 wrote about the newly-elected Liberal government’s murky greenbelt plans.

“Niagara has a strong voice at the cabinet table in St. Catharines MPP and Tourism Minister Jim Bradley, whose desire to see tender- fruit lands preserved is well-known. Bradley vowed late last week that farmers will be consulted and he acknowledged the need to ensure viable farms if the land is to be frozen in that use.
We can be sure Bradley will make his voice heard, but we need to make sure others are equally vocal so Niagara's interests are well represented in development of the greenbelt commission.”

Where's that supposedly "strong voice" today?!

That “strong voice” of Jim B.S. Bradley today has become a muted whimper!

Today, Bradley has no song-and-dance routine with which to smugly bluff his way through this embarrassing blowback to his statist Liberal dogma.

Here’s some of the discussion from Ontario's Legislative Assembly on Apr.22, 2008:

“Mr. Tim Hudak: A question to the Premier: On Friday, the remaining 120 workers at CanGro in Niagara were summoned to hear the very unfortunate news that the deal to purchase and invest in the facility fell through, and they would be out of work. The Premier knows a private sector consortium, led by respected Niagara business leaders, was bringing about $20 million to the table to keep the plant open and was looking for provincial support. Premier, why did the province of Ontario walk away from the table and allow CanGro to close?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I'll speak to the first question; I know my colleague will want to speak to the supplementary.

Let me tell you that we worked as hard as we possibly could to pull out all the stops, to find a way to bring parties to the table and to ensure that parties might be willing in terms of ensuring some kind of succession plan for this business. We know this is really tough on the families. We have a number of programs in place, close to $2 billion now by way of special programs, including our Next Generation of Jobs Fund. I know that the minister could speak to the details of this, but my advice to my colleagues was to do everything we possibly could to see if we might land some kind of a succession plan for this particular enterprise. Unfortunately, it was not there. We could not make it happen. It is with great regret that the ensuing result has been made apparent, but we will work as hard as we can with those workers in that community, and throughout Ontario, to find new jobs.

Mr. Tim Hudak: I say to the Premier that municipal leaders, business leaders and tender fruit growers would have a completely different view, indeed, about the lack of activity of the province of Ontario to try to save this plant. The Premier also knows that this impacts on some 150 growers representing 2,600 acres of pear and peach land in the peninsula. They're now being pulled out of the ground.

Premier, when it comes to the greenbelt, you have become an absentee landlord. You find a way to give Magna Corp. some $50 million, and they're paying their CEO some $40 million per year. Last week, you gave a foreign-owned pharmaceutical plant some $14 million, despite their $4 billion in international sales.

Premier, I ask you, why do you give big grants to foreign-owned multinationals, but walk away from tender fruit growers and workers in Niagara?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Economic Development and Trade.

Hon. Sandra Pupatello: I'm very happy to address this, and I want to say first off that the very premise of the member's supplementary question simply is not based in fact. I have to say that we have had ongoing discussions on a personal level, both my ministry and the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, with Lord Mayor Burroughs. There are members who are leaders from the Niagara region who are in the House today who will attest to the work that we in my ministry have done on a personal level on this particular issue. We have worked very hard to try to keep CanGro in operation in the Niagara region as the last remaining canning opportunity here in Ontario.

When we were at the table, making the offers that we have made, we needed to have the company at the table with us. Unfortunately, CanGro was not in a position to want to work with the numbers of people that we brought to the table to try to do a deal. That's a very unfortunate outcome. We will work very diligently with the economic commission of the Niagara region, as we have in the past. The leadership is here today that will prove that that has in fact been the case and will continue to be the case, to find good jobs-

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.”

That’s it ??

‘We tried …’ ??!

So what if some farmers suffer for the Greater Good that is “the greenbelt”? So what that the Liberals walked away from a deal, (just like McGuinty walked away from that cancer patient during the election)?

The St. Catharines Standard wrote in "Where do we grow from here?" (May 3, 2008): “Food sovereignity is the right of people, communities and countries to define their own agricultural, food, labour, and land policies that are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate for their circumstances.”

Well, that mouthful of rhetoric just about covers and explains everything, both for and against the greenbelt, environmentalism, statism, interference with free trade, freezing property rights, wage controls, you name it.…!

McGuinty has become more than just an "absentee landlord" – his Liberals have usurped our sovereignity. Farmers are now vassals to their Liberal master’s greenbelt, and paying their tithe to local Liberal Lord Bradley for the privilege.

The Greenbelt was “devastating” to his farm said Mr. Ferretti, who explained to the gathered crowd he had worked his farm since he was 25; and that only now had he and his wife got it to the point that they could leave something for their kids.

