ED MIRVISH (1914-2007) "Toronto’s greatest bargain"
His theatrical empire changed the face of our city, but many also recall an open-hearted entrepreneur who gave food to the needy
The Star
Jul 12, 2007 04:30 AMRichard Ouzounian
Theatre Critic
JOHN MAHLER/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO
Ed Mirvish and son David celebrate the opening of Miss Saigon at the Princess of Wales Theatre in May, 1993. The 2,000-seat theatre was built by the Mirvishes at a cost of $22 million.
He may have begun by showing us where to find a bargain, but he wound up giving us much that was priceless.
Edwin Mirvish, known universally as “Honest Ed,” died yesterday morning in St. Michael’s Hospital, less than two weeks shy of his 93rd birthday. Although he first came into the public eye as the merchant king whose giant Bloor St. discount store, with its thousands of blinking lightbulbs, is still thriving after nearly 60 years, Mirvish will be remembered best as the man who created the most successful theatrical empire in Canadian history.
“Ed was a terrific example of someone who makes a success in one area, the business world, and then turns around and makes an even greater success in another, the arts,” said John Sewell, mayor of Toronto from 1978 to 1980. “Instead of turning his back on Toronto once he earned his fortune, he turned his front to us instead, and thank goodness for that.”
Cameron Mackintosh, the producer of Miss Saigon, said, “He ran an extraordinary empire as if it was a corner store. He will be hugely missed and never forgotten.”
It seemed as though everyone in the city claimed Ed Mirvish as a friend. He was known for his warm smile, his quick wit and his open-hearted generosity to individuals and charitable causes.
His smile was a tonic, his laughter a vacation, his handshake a benediction.
The man who did all this was born on July 24, 1914, in Colonial Beach, Va., to David and Annie (née Kornhauser) Mirvish. He was given the name Yehuda, but his cousin Frances persuaded the family to change it to “Edwin.”
Show business made its presence felt shortly after Ed’s birth, when he was circumcised by Rabbi Moses Reuben Yoelson, whose son went on to be known as Al Jolson.
The Mirvish family business was a grocery store.
It was doing so terribly, however, that in 1923 David and Annie moved to Toronto with Ed and his year-old brother, Robert.
Initially, the elder Mirvish worked as a travelling salesman, hawking The Encyclopedia Of Freemasonry at $50 a set to lodges in the region. That proved to be such a flop that he re-entered the grocery business with a store on Dundas St. W.
Ed went to work there, opening at 6 a.m. each day and helping out with the deliveries after classes at King Edward Public School.
Eager to supplement the store’s meagre receipts, his father started moonlighting as a “candy butcher,” selling soft drinks and confections on trains between Toronto and Winnipeg. The extra workload contributed to his ill health, and David Mirvish died in 1930 at 42.
Ed was 15 at the time. He was attending Central Tech High School but quit to take charge of the family business. He had already learned his first lesson: “Never give credit. My father gave credit and he died broke.”
After struggling to keep the store afloat for nine years, Ed finally closed it to work for Leon Weinstein, who owned a supermarket chain. Over the next two years, Ed worked in all of Weinstein’s stores, formulating ideas that were to shape his future empire.
“I learned that people wanted value, quality and honesty,” he once said. “If you gave them that, it didn’t matter how ratty the package was. If you didn’t give them what they wanted, then you could wrap it up in the finest box you ever saw, but they wouldn’t buy it.”
Romance entered Ed’s life when he fell in love with Anne Maklin, a sculptor from Hamilton. They married in 1940 when she was 21. Besides providing him with a happy and stable family life, she also guided him to more artistic interests, although not without a struggle.
Much later, Ed would recall an incident in “the first year of our marriage when my wife had me attend a symphony concert at Varsity Stadium. It was a sweltering hot summer evening with the temperature nearly 90 F. I had put in a full day’s work and, as we did not own a car at the time, we boarded a Bloor street car, jammed with sweltering crowds of people.
“At the stadium, we sat on hard benches right behind the drums and percussion section of the orchestra. When they started to play Beethoven’s Fifth right in my ear, I can tell you our first year of marriage almost did not make it to a second year.”
At this point, business was Ed’s major concern. He wanted to implement the entrepreneurial philosophy he had formed while working for Weinstein.
He and Anne took some of wedding-present money, cashed in Anne’s insurance policy, got a bank loan and put $600 into a store they called The Sport Bar. It specialized in low-priced sportswear aimed at young women flooding into Toronto to work at munitions plants, and was instantly successful.
The location – on Bloor St., just west of Bathurst St. – was to prove central to Ed’s career. By 1946, he had bought all the stores between Bathurst and Markham Sts. The Sport Bar expanded, changing its name to Anne & Eddie’s.
Another addition to the Mirvish enterprise was their son David, born in 1945. Anne stayed home with their son and Ed found himself growing bored with the women’s clothing business.
He began buying all sorts of odd merchandise from fire sales and bankruptcies. When he had enough, he filled his Bloor St. property with it, putting a hand-painted sign over the door: “Name your own price. No reasonable offer refused.”
The self-mocking ads that would later become a Mirvish trademark made their first appearance. “Our building is a dump! Our service is rotten! But our prices are the lowest in town!” On an April Saturday in 1948, “Honest Ed’s” was born.
