I thought I’d mark the first day of school here with pictures of this cool old high-school.
It is called Central Tech, located on Bathurst south of Bloor. Situated on what was once a big apple orchard, the building of it began 99 years ago, with the first corner stone being laid on September 3rd, 1913. This was during the industrial revolution when there was much demand for education in fields such as chemistry, math, physics, drafting and mechanical engineering.
Enrollment began with about 150 daytime students, with a whopping 1,600 more people attending evening classed. I found it interesting to read that when it opened such a large majority were night school students, older people who had to attend after working during the day. In this part of the city those students who also worked would not have been employed on farms, like children who were kept from school would have been in the rest of the country, but rather probably worked at city jobs and construction, since so much was being built at this time.
Unlike most schools back then, this school was co-ed, with the girls have their own entrance and stairwells, in addition to being the only ones taught in the classrooms on the top floor. So while it was co-ed, there was no mingling of the genders at all!
Central Tech is the only school in all of Toronto that has the right to bear the crest of the city, because it is the only school that was build with only city funds and no provincial or federal money.
Nowadays, enrollment has reached 2,500 day students.
I pass it often because the streetcar on Bathurst goes right by. And though I’ve seen it many times, I never fail to look at it as I pass by. I grew up in a new subdivision and went to a modern high-school with little architectural character, so imagine that it would have been really neat to spend time within such a beautiful historic building.
Thank you for visiting. If you or people you love returned to school today, I hope it went well.
xo loulou
