Undressed Toronto by Dale Barbour

Author:Dale Barbour [Barbour, Dale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Canada, General, Social History, Social Science, Gender Studies
ISBN: 9780887559532
Google: 0c1WzgEACAAJ
Publisher: University of Manitoba Press
Published: 2021-10-15T02:44:00+00:00

Figure 6.13. The Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion, displayed for the camera, showcased the beach as a public space, 1924.

Figure 6.14. Sunnyside, children’s bathing beach, 6 August 1925. Images courtesy of City of Toronto Archives.

The Bathing Pavilion

The Sunnyside Amusement Park and the Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion represented the face of the harbour commission’s new waterfront, a space where the effort to attract a clientele competed with the effort to control how that clientele behaved. The $400,000 bathing pavilion was expected to set the tone for the entire recreation area. As chairman of the harbour commission in 1923, Home Smith argued it would “be such a model of excellence as to make possible the holding of concessionaires and others to the same high standard.”142 The pavilion was modelled after a facility at Lynn Beach, Massachusetts, but Alfred Chapman was responsible for its distinctive design.143 Chapman used a Italian Renaissance design on the beach side of the building, while he drew on Byzantine influences for the commanding Lake Shore Boulevard entrance.144 Those that passed through the entrance could walk up a flight of stairs to a terrace, which offered refreshments and a view of the beach.145 Change rooms were open to the elements, but women had dressing booths covered by canopies while the men made do with benches. The “boys” had their own entrance and change room, separated from the men’s change room by a six-foot-high metal fence.146 Admission cost twenty-five cents for adults and fifteen cents for children; bathing suits and towels could be rented and the facility included laundry facilities to ensure a steady supply of both.147 Other services included hairstylists, and first aid rooms for people who were injured.148

The swimming hole was not forgotten. The development’s original kiddie pool deliberately mimicked a natural bathing space (see Figure 6.14).149 Comics in the news media took the image even further to envision the kiddie pool as a primordial space.150 However, the rustic nature of the pool drew criticism from Toronto’s chief medical officer Charles Hastings, who complained the pool did not drain properly, leaving the water within it in a stagnant and foul condition. The original kiddie pool was replaced by the 1930s with a shallow round cement pool, a standardized model that would become a familiar sight in parks for decades.151

The bathing pavilion, more than any other place on the waterfront, represents the space where the harbour commission had the tools to achieve the control over behaviour and comportment that it yearned for.152 The pavilion included a proprietary relationship with the beach, with an area 1,200 feet long and 225 feet wide fenced in for the exclusive use of the pavilion’s patrons.153 An attendant activated a shower as people headed from the change room to the beach to ensure that everyone was cleansed before diving in. Two-piece bathing suits, with an upper shirt that draped over a set of shorts or skirt, were mandatory in the pavilion.154 However, that did not stop the Murray-Kay Company from greeting the opening of the pavilion with an advertisement for its “popular one-piece suits.

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