When asked why he chose that name, he said, “I opted to buck the trend. Rather than sound self-serving, I decided to take the mickey out of all the usual sanctimonious slogans.”
His approach worked, and soon the store – which sold everything from frying pans to flannel nighties – was open and bustling seven days a week.
Its tremendous success, in fact, led to the expansion of the Mirvish empire. People living on Markham St. complained about the constant noise and activity generated by Honest Ed’s. Mirvish bought their houses, intending to tear them down and build a parking lot, but the city wouldn’t allow it.
At his wife’s suggestion, he created an assortment of galleries, studios and stores that became known as Mirvish Village. His son, David, already a connoisseur of fine art at the age of 18, opened the David Mirvish Gallery in 1963.
The year before, Ed had turned his attention to a fading stretch of King St. W. On it, the once-grand Royal Alexandra Theatre (built in 1907 for $750,0000) lay crumbling.
Mirvish bought it for $215,000 and spent more than twice the cost of the building to restore it to its former glory.
Once he had it fully operational again, he learned to his chagrin that “as long as you keep the theatre locked up you know exactly how much it costs you every week. Once you open the door and put a production on the stage, it could be risky to the point of putting you in bankruptcy.”
By the end of the fifth season, the Royal Alex was turning a profit, and Mirvish kept it going through thick and thin. For many years, it ran as a touring house, welcoming shows and stars from around the world, all of them treated with gracious hospitality by Ed and Anne.
Autographed pictures of stars from Robert Morley to Peter O’Toole line the theatre walls, indicating their reciprocal affection.
By 1988, the Royal Alex boasted 52,000 subscribers, the highest figure in North America, and since then productions of such long-run shows as Les Miserables, Crazy For You and Mamma Mia! have brought in millions of people.
At one point, Mirvish also operated six restaurants nearby and, for several generations of theatregoers, the dinner he offered of prime rib, mashed potatoes and peas constituted the perfect pre-show meal.
But economic realities and labour problems caused Ed to close them one by one, until the last survivor – the gaudily baroque Ed’s Warehouse – shut its doors in September 2000.
While the restaurant empire was shrinking, the theatre empire was expanding, including an expensive flirtation with running London’s famed Old Vic Theatre, beginning in 1982. Mirvish hired internationally renowned directors such as Peter Hall and Jonathan Miller to run seasons there.
“Ed Mirvish showed great generosity and imagination in allowing me to present the kind of classical repertory theatre that wasn’t available anywhere else in England at that time,” said Miller, artistic director from 1988-1990. “He took great pride in the fact that he had saved the Vic from its derelict state and bought it a new and vital existence.”
Despite its artistic triumphs, the Vic proved a financial millstone and Mirvish sold it 16 years later, after hemorrhaging millions of dollars.
Far more successful was the construction of The Princess Of Wales Theatre for $22 million. It opened in the spring of 1993 with Cameron Mackintosh’s production of Miss Saigon, which ran for two years.
“There has never been anyone like him in the theatre,” Mackintosh recalled. “Completely down to earth and one of the only people in this business you never needed to sign a contract with. Win or lose, he stood by his deal.”
With the 2001 purchase of the Pantages Theatre (renamed the Canon), Mirvish further solidified the theatrical power base he ran with his son David, stronger than any outside New York.
Not every show was triumphant. The 2006 failure of The Lord of the Rings came as a substantial setback, but the current hit production of We Will Rock You and the upcoming Dirty Dancing, with its record advance sales, augur well for the future.
During his lifetime, Mirvish received honorary degrees from five Canadian universities and Tel Aviv University, was inducted into the Canadian and American Business Halls of Fame, the Order of Ontario, the Order of Canada, and the Order of the Commander of the British Empire.
But in the hearts of Torontonians, he will remain the elfin figure who dispensed hundreds of free turkeys to the needy every Christmas, or footed the bill for a bash on his birthday every year to which thousands of happy partygoers flocked.
“Someone once asked me what I would like on my tombstone and how I would like to be remembered,” he told the Empire Club in 1989. “I said I would like to erect a huge throne in the centre of Honest Ed’s.
“I would then like my body cremated and the ashes put in an hourglass. I would then like someone sitting on the throne to keep turning the hour glass up and down, up and down, and the employees would point to the hourglass and say, `There’s Ed. He’s still running!’”
David Crombie, mayor of Toronto from 1972-1978, summed up Mirvish’s accomplishments. “He did amazing things for all of us. To use his own expression, he was a great bargain for Toronto. If it hadn’t been for Ed, the face of this city would look a lot different today.”
He gave us a world of commerce where we could buy whatever we needed and he gave us a world of art where we could dream of everything else. But most of all, he gave us himself.
Edwin Mirvish leaves his wife Anne and son David, and a sister, Lorraine.
The funeral service will take place at Beth Tzedec Synagogue, 1700 Bathurst St., on Friday at 11 a.m. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Ed Mirvish Educational Memorial Fund, c/o The Benjamin Foundation, at 3429 Bathurst St., Toronto, M6A 2C3. The fund is to support young entrepreneurs.
Photos: Remembering Ed Mirvish
CP Video: Toronto remembers Honest Ed
BORIS SPREMO, CM/TORONTO STAR
Ed Mirvish in front of Royal Alexandra Theatre on Aug. 23, 1977. Mirvish bought the theatre in 1963.