Standing in the orchard, amongst those thousands of doomed peach trees bursting with their pink-blossomed promise of spring, many of us in the crowd at Nokara Farms felt an overwhelming sense of loss.
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Stealth MPP Jim Bradley's cloaking device - it's not science fiction anymore!

R. Bobak wrote in “If only CanGro was a cricket club…”, (St. Catharines Standard, May 2, 2008):

“Re: How the deal went sour, The Standard, April 26.

I was hoping to read, in The Standard's report on the CanGro fiasco, local MPP Jim Bradley's explanation as to why his Liberal government decided, as fruit farmers Bill and Kim Duffin said, to walk away from helping them save the plant.

Many people in Bradley's St. Catharines riding work there, so presumably he would have thoroughly explained how hard he worked to get a deal done on behalf of his constituents.

No such luck. Neither did we get anything from Liberal Economic Development and Trade Minister Sandra Pupatello, who disappeared - ironically - to China on a trade mission.

I hope Pupatello returned with some great trade deals on Chinese fruit imports!

If political ineffectiveness was an Olympic team sport, Bradley's Liberals would be gold-medal champions. Dalton McGuinty's new Liberal theme-song should be an off-key rendition of "Good things used to grow, in On-ta-ri-o . . . "

If only CanGro had been a cricket club, the Liberals already would have gladly handed over a million or two - and that's with no questions asked.”

It looks like the Liberal team sport also includes relay-type pass-the-hot-file contests, where if you ask one MPP about an issue, he’ll pass it onto another, but the question never really gets answered.

Jim Bradley has vanished when it comes time to explain how his Liberal’s grandiose greenbelt legislation contributed to the loss of the CanGro fruit cannery and its 150 jobs. What, just because CanGro is in Kim Craitor’s riding next door, Bradley is suddenly bereft of having anything of substance to say to HIS OWN constituents??!! (see Good things USED to grow, in On - ta - ri - o! )

Bradley has left it to Craitor to fumble around with the questions surrounding the Niagara Health System’s “review of reviews” yet, the mortality-rate in the St. Catharines hospital (third highest in Canada, according to a Nov.2007 CIHI study) - which is in Bradley’s backyard - remains unexplained. (see Jim "Crackpot" Bradley's Liberal realism)

As I outlined in Jim Bradley's Smoggy-Bottom Grits , Bradley, in opposition, would even travel outside of the country to politically agitate against the sitting government, if he thought he could score some brownie points.

Now, Bradley is MIA, missing in action, regardless of whether an issue pertains solely to his own riding, or is more general in scope (which is more often the case, anyway).

We’ve heard more of Bradley’s promises and bluster about Go/trains/buses while he was in opposition, than when he was in government. (See: Go Train to Niagara runs into Liberal fog)

We’ve heard from Bradley about how supposedly-divisive and destructive publicly-funded faith-based schools are, while an extremely successful one sits in his own riding. (See: Jim Bradley's faith-based two-face)

We've heard Bradley bleat about controlling gas prices, when prices were half of what they are today, yet now, Bradley - the Transportation Minister (!) - has nothing to say about that! (Liberal Jim Bradley's deception on gasoline prices)

We’ve heard that the Niagara Health System had to cancel 190 surgeries recently, yet we heard nothing from Bradley as Ontarians are forced to travel to the U.S. for treatment. (See: Sadistic Liberal health-care in Ontario)

Bradley has been sitting as a St. Catharines MPP for thirty years, and was on city council even before that; now we hear that St. Catharines is being blamed by Bradley’s MTO for delaying a local QEW-emergency traffic plan? What’s Bradley been doing about that for three decades? Jim Bradley has become a smug and arrogant member of an unresponsive Liberal government! He's the vaporous, elusive, stealth MPP - we know he's hovering nearby, yet he's hidden and untouchable!

On so many issues, Liberal Jim Bradley’s silence is becoming glaringly conspicuous.

Eden: the kind of faith-based school Liberals don't want for the rest of Ontario

Buddy Andres wrote in “The suggestion to close Eden should be dismissed”, (St. Catharines Standard, May 1, 2008):

“Re: Wynne is all bafflegab and hypocrisy, The Standard, April 19.

Despite my attempts to avoid the current educational storm that is raging here in Niagara-on-the-Lake, I have been helplessly drawn into the controversy.

Christina Blizzard's column was the straw that broke the camel's back, and simply cannot go unchallenged.

Her suggestion that Eden High School should be closed instead of Niagara District Secondary School truly baffles me.

