Introduction

The Dufferin Mall is an indoor shopping centre in the neighbourhood of Brockton Village, located on Dufferin Street and south of Bloor Street West, across from the Dufferin Grove Park. Often maligned (but somewhat affectionately) as “The Dirty Duff,” a nickname popularized by an Instagram account under the same name. However, although the mall doesn’t appear to be visually distinct from other shopping centres, it is an interesting example of suburban commercial architecture that was imported into an established inner-city historical neighbourhood. Dufferin Plaza Shopping Centre originated as a L-shaped, open-air commercial establishment before it was enclosed as a mall and renamed in the early seventies.

There is an abundance of resources on the history of the Dufferin Park, which had occupied the current site of the mall, as well as some limited information on the history of the mall itself. The purpose of the article is to delve into the development of the Dufferin Plaza in the fifties and sixties, during the postwar boom and the height of the popularity of strip plazas in North America. In 1972, Greater York properties enclosed, enlarged, and simultaneously revitalized the aging mid-century shopping centre, transforming it into the city’s largest mall.

The plain and orderly mid-century modern architecture of the plaza represented the desire of its developers to bring modernism in architecture and lifestyle to an established post-industrial neighbourhood. Since the plaza’s architectural design and commercial offerings were the standard fare of the retail strips prevalent in Toronto’s suburban neighbourhoods, they were associated with a certain type of conformist middle-class respectability common in the postwar period.

Yet, the shopping centre could not be divorced from its surroundings. Despite the association of the mid-century modern style with the suburban lifestyle, the plaza was situated within a set of established realities of inner-city life. The history of the plaza demonstrates that inserting an element of the suburban commercial landscape into an established urban neighbourhood could not replicate the suburban, orderly life within the old city.

“Toronto’s First Mid-Town Shopping Centre”

When the plaza first opened in the fall of 1957 at 890 Dufferin Street, it consisted of over fifty stores, with a parking lot for two thousand cars, with a total store frontage of fifteen hundred feet, located on a lot spanning twenty acres. Each shop in the plaza had its own street number and individual address and the plaza spanned the numbers 782 to 906 Dufferin Street.

Principal Investments Limited was the developer of the plaza, which is credited with introducing the concept of suburban style, open-air shopping centres in Canada. Archie B. Bennett (1891–1980) was the co-owner of the company. A successful businessman and commercial real estate developer, Bennett’s company also built the Sunnybrook Plaza in 1952 in Leaside, at Bayview Avenue and Eglinton Avenue West, Toronto’s first open-air shopping centre.

In the fifties, the company was considered to be the largest shopping centre developer in the country. However, when Principal Investments Limited found themselves without sufficient capital to complete the construction of the plaza, the remaining funds were provided by one of the key financers of the firm, John Pullman, a “courier for mob money,” according to Catherine Wismer’s Sweethearts: The Builders, The Mob, and the Men.

The company (which also managed the operation of the plaza after it was completed) dubbed as the city’s first and largest midtown shopping centre, according to newspaper advertisements.

By the middle of the decade, immigration began to alter the character of the surrounding community centred around Dufferin and Bloor Street West. Affordable (albeit aging) housing, established public transit network, and easy access to local jobs served to attract newcomers from Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece to the area.

Meanwhile, like elsewhere in the old residential neighbourhoods in the city, Brockton and Dovercourt also witnessed the postwar departure of their residents to the new suburban communities situated on the urban fringe of Toronto. Ironically, while diversity and multiculturalism were rapidly transforming the social fabric of the local community, its centre became dominated by a typical, mid-century modern strip plaza, a key feature of the homogeneous suburban landscape.

“A New Dimension in Shopping”

Dufferin Plaza provided shoppers with a variety of shops and services. It contained a number of venerable Canadian chain stores, including Tip Top Tailors (854 Dufferin Street), Agnew-Surpass Shoe Stores (number 876), Coles (number 886, opened on October 16th, 1958 and famous for its advertising slogan, “The Book People!”), Laura Secord Candy Shop (number 872), Tamblyn Drugs (number 869, opened on November 14th, 1957), United Cigar Store (number 886), Health Bread Bakery (number 850), Hunts’ Bakery Shop (number 888), Reitman’s (number 876), Little Lady Ellis Shops (number 892, a clothing store), and Fairweather (number 800, a clothing store).

Zellers (858 Dufferin Street), Loblaws (906 Dufferin Street), and Woolworth’s (900 Dufferin Street, later Woolco, presently the location of a discount department store) were the main anchors of the shopping centre in the fifties and sixties. Loblaws was located on the northern end of the parking lot as a separate structure not directly integrated into the shopping centre. It was later converted to a Loblaws, and a toy store presently occupies this space. Woolco also had a lunch counter, self-serve coin laundry and car wash service.