APPRECIATION - Mirvish set the scene for success
Impresario paved way for the thriving theatrical landscape we now enjoy
TheStar.com – entertainment
Jul 12, 2007 04:30 AM
Richard Ouzounian
What would the theatre in this city have been like without Ed Mirvish?
Don’t think about it.
When the master impresario died yesterday at the age of 92, he was frequently praised for having renovated the Royal Alexandra Theatre and built the Princess of Wales Theatre, but his contribution to the theatrical life of Toronto was far more complex than that.
Until he saved the Alex from the wrecker’s ball, the only viable option facing a touring show that wanted to perform here was what Irish playwright Brendan Behan called “that sanctified garage,” the 3,200 seat O’Keefe Centre.
Barry Humphries (a.k.a. Dame Edna) had to perform Oliver! there back in 1962 and equated it to “the black hole of Calcutta,” a feeling shared by many performers.
Had Mirvish not made the Alex available in 1963, Toronto audiences would have missed out on hundreds of theatrical experiences over the years, from performances of the classic Canadian revue Spring Thaw, to long runs of shows like Hair and Godspell.
But the most important thing to remember is that Mirvish didn’t just present shows, he built audiences. By 1989, he could boast 52,000 subscribers and although there are no statistics to prove it, one would be surprised if that didn’t have a significant impact on the increasing vitality of all Toronto’s theatres during that period.
From a climate in which theatre going was an occasional activity for the few, Mirvish helped turn it into a regular habit for the many.
And, in 1989, it also set the stage for the next important step, when Mirvish actually produced a Canadian version of a hit show (Les Misérables) instead of importing it.
The phenomenal success of that production not only made subsequent local versions of hit musicals a viable option, but it encouraged Mirvish to build the Princess of Wales Theatre to house Miss Saigon in 1993.
Throughout that decade during which Toronto audiences flocked to the mega-musicals, our city came to be known as the Number Two market for theatre in North America, a distinction that the long stewardship Mirvish served helped bring to reality.
Since then, we’ve known good times and bad in the world of commercial theatre, but the reassuring thing is that the Mirvish empire didn’t cut their sails when the winds grew too severe.
Yes, they were there to reap the benefit of multi-year runs of shows like Mamma Mia! and The Lion King, but the surprise failures of The Producers and Hairspray didn’t send them running for the hills, as they might have done with producers who weren’t in it for the long haul.
They came back with their greatest gamble to date, the $28 million musical of The Lord of the Rings, which they promoted with every ounce of energy at their disposal. When it failed, they shook their heads, tightened their belts and readied for the next wave.
Now We Will Rock You is solidly holding the stage while anticipation builds for Dirty Dancing‘s opening this fall, with its record-breaking sales.
It’s a real shame that Ed Mirvish didn’t live to see this last show open the 100th season at his beloved Royal Alexandra Theatre, because if there was ever a number that he could have claimed as his theme, it clearly would have been “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.”
Thank you, Ed, for saving the Royal Alex 45 years ago and paving the way for the theatre scene we celebrate today.
PASSING OF AN IMPRESARIO – Ed Mirvish put show in retail business
‘The community marketplace has always been the greatest show on earth’
TheStar.com – Business
Jul 12, 2007 04:30 AM
David Olive
KEITH BEATY/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO
As much a showman as a businessman, Ed Mirvish passed away on July 11, 2007, at the age of 92. Mirvish and his business partner and only child, David, have been integral in building two of Toronto’s entertainment districts.
Before there was Sam Walton, there was Ed Mirvish.
Mirvish pioneered the basics of today’s discount drygoods retailing at Honest Ed’s, the soup-to-nuts emporium he opened at the corner of Bathurst and Bloor Sts. in 1948. Fifty-nine years later, countless retail trends have come and gone, but Mirvish’s famous store is still going strong.
Walton launched his first Wal-Mart, in Rogers, Ark., 14 years after Mirvish cut the ribbon on his landmark Annex store.
Mirvish, who died yesterday at age 92, was Toronto’s first “big box” merchant, the term for the specialty hardware, business supplies, furniture and other warehouse-type stores that began popping up across North America in the 1980s.
While Simpsons and Eaton’s, the dominant Toronto drygoods retailers of the day, catered to a middle- and upper-class clientele, Mirvish turned the merchandising of essentials for lower-income customers into an event.
Beginning in 1948, shoppers of limited means had a bustling emporium of their own, offering the same wide variety of dinnerware, linens, apparel and toys to be found at Simpsons and Eaton’s, but at prices rarely above $5 per item.
Before Honest Ed’s opened for business each day, a line of as many as 200 customers had formed outside the Bloor St. entrance, under a sign the read: “Don’t Just Stand There — Buy Something!”
On entering Mirvish’s store, they were obliged to descend a long, sloping narrow passageway lined with deep-discount impulse items before entering the first of a series of display rooms that had to be accessed sequentially.
That layout, similar to today’s Ikea, drew customers through the entire store, exposing them to every category of goods Mirvish had accumulated from distributors’ warehouses that had suffered a fire, flooding or bankruptcy, and were selling off undamaged goods at pennies on the dollar.
Mirvish introduced “loss leaders.” He skimped on décor, introduced self-service, and sold only those goods he was able to find at rock-bottom cost, passing the savings to his loyal shoppers.