Here we have a school that has been part of the Niagara-on-the-Lake fabric since the mid 1940s and was eventually absorbed by the District School Board of Niagara as an alternative school within the DSBN.

This unique union of a private school within the public school system was accomplished by school board administrators who understood the demographics of the Niagara area. I believe it was a first in the province.

Eden High School meets all provincial standards and promotes a curriculum that includes the Christian faith - not unlike the faith of the founding fathers of this country.
Eden has become wildly successful (200 students on the Grade 9 waiting list) and Christina Blizzard is advocating the closing of this institution in favour of a school experiencing a dramatic decrease in enrolment.

Eden must be doing something right - the school is bulging at the seams. However, let me add, that as a resident of Niagara-on-the-Lake, I would be very disappointed to see the demise of NDSS.

Is it any wonder that our society is dealing with so many problems when people like Blizzard advocate the closing of a school that promotes discipline, honesty, family values, respect for one another, and yes, even some religion.

Lord help us.”

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What is truly baffling is how anyone can write about how good Eden school is, yet not mention the political party whose mission it was in the 2007 election to destroy the idea of such schools by portraying them as divisive to society!

No mention in Andres letter of local Liberal MPP’s Kim Craitor, or Jim Bradley at all!

Jim and Kim denigrated the idea that Ontario should even have publicly-funded faith-based schools schools, such as Eden!

Jim and Kim retained power in Ontario by demonizing the educational model which has worked so well at Eden.

Jim and Kim’s Liberal Party did their best to downplay Eden as an anomaly, an oddity, an anachronism from bygone days.

Jim and Kim’s great secular Liberal Party made it clear that schools - such as Eden! - SHOULD NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY!!

During the election, Liberal campaign chair MPP Greg Sorbara claimed he wasn’t even familiar with Eden School!

Take a look at Blizzard’s column “Wynne is bafflegab and hypocrisy” (St. Catharines Standard, Apr.19, 2008) , which so irritated Andres:

“I can't decide. Does Eden High School prove the Liberals were right in their election campaign platform opposing public funding for faith-based schools?

Or does it show how absolutely correct the Tories were in asking that all faiths get school funding?

Located in St. Catharines, Eden is a Christian school, very successful and clearly popular with students and parents, since scores of kids are bused to it from neighbouring communities.
That supports the Tories' assertion - abandoned since their election rout - that religious schools are in great demand and provide an excellent education.

Supporting the Liberal platform is the fact the publicly-funded Christian school's success is eroding support for a truly public school. Niagara District Secondary School is Niagara-on-the-Lake's only public high school. Its enrolment is dwindling, since 168 students from Niagara-on-the-Lake now go to Eden - many of them bused there at taxpayer expense.
The school board insists this is just "courtesy" busing. The buses are going to St. Catharines for other programs anyway, so the Eden students can go along too. Still, it's hard to see how 168 bus spaces simply open up magically. That's about five buses of "courtesy" students.

Attendance at pre-school chapel is mandatory for Eden students and coincidentally the buses arrive in time for students to attend.

A number of Niagara-on-the-Lake parents are angry at the threatened closure of the public high school.

Taysha Palmer is looking down the road. When her 10-year-old daughter is ready for high school, she doesn't want her sitting on a bus two hours a day to go to the nearest schools in either Niagara Falls or St. Catharines.

Palmer points out there has been a lot of new development in Niagara-on-the-Lake recently, and the population is growing.

"A community of 25,000 people without a high school doesn't make sense," she said.
Eden High is especially popular with Mennonite parents, who like its uniforms, discipline and ethos.

On its website, the school describes itself as an "alternative" school within the District School Board of Niagara. As well as the pre-school chapel there's a Grade 9 Bible teaching program, described this way on its website: "Eden High School has a Bible teaching program for all Grade 9 students which runs from 8:25 to 8:50 a.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays before the official start of the school day. Grade 9 students will attend chapel on Mondays and Tuesdays. The Bible course is a survey of the main themes and content of the life of Christ, the book of Acts and an overview of the main themes of the Old Testament.

"Students must earn an overall mark of greater than 50 per cent to earn the privilege of attending chapel in Grade 10. Students who are not successful will be required to repeat either the entire course or part of the course the following year."

The board may claim the school is open to students of all faiths. Clearly, though, the reality is a Jewish, Muslim or atheist student is going to find the curriculum a tad unwelcoming.
This should be embarrassing for Education Minister Kathleen Wynne. After all, the Liberal government was returned to power proclaiming how private, faith-based schools would destroy the fabric of society.