In an industry characterized by closures and mergers, two retail stores have remained opened in the mall for many years: Tip Top Tailors (operating at least since 1968 from a series of different storefronts) and Reitmans (at the same location since at least 1959).

The original location of Kromer Radio opened in the plaza in 1957 at number 846a Dufferin Street. On December 13th, 1957, Pickering Farms, a grocery store opened at the plaza (number 814).

Other commercial establishments located in the plaza were Family Fair (a small department store), Jerry Stevens Camera Shops, Albert’s Hardware, Perco Auto and Sports, Kerns Jewelry, Cavalier Gift Shop, Yolles & Burroughs (furniture), Babyland Furniture and Playthings, Bond Clothes, Dover (a clothing shop for boys and men), Maternity Fashions, Small Fry Shop, Walker’s (children’s clothing), Bata Shoes, Bunts’ Shoes, Masher’s (a shoe store), Avery’s Variety Value, Burden’s Hobby Lobby, Elna Sewing Centre, Singer’s Floor Covering and Carpet, Danforth Wines, and Brewers’ Retail.

The plaza also offered a number of professional personal services, such a beauty shop, a barber shop, shoe repair, dry cleaning, insurance, and advertising. A number of offices occupied by government ministries and non-profit agencies were also located in the shopping centre.

In 1961, Java Shoppe Restaurant, a diner (with a banquet room on the lower floor which had seating capacity of two hundred and fifty guests) opened in the plaza. The casual establishment served both comfort food and fine dining, with a boneless New York sirloin steak advertised as one its specialties. The holdings of the small company included three other locations in Toronto. This location was later sold and by the early 1960s, it was renamed simply the Dufferin Plaza Restaurant. A dollar store currently occupies the space. Another dining establishment, Castle Coffee Shop, opened in 1960 at 896 Dufferin Street.

Dufferin Plaza Bowling Lanes, a bowling alley offering both five-pin and ten-pin bowling, was situated in the basement of the plaza. The grand opening took place “on or about January 15th,” 1957. The alley was located at 786 Dufferin Street, near the southern edge of the shopping centre, close to Sylvan Avenue. It featured twenty-four “ultra modern lanes on one floor” constructed by the Double Diamond Bowling Supply and was equipped with Brunswick automatic ten pinsetters.

Night Shopping

Toronto’s mistrust of “night” shopping (in reality, shopping that took place in the evening during the dinner hour) in the late 1950s affected the operations of the shopping centre. In January 1958, the shop keepers of the Dufferin Plaza found themselves at odds with a city bylaw that required certain types of commercial retail establishments to close at 7:00 pm during the winter months. The bylaw applied to shoe, clothing, jewelry, and hardware stores. Keeping in tune with the city’s illogical rule regulating the operations of the retail industry at that time, merchants were allowed to keep their businesses open until 9:00 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

Fourteen plaza merchants sought to undermine the bylaw by keeping their shops open until 9:00 pm on Thursdays in January 1957. Some were faced with prosecution and fines. A year later, The Globe and Mail reported that the police would charge them if they decided to violate the bylaws again. John Watson, a rental agent for Principal Investments Limited, scoffed, “What a sorry mess when merchants are forced to break the city bylaws in order to serve the needs and buying habits of the general public.”

The merchants were ultimately successful in challenging to confusing bylaw. Beginning on March 28th, 1962, a number of the shops in the plaza were open Monday to Friday until 9:00 pm. According to the shopping-centre management who placed large ads in The Globe and Mail, the extended hours of operation represented a “new dimension” in shopping and the changing preferences of consumers in the early sixties.

The ads aimed to convince shoppers that visiting the plaza during the dinner hour was both a trendy and socially acceptable family pastime in lieu of gathering at the dinner table: “The trend is to evening shopping,” proclaimed one such ad, featuring fanciful typography and a couple with their child set against a dark starburst background.

The plaza also attracted a number of criminal acts in the late sixties, chiefly robberies. For instance, on March 9th, 1968, Arnold Shapira, a store manager at Elk’s Men’s Wear, was shot in the abdomen by three men in the laneway in the rear of the shopping centre. Shapira was also robbed of a $602 bank deposit and reported that the assailants “acted ‘like animals.'”

The local branch of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was a site of a number of holdups at the end of the decade. On June 24th, 1967, a robber escaped with a loot of $850:

“He walked up to teller Joan Gainford, shoved across a note demanding money, and, when she hesitated, indicated he had a gun under his shirt. He took the money and disappeared into the crowds heading toward Bloor Street.”

The plaza also featured various types of entertainment that many suburban residents would likely find distasteful. In July 1962, the plaza hired King Shows Carnival to provide summer entertainment to shoppers, featuring Erich Schöppner (1932–2005, a boxer who competed at the 1952 Summer Olympics and was scheduled appear at the Varsity Stadium), who set up his training tent at the shopping centre.