You could usually count on finding socks at Honest Ed’s, at $3 for six pair, but they might not be the blue socks you’d prefer. If you didn’t see it, Ed didn’t have it. There was no special ordering of goods not in stock, and no white-glove service by a nice lady behind the cosmetics counter as on Eaton’s main selling floor.
Sam Walton eventually adopted all these techniques. In his rusting pick-up truck, he traveled the bumpy roads of Arkansas and Texas on news of a distant wholesaler abruptly forced to immediately clear all his inventory. Walton came back to his store with whatever he found — a mountain of stockings, 18 racks of plaid hunting jackets, but, alas, no cutlery this time. And so Wal-Mart that week would have no cutlery to offer.
Among the differences between the two trailblazing merchants was their role models. Walton’s was James Cash Penney, a traditional drygoods merchant for whom Walton once toiled as a lowly clerk. A prime influence on Mirvish, by contrast, was a revered uncle, Harry Mensh, who owned practically everything worth owning in the resort town of Mirvish’s native Colonial Beach, Va.
Mensh was an impresario who exulted in playing host to pleasure-seeking visitors to his hotels, restaurants, shooting galleries and other amusements. He was an outsized figure, impeccably dressed, who regarded his empire as an entertainment extravaganza.
Hence the Mirvish trademark of theatricality and publicity stunts, which generated the best kind of advertising — stories in the Toronto papers about Mirvish recruiting 21 sets of triplets for his “Triplets Fashion Show,” and his appearance at the bedside of the mother of the first infant born each year, bearing an outsized gift certificate.
Mirvish’s challenge was a bit tougher than Walton’s. Mirvish plied his trade in a city of millions where alternative shopping venues were many. In the first decades of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the chain’s outlets were monopoly or near-monopoly stores in very small towns of no interest to Sears, Roebuck & Co., S.S. Kresge Co., Woolworth Corp. or J.C. Penney Co.
Eventually Wal-Mart would surpass all those firms in size, becoming the world’s largest commercial enterprise by revenue. But as it has grown, Wal-Mart’s stock price has flattened, because for the sake of growth it has moved out of the sparcely populated U.S. heartland into major cities and abroad, where competition is fierce and local shopping preferences vary. Wal-Mart is now a complex firm that has strayed from the bare-bones formula that brought its early success.
Wary of the dangers of overexpansion, Mirvish and his business partner and only child, David, followed the same cautious path in building their live-theatre operations, consisting of the Royal Alex and the Princess of Wales Theatre, built by Mirvish. A third theatre, London’s fabled Old Vic, was renovated but relinquished after more than a decade of losses. Mirvish knew his limits, while his overextended rival, Garth Drabinsky’s Livent Corp., flamed out inside a decade. The Mirvishes added a third Toronto venue to their stable in 2001, taking on management of the former Pantages, now the Canon Theatre.
For Torontonians, the most important distinction between Mirvish and Walton is that Mirvish was content with his one store, in which he toiled daily well into advanced age, and rather than build a national chain, he chose instead to try his hand at architectural rehabilitation (rescuing the Royal Alex from the wrecking ball) and building two entertainment districts.
If Mirvish couldn’t quite replicate Henry Mensh’s resort paradise, he would at least satisfy his own urge to play host by creating Markham Village, an Annex collection of restaurants, art galleries and art-book stores near his store; and turning a then-desolate stretch of King St. West anchored by his Royal Alex into an entertainment district.
Mirvish lived his life out loud — still not done by enough of us in this sober city — because, as Mirvish wrote in his memoir, “The community marketplace has always been the greatest show on Earth.”
He’s back
Exclusive: Honest Ed talks after illness Mirvish to attend Hairspray openerJul 11, 2007 01:03 PM
Martin Knelman
This article originally appeared in the Star on May 5, 2004.
Move over, Hairspray.
The delirious musical about a TV teen dance show, circa 1962, opens tonight at the Princess of Wales Theatre.
But the Tony-winning Broadway show will have to compete for attention with the owner of the theatre. After being out of commission for almost a year, Ed Mirvish is poised to make the showbiz comeback of the year. And he is definitely ready for his closeup.
“This is going to be a big, important opening, and I’m really looking forward to being there,” the man known as Honest Ed explained in an exclusive interview with the Star – his first since illness struck.
It was last May when double pneumonia knocked out the 89-year-old merchant who had turned a little store into Canada’s most famous bargain mecca and then went on to create this country’s liveliest theatre empire.
Mirvish has been away from his beloved store, Honest Ed’s (at Bloor and Bathurst Sts.) since then. He has been away from the theatre, too.
He spent months in Mt. Sinai Hospital, then moved to chronic care before returning to his Forest Hill home, where has been more or less under house arrest since January.
Yesterday, returning to his ramshackle office on the second floor of Honest Ed’s for the first time since last May, the Honest One, looking dapper in a suit and tie, immediately cracked a joke to demonstrate that taking care of business is still at the top of this agenda.
“Who’s looking after the store?” he asked with feigned alarm as more than 20 employees squeezed into his office to present a “Welcome Back – We Love You” cake, and sing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”
He seems slightly frailer than before, and the familiar voice is not quite as forceful, but a year of illness has not affected his wit or his comic timing.
“They’re better than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,” he commented at the conclusion of the employees’ serenade.
On a more serious note, he said: “It’s nice to be back, because I really missed the store, and I really missed all of you.”