"If you want the kind of Ontario where we invite children of different faiths to leave the publicly-funded system and become sequestered and segregated in their own private schools, then they should vote for Mr. Tory," Premier Dalton McGuinty said during the election.
I asked Wynne how the closure of NDSS sat with her, in light of how students are choosing faith-based schools in droves. And isn't this a model for a Jewish school in, say, Thornhill?
"The Education Act would not allow a public board to set up a faith-based school at this point," she said. So why does Eden get public funding, I asked?

"That school was established before those regulations were put in place and it's a grandfathered situation and the board has to make its decisions about its capital assets based on the best program delivery for kids."

Surely, though, on the heels of voters emphatically shutting out religious schools, if any school should close, it's the religious one.

You know what I think? I think Wynne is all bafflegab and hypocrisy. Either fund all faith-based schools or fund none."

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Clearly the Liberals have created a two-tier system through their election hypocrisy.

Yet, the “the straw that broke the camel’s back” for Buddy Andres was NOT what his local Liberals were saying about faith-based funding, but somehow, Blizzard’s recent column ?!!

Clearly Eden represents everything Liberals such as Jim Bradley and Kim Craitor claim to vehemently abhor!

Clearly the choice still is: to fairly fund all faith-based schools - as John Tory set out - or now, to fairly NOT publicly fund any.

Clearly, Eden’s enemy isn’t Blizzard … it's the hypocritical McGuintyites!

Buddy Andres should be asking whether the Liberals were lying about faith-based funding then, or whether they're being honest now.

Andres writes about what “people like Blizzard advocate …”, but Andres simply ignores what politicians like McGuinty 'advocate' !!

Andres, actually, isn’t clear what he himself is advocating: is he advocating keeping Eden in this exclusive "grandfathered" grey-zone, which is denied to others in Ontario, while Liberals continue to pretend how fair and secular and enlightened their government is?!

Andres doesn’t provide an answer to the proposition Blizzard placed before the forked-tongue Liberals: “Either fund all faith-based schools or fund none”

Yet, funding some, not all, is simply discriminatory. Eden may well have to suffer the burden for the sins of the McGuintyites.

Niagara Falls, then and now: village of Chippawa

below: Mar.13, 2009 - looking in a north-easterly direction towards the corner of Portage Rd. and Macklem St. in Chippawa, Ont. The Chippawa bridge is seen at the far right.

above: same view, ca. 1908-1910 - this was the old Baltimore House, which stood on the corner, at the far right. According to the Niagara Falls Library Archives, the frame house seen at the left, which fronted onto the north-side of Portage Rd., was erected in the 1890's and demolished around 1903. The portion seen at the right still stands today (see previous photo above); where the house once was is now an addition to the current restaurant. The original builder of the Baltimore House was a War Of 1812 veteran, John Kirkpatrick. Apparently, due to various construction/demolition over the years, not much of the actual original building is left, but for several walls.

Click on photos to enlarge!Above: Baltimore House historical marker, as seen on May 1, 2008, located in front of the current Boathouse Restaurant on the north-west corner of Macklem St. and Portage Rd., in Chippawa, Ontario. (...strangely, this sign vanished from its post apparently sometime around 2013 (??) and I heard a rumour that it had been thrown into the river across the street!! Don't know what really happened, but, as of 2015, the original sign is still missing, and has not been replaced)

Above: Baltimore House, 1928 (Niagara Falls Library archive)
Above: same location, March, 1969, as Murphy's variety store. (NF Library archive)
Above: same location, May 1, 2008, by R. Bobak. Now a tavern with a nice patio overlooking the Welland River and the Chippawa Weightman bridge, where in the summer local kids can be seen diving from the bridge into the backwards-flowing river. The Welland River's flow at Chippawa has been reversed: instead of it flowing naturally into the Niagara River, it has been re-engineered to draw water from the Niagara River, in order to to supply the hydro canal leading to the Adam Beck power plant.

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Below: July 1995. (Niagara Falls Library Archive) This souvenir shop (also known also the Mackenzie house) stood right across the street from the Baltimore House, on the south-west corner of Portage Rd. and Front St.

Above: same view; same location, on May 1, 2008 - a coffee shop's parking lot now covers the location where the souvenir shop once stood on the corner. Note the same tree is seen at the far right in both above photos.

Above: same view, Feb.26, 2009 - the top portion of the maple tree with the low main-trunk split (the same one seen at the far right side in the previous two above photos, along Portage Rd.) has now been cut down; the tree-trunk-split has been carved into a wood sculpture of a Thunderbird eagle, and is underway of being painted this day. (see also: The Chippawa Thunderbird )
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