Explore

Archival maps of the neighbourhood and its vicinity can be accessed from the University of Toronto Map and Data Library, while aerial photographs are available from the City of Toronto Archives.

Vintage advertisements promoting the shops and events in the plaza as well news articles about the shopping centre can be found in Toronto Star Historical Newspaper Archive and Globe and Mail Historical Newspaper Archive (both resources can be accessed with your library card).

Dufferin Mall Review was a newsletter published by the management of the shopping centre in the seventies. It was distributed as an supplement to the Toronto Star. The newsletter included promotions and ads, announcements about upcoming events at the mall, style advice, community happenings, floor plan, and a complete store directory. A good example can be consulted in the November 18th, 1975 edition of the newspaper.

References

“2 Youths Snatch $2,000 in Bag, Flee in Plaza.” The Globe and Mail, 1 Aug. 1968, p. 11.

“10 Pin Bowlers.” The Globe and Mail, 9 May 1960, p. 23.

“A Hard Hat Luncheon.” Toronto Daily Star, 3 Nov. 1973, p. 14.

“A New Dimension in Shopping!” Toronto Daily Star, 24 Mar. 1960, p. 5.

“Archie B. Bennett: Building was Pioneer of Shopping Centres.” The Globe and Mail, 15 July 1980, p. 9.

“Bandit Takes Teller on Trip by Subway After $2,000 Holdup.” The Globe and Mail, 24 June 1967, pp. 1–2.

“Bowlers League Openings.” The Globe and Mail, 7 Sept. 1959, p. 19.

“Dollar Days.” Toronto Daily Star, 26 Jan. 1961, p. 48.

“Dufferin Plaza Shopping Centre: Toronto’s Largest Midtown Shopping Centre.” Toronto Daily Star, 2 Sept. 1959, p. 11.

“Dufferin Plaza Stores Protesting Closing Order.” The Globe and Mail, 10 Jan. 1958, p. 5.

“Everybody’s Saying: Make Mine Vanilla.” The Globe and Mail, 7 Sept. 1957, p. 17.

“For the Convenience of Our Customers.” The Globe and Mail, 1 Sept. 1969, p. 4.

“For Dining Comfort… the Java Shoppe.” The Globe and Mail, 1 Oct. 1960, p. 22.

“Grand Opening: Another Giant… Coles.” Toronto Daily Star, 15 Oct. 1958, p. 19.

“Grand Opening: On or About January 15th.” Toronto Daily Star, 29 Nov. 1957, p. 19.

Haggart, Ronald. “Stores, Council Cry Closing Bylaw Blues.” The Globe and Mail, 12 Dec. 1957, p. 7.

“It’s Midnite Madness at Jerry Stevens!” Toronto Daily Star, 3 Dec. 1959.

“Kerns Jewelry Presents a Watch Line of Distinction.” The Globe and Mail, 25 Oct.  1969, p. 37.

“Little Lady Ellis: Boys’ and Girls’ Wear, Gala Opening.” Toronto Daily Star, 28 Aug.  1957, p. 29.

“Now Renting: Dufferin Plaza.” The Globe and Mail, 13 Jan. 1956, p. 4.

“Opening Tomorrow: Pickering Farms.” Toronto Daily Star, 11 Dec. 1957, p. 8.

Patterson, Cynthia et al. Bloor-Dufferin in Pictures. Toronto Public Library, 1986.

“Plaza Wide 2nd Anniversary Sale! Starts Tomorrow, 3 Days Only.” Toronto Daily Star, 28 Oct. 1959, p. 38–39.

“Retailers Glum: Weather Warm but Yule Sales Cool.” The Globe and Mail, 15 Dec.  1960, p. 1.

“Robbed by Trio, Manager Shot in Abdomen.” The Globe and Mail, 11 Mar. 1968, p. 5.

Scallan, Niamh. “Toronto Electronics Store Kromer Radio to Close.” Toronto Star, 25 May 2012, https://www.thestar.com/business/2012/05/25/toronto_electronics_store_kromer
_radio_to_close.html. Accessed 8 January 2021.

Semley, John. “The End of Toronto’s First Strip Mall.” Maclean’s, 22 July 2020, https://www.macleans.ca/history/the-end-of-torontos-first-strip-mall/. Accessed 8 January 2021.

Stoffman, Judy. “Avie Bennett, Developer Turned Publishing Giant, Dies at 89.” The Globe and Mail, 9 June 2017, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/avie-bennett-developer-turned-publishing-giant-dies-at-89/article35275784/. Accessed 8 January 2021.

Wiser, Catherine. Sweethearts: The Builders, The Mob, and the Men. James Lorimer and Company, 1980.

Young, Scott. “Best-Kept Secret: Next Monday’s Fight.” The Globe and Mail, 12 July 1960, p. 14.

“Your Hobby Shop: Burden’s Hobby Lobby.” The Globe and Mail, 18 May 1957, p. A7.