At tonight’s opening, Ed will be in the orchestra in a special wheelchair location along with his wife, Anne. Among the special guests who will join them: Ken and Marilyn Thomson, Irving and Rosalie Abella, Ronnie Hawkins, George Chuvalo and Toronto police Chief Julian Fantino. Both Mayor David Miller and Premier Dalton McGuinty are planning to attend. So will John Waters, who not only wrote the show but also created the 1988 movie from which it was adapted.
Hairspray is set in Baltimore, and that is a city with which Ed Mirvish has a connection. He lived in Washington, D.C. (40 minutes from Baltimore), until moving to Toronto at the age of 9.
“We had relatives in Baltimore, and used to visit often,” Ed recalls.
Yesterday, his return to the store turned into a family affair.
Anne Mirvish, his wife of 63 years, fretted about the need to straighten Ed’s tie for the camera, and gave detailed instructions to their son, David Mirvish, on exactly how to straighten the tie.
Looking forward to their wedding anniversary next month, Ed joked: “Of course, 63 years with me is like nothing. I’m so easy to get along with, and a joy to be with.”
Asked about his long illness, Ed said: “I didn’t feel any pain, but I was a little bit bored.”
As David Mirvish explained, his father’s lungs were damaged by his bout of pneumonia. And he had a tracheotomy that left him unable to speak.
“When you can’t talk, it’s not good,” quipped Ed.
Last summer, as a result of his illness, Ed missed the big outdoor party the Mirvishes have been throwing on Markham St. next to the store every July since he reached the age of 75. According to Russell Lazar, general manager of Honest Ed’s, 60,000 people turned up for seven hours of hoopla, including live entertainment, souvenirs, free hot dogs and kiddie rides.
Yesterday, Ed explained why he is looking forward to making a personal appearance at his 90th birthday bash on July 25.
“It’s the first time I’ve had a 90th birthday,” he said.
Ode to the lost art of record hunting
Jun 30, 2007 04:30 AM
Ben Rayner - The Star
Pop Music Critic
Sure, Sam’s wasn’t what it used to be – for the last few years, it’s been notably overpriced and understocked – but those huge, blinking discs outside were a beacon to many a deprived, out-of-town record shopper looking to stock up on tunes while visiting the big city.
When I’d come here from New Brunswick as a kid, my knowledge of Toronto geography could get me to the CN Tower and to Sam’s – and that was about it. The shop exuded permanence and, like many of us, I took it for granted that it would be a fixture of the downtown’s most famous strip forever.
Now, though, since Sam’s is following beloved Spadina Ave. electronic-music outpost 2 the Beat (R.I.P.) into that good night, I’m beginning to wonder if I haven’t also taken for granted that record shopping will be around forever.
Until recently, there was no greater pleasure available to the music fan than perusing the stacks at his or her favourite record store, but there seems to be a generation coming up behind us for whom iTunes and Beatport and the like have supplanted the physical act of shopping for vinyl LPs or CDs.
Could the day really be coming when the record shop – much like old-fart cranks such as myself who refuse to listen to music through computers – will be completely obsolete?
Horror of horrors, I hope not. Think what we’ll be missing:
Just being around all those records. Albums, glorious albums, as far as the eye can see. The sucking sound of plastic LP sleeves being pulled apart or CDs clacking against each other as you work your way to the back of the “Miscellaneous S” titles. The dust on your hands. The dude patiently waiting next to you for his own chance to dig into the same pile. Thinking about it fills me with an unspeakable love.
The thrill of random discovery. Yeah, I know, you can find everything online somewhere, but patiently scrolling through thousands and thousands of titles in hopes that something unexpected will leap out at you can’t compare to suddenly yanking an out-of-print New Order 12-inch from the bin or happening across an album – something by the Residents, perhaps – whose cover immediately suggests it’s something you’ve always needed to have and didn’t even realize it.
The self-righteous clerk. Can anyone shame a music fan more than the impossibly hip record-store employee who can’t disguise his contempt for your purchases? This endangered character has touched all of our lives at one point or another and inspired comic gold for the likes of the Kids in the Hall (“Do you have the new Pixies album?” “Yeah, it’s over there. But it sucks.”) and Jack Black in High Fidelity.
I was so terrified of the guy who used to run Birdman Sound at the end of my street in Ottawa that I’d go to other, lesser record shops to purchase records I assumed he’d think I should already own. Is there a sweeter breed of masochism?
The walk home. Downloading provides instant gratification, yes, but a visit to the record shop provides extended relief from life’s drudgery by allowing you that excitable trip home with a paper bag of new records or CDs tucked beneath your arm. The only thing more satisfying than finding the entire Killing Joke catalogue on vinyl is rushing home to immerse yourself in it. The journey is never fast enough.
The promise of more record shopping. As with any addiction, the promise of the next fix can be all-consuming and the spectre of total withdrawal is terrifying. Which is why, the passing of Sam the Record Man notwithstanding, I feel confident that the record shop will never completely disappear, no matter how much the industry contracts. The streets would fill with losers like me who suddenly have nothing to do with their Saturday afternoons.
Your Sam the Record Man memories
May 31, 2007 11:12 AM
We asked you to tell us your Sam the Record Man memories. Here’s what you had to say.
I’ve been going to Sam’s for nearly 45 years. My most memorable experience was lining up to buy the Beatles’ White Album on the first day it went on sale. A Sam’s employee was just taking the albums out of box and writing the price on the cover with a magic marker. Probably half my CD collection comes from Sam’s. I’ll be sorry to see it go.
