From the 1840s until the Second World War, waves of newcomers who migrated to Toronto – Irish, Jewish, Italian, African American and Chinese, among others – landed in ‘The Ward.’ Crammed with rundown housing and immigrant-owned businesses, this area, bordered by College and Queen, University and Yonge streets, was home to bootleggers, Chinese bachelors, workers from the nearby Eaton’s garment factories and hard-working peddlers. But the City considered it a slum, and bulldozed the area in the late 1950s to make way for a new civic square.
The Ward finally tells the diverse stories of this extraordinary and resilient neighbourhood through archival photos and contributions from a wide array of voices, including historians, politicians, architects, storytellers, journalists and descendants of Ward residents. Their perspectives on playgrounds, tuberculosis, sex workers, newsies and even bathing bring The Ward to life and, in the process, raise important questions about how contemporary cities handle immigration, poverty and the geography of difference.
John Lorinc is a journalist and editor. He reports on urban affairs, politics, business, technology, and local history for a range of media, including The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Corporate Knights and Spacing, where he is senior editor. John is the author of five books, including No Jews Live Here: A Memoir (Coach House Books, 2024), and has co-edited eight anthologies for Coach House, including The Ward (2015), Any Other Way (2017), and Messy Cities (2025). John is the recipient of the 2019/2020 Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy and was the winner of the Writers' Trust Balsillie Prize for Public Policy, for Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias (2022). He lives in Toronto.
Michael McClelland, OAA, FRAIC, is a registered architect with over twenty years of experience. He is actively involved in the promotion of Canada’s architectural heritage and is a founding member of the Canadian Association of Professional Heritage Consultants (CAPHC). Prior to establishing E.R.A. Architects with Edwin Rowse in 1990, McClelland worked for the Toronto Historical Board. He is the recipient of a certificate of recognition from the Ontario Association of Architects and the Toronto Society of Architects for his outstanding contributions to architecture and a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.
Ellen Scheinberg is a historian, writer and the president of Heritage Professionals, which specializes in archival, museum and information management initiatives. She lives in Toronto.
Tatum Taylor is a writer and heritage specialist at ERA Architects. She holds a master's degree in historic preservation from Columbia University, where she worked on the editorial team for the Future Anterior Journal. She is actively involved with ICOMOS Canada and the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario's Executive Committee. Her interests include the interpretation of under-documented community histories and the connections between place, memory and language.