Thomas Linderoos, TorontoSam’s will be missed. No other retailer besides the web had such a wide selection of artists and back catalog. I miss the Montreal store very much and would go to the Yonge St. store every time I came to visit Toronto. A knowledgeable staff and wide selection are now going to be even more difficult to find.
Kevin McCoy, MontrealThe legacy that Sam the Record Man has built should be honoured by the City of Toronto. It should be named a Historical Landmark and perhaps it could become the home of the Canadian Record and Music Hall of Fame.
Patrick Rutledge, TorontoI remember going to Sam’s to find a record that I couldn’t find anywhere unless I ordered it from Europe. I was lucky enough that Sam himself was in the store that day. I asked a clerk and he then asked Sam, and low and behold, Sam came through with a copy. I even got it at regular price rather than import all because Sam and I had something in common: love of music. You will be missed.
Laurence Habel, VancouverSam the Record Man on Yonge St. is as important to this city as the CN Tower. I will always remember taking the subway from Scarborough and spending hours in the store. I’d search every inch of the store buying music, compiling a wish list and talking to the staff about music. I will truly miss Sam the Record Man and will always look back at those excursions with a smile.
Troy St. Denis, OshawaI remember coming to visit my brother in hospital and going to Sam’s to buy him 45s from the CHUM Top 100. He developed quite a collection.
Elvina Barclay, EtobicokeI remember visiting Toronto and buying records at Sam’s. It is a shame that this landmark could not survive. I would think a civic-minded individual or company would purchase the building and reopen it as a restaurant or music club, keeping the Sam’s name as part of Toronto landscape.
Mark Pardue, Fergus, Ont.I still buy a lot of music from Sam’s, since they are more knowledgeable and carry more esoteric stock in music then the Big Box/Wal-Mart stores will ever sell. In the article it says that CD sales are down. Could it be that a lot of great artists get little or no radio play so people can’t hear them? So why would you buy a CD from an artist you haven’t heard before?
Alan Whitley, TorontoWhen I immigrated to Canada in the early 80s from Vietnam, I knew nothing about English music. My sister’s boyfriend took me to Sam the Record Man. I was overwhelmed with the selections. I ended up making my first ever purchase of English music, a single LP of U2′s “With or Without You” at Sam the Record Man. I still have it at home.
Jett Chow, TorontoThanks to Sam’s and my father, my grounding in fine music started young and has continued undiminished for almost 70 years. I hope the thieving downloaders are happy with their handiwork.
Larry Solway, TorontoAlmost 30 years ago, I walked into the store looking for what I figured was an impossible find: a recording of the Christmas children’s opera Amahl and the Night Visitor for my Dad. Sam managed to floor me; I had looked by myself for half an hour before going to him and within 5 minutes he was back with a copy of the original recording from the CBS annual Christmas broadcast from 1951. So instead of sitting around a TV, we sat around the record player and had wonderful memories of Christmas’s long, long ago.
Judy Kennedy, Campbell River, B.C.
SO LONG, SAM
TheStar.com – entertainment – The final cut
`For Toronto music lovers for whom Sam the Record Man was the centre of the universe, the world will be an emptier place after today’
Jun 30, 2007 04:30 AM
GREG QUILL
ENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST
Sam the Record Man’s flagship Yonge St. store, which closes its doors for the first time today, couldn’t withstand the dawning of the digital age as music downloads ate into its album sales.
It was like a trip to Mecca, or some other holy shrine, recalls Larry LeBlanc, music publisher, longtime Canadian editor of the American music industry magazine Billboard and the custodian of perhaps the largest private music library in Canada.
“If you loved music, and you were a serious record collector, Sam the Record Man was the only game in town from the time it opened in 1961 ’til … well, ’til now.”
‘Til today, that is.
Sam the Record Man’s Yonge St. flagship store, for decades the centre of an empire that spread across the nation from east to west and boasted as many as 150 regional stores in its retail empire, closes for good this afternoon.
It’s the end of the record retail business in Canada as we have known it, the end of an era. Toronto will never be the same.
Internet retailing, computer file sharing, a collapsing music industry infrastructure, the effects of the globalization of culture, mass acceptance of portable, disc-free music-listening technology, a radical shift in musical tastes have all made Sam the Record Man – even the signature hometown store that survived the chain-killing bankruptcy a couple of years ago – a relic of the past.
Sales of CDs and music DVDs in Canada in the first quarter of this year fell by an unprecedented 35 per cent – to $68.7 million from $105.6 million in the same period in 2006 – the most drastic decline in “physical” music sales of any country in the world, according to figures released in April by the Canadian Record Industry Association. Unit sales for the same period were down 30 per cent, to 7.1 million from 10.2 million in 2006.
Sales of CDs and music DVDs in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2007 have fallen by about 20 per cent. Music industry sources point out these declines have been largely responsible for the closure of thousands of music retail outlets in both countries and for trimming inventory to a relative handful of top-selling artists.
For Toronto musicians and music lovers for whom Sam the Record Man’s three-storey building was the centre of the universe – with its garish “revolving” neon LPs overlooking the action on Yonge St. and beckoning the faithful, its overloaded bins, creaking stairs, burrow-like aisles, its hidden nooks and crannies, walls covered with posters and autographed photos of music legends, the dumb waiter bearing ancient or lost treasures from the basement, the third-floor trove of discounted deletes known as the Room Of Broken Dreams, the racks of foreign-language recordings, opera and folk music that no one else carried, the overworked but reassuringly professorial staff – the world will be an emptier place after today.
The twin discs – quintessential Toronto iconography that appears in countless images of the downtown core – will stay on the building. It was designated a heritage property last week, and its preservation will pay tribute to the Toronto that used to be.
“If you were from outside Toronto, Sam’s was magic,” Leblanc continues. “Sam’s had Sam.”
That would be founder and lifelong Canadian music booster Sam Sniderman, who on any given day for more than 40 years could be found just inside the door checking the comings and goings of his customers and staff, making sure you got what you came for and who would take things into his own hands if you didn’t.
“I swear, he knew every item in the building, and where it was,” LeBlanc says. “And if he couldn’t find a particular record, he’d make sure to get it for you, usually in a matter of days.”
Sure, Eaton’s and Simpson’s carried the latest 45s back when LeBlanc ventured in from Peterborough in his teens with his paper route cash in hand – “39 cents for a 45-rpm single, $3.98 for an LP” – on a Saturday morning. And A&A’s, Sam’s archrival, was just a few doors north selling records and – yuck! – books.
But if you wanted real music, not just the hits, not the records your parents would buy, but the music that came over your radio late at night from Detroit and Chicago and New York, or poured through the doors of nearby rock ‘n’ roll, R&B and folk joints, Sam’s was the only destination.
“You’d go with your buddies,” LeBlanc explains. “There was always a queue at the counter. We’d never seen so many records in our lives, and Sam always met you at the door, like P. T. Barnum pitching a show. He was proud to be a retailer. He used to say, `Anyone can sell you a record, but it takes a salesman to sell you two.’ “
And a lot of what Sniderman sold was music made by local artists who had no major label deals. The first time Gordon Lightfoot’s music reached the record-buying public was when his Two-Tones singles on the independent Chateau label appeared at Sam the Record Man on consignment.
“The same with Raffi’s first album, before he became a children’s entertainer,” continues LeBlanc. “If you were a Canadian artist with records to sell, Sam’s was the first place to stop. He’d take your stuff, front-rack it, put up a sign, point it out to customers. He’d put band gig posters in the front window or on the wall near the cash registers. He knew all of Canada’s music stars before anyone else. He was a friend to musicians. They loved him.
“On a Saturday afternoon during matinee breaks, Sam’s was where the musicians playing in the local bars went to stack up on the latest records. It was a gathering place. It felt like home to them.”
Veteran Toronto guitarist and songwriter Danny Marks remembers those days well. “Sam’s was my store,” he says. “I could walk there. I could find just about anything I wanted. They sold my records. They made me feel as if my music mattered. Like Sam Shopsy, Ed Mirvish and Bargain Benny, Sam Sniderman was one of those eccentric and inventive Jewish entrepreneurs who gave Toronto its character. He was a real hands-on guy. You don’t see that any more.”
Sam the Record Man was where Canadian blues legend Donnie “Mr. Downchild” Walsh remembers buying The Coasters’ Greatest Hits in his teenage years.
“You couldn’t get it anywhere else. Sam had all the music I listened to, stuff that was way off the beaten path, in every category. He put Downchild’s first album, Bootleg, in his window, and a pile right inside the front door. If you heard bands anywhere on the Yonge St. strip, you could walk down to Sam’s and buy their music.”
It was where Arkansas rocker Ronnie Hawkins and The Hawks – later The Band – bought the elemental R&B, blues and rockabilly records that inspired their raw and vital style.
“If it wasn’t in stock, Sam would order it for you,” says Hawkins, who first met Sniderman in 1958, when his store was a “hole-in-the-wall,” a radio shop.
“Robbie Robertson learned a lot of licks from the records we found at Sam’s. It’s a shame that it’s gone … it was a huge part of what made Toronto interesting.”
Working at Sam’s was more than just a retail job
Jun 30, 2007 04:30 AM
Ryan Watson
Special to the Star
Recently, a lot of column inches have been devoted to delivering eulogies for Sam the Record Man since the announcement of its closing in late May. We’ve seen missives from customers who work as local writers to high-profile patrons such as renowned crime author Ian Rankin lamenting “the end of an institution” and “the end of an era.”
Appropriate sentiments, of course, but for nearly 50 people, myself included, it’s also the end of our livelihoods. Sure, it’s just a retail job, not a “real job” (as many have put it over my five-year stay), but as the staff will testify, working at Sam’s meant more than just schlepping CDs.
Over the years, Sam’s developed a community feeling among its workers that had a way of inspiring loyalty unlike any other place. Several Sam’s staff members can count more than 30 years of service, including everyone’s favourite, Ken Slater, whose first month on the job was back when The White Album was a new release.
Outside observers who dismiss the value of working at Sam’s simply underestimate the unyielding grip music has on us and the intangibles that became invaluable to our daily experience – the thrill of randomly discovering new favourites like Spiral Beach, the Ex, New Young Pony Club and countless others, the buzz in the store when Johnny Marr dropped in to buy a Buffy St. Marie disc, trading arcane knowledge with the regular customers … The list of unofficial perks goes on and on, varying with each one of us.
Losing Sam’s also means losing an outlet for the largest selection of independent music titles in the country.
As the manager of consignment sales, I was responsible for only a fraction of the store’s revenue. Consignment sales were divided 80-20 in favour of the artist, but an incalculable amount of goodwill was also fostered through Sam’s legacy of supporting Canadian musicians.
Few other shops in the city now bother with accepting CDs on consignment, a sound decision logistically and perhaps economically as well, but a policy that emphasizes the importance of our role in the local indie community.
During the past four weeks, I’ve been swamped with paperwork in the basement tying up the accounts of hundreds of consignment titles, generally unaware of the degeneration the shop is undergoing upstairs.
But each time I’m paged to the main floor and see the bare walls, the chaos produced by the dozens of bargain hunters and the weary faces of remaining staff members, I get mixed feelings.
On the one hand, it’s a new world order in the music business, one that we all have to adapt to and change with and I should look forward to new opportunities.
But in the meantime, I know I’m going to miss this environment and the people who made it what it was – part business, part salon, part clubhouse.
Tomorrow, long after the doors of Sam’s have shut for the final time, 50 people, myself included, will wake up not only hung over from the piss-up the night before, but beginning the unenviable process of finding new work after having wrapped up an irreplaceable chapter of their lives.
It’s the end of an era indeed.
Revisiting the Summer of Love
Yorkville flashes back to the hippie days of 1967 as part of Luminato festival
Jun 03, 2007 04:30 AM
Chris Sorensen
Staff Reporter
David DePoe’s Yorkville was a place that blared Janis Joplin, smelled of marijuana smoke and buzzed with talk of political and social change – basically the exact opposite of what the upscale neighbourhood is today.
Dressed in a blue T-shirt emblazoned with the word “peace” and a wide-brimmed hat, the 63-year-old elementary school teacher walked down Yorkville Ave. yesterday and pointed at high-end boutiques, pricey restaurants and luxury condominiums that now sit where there used to be all-night cafes, boisterous bars and rooms to rent for as little as $40 a month.
That was back in the summer of 1967, when Yorkville, now a playground for the city’s well-heeled, was the epicentre of the country’s hippie movement, and DePoe was one of its leaders.
“Yorkville today is the antithesis of what we wanted,” said DePoe, who compared 1960s Yorkville to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury or New York’s Greenwich Village. “It’s consumerism and rich people whereas we were trying to live the simple and cheap life.”
Indeed, Yorkville is now a metaphor for the hippie movement, which was characterized by a potent mix of music, drugs and talk of political and social change. It began as a rebellion against society and its values ended up becoming swallowed whole by popular culture.
Nevertheless, DePoe was one of several current and former hippies who returned yesterday for a Summer of Love event, part of this weekend’s Luminato festival.
The sight was slightly surreal as local 1960s- and 1970s-era bands rocked out on a stage in front of a towering Williams-Sonoma sign. Meanwhile, a handful of hippies in their 50s smoked pot next to curious passersby who clutched cellphones, Holt Renfrew shopping bags and specialty coffees.
“It’s a bit of a flashback,” said Jannine Kelly, 53, who recalled running away from the suburbs at 13 into the open arms of Yorkville and its culture of community. Others, like Sebastian Agnello, 54, remember the neighbourhood as a giant, drug-fuelled party. “Lots of us didn’t take the political stuff too seriously. It was just a lot of fun.”
While yesterday was clearly about the music and the fashion (dozens of onlookers stood in line at kiosks to have flowers painted on their faces or placed in their hair), some, like DePoe, are convinced the Toronto hippie movement, short-lived as it was, did bring about social change.
“It was peace and love and all of that, but what we were actually trying to do was establish a community where people treated each other differently and everyone was accepted,” he said.
“I don’t think we would have a Charter of Rights if it wasn’t for the social movements of the 1960s.”
But rebellion also brought resistance from the establishment. DePoe’s summer of love included a clash with police over traffic in Yorkville. On Aug. 20, hundreds of hippies sat on the road and chanted “no more cars, no more cars.” Police then dragged kids, some by the hair, into paddy wagons while others were clubbed and kicked.
DePoe ended up in a jail cell and later recalled being shocked at the use of force. “What woke me up was realizing that these were the people that have all the power.”
The 60s, visiting for a day in Yorkville
June 3rd, 2007 · 1 Comment
When he was young in the 60s, Jerry Miskolczi used to listen to the artists whose album covers he still collects avidly. It wasn’t until the 80s that he started collecting as a hobby.
It was at the Lake Shore Inn in Toronto, a place that no longer exists. Saturday, in the Gallery of Memories section of the Summer of Love attraction in Yorkville, he displayed a full rack of records that might seem obscure to foreign eyes. But bands like Jack London and the Sparrows eventually became Steppenwolf and Buffalo Springfield, and The Staccatos became the Five Man Electrical Band.
“I have slowed down in my collecting,” Miskolczi said with a smile. “I’m not obsessive.”
In the stall next to him, Nicholas Jennings offers his book, “Before the Gold Rush,” on the history of Yorkville in the 1960s.
“It’s every bit the equivalent of the history of Greenich Village or Haight-Ashbury in those days,” he said. “It’s a history that needs to be celebrated.” Indeed: Where there are now sushi restaurants and a Williams-Sonoma, in the 60s there were houses full of hippies and musicians, including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. A nearby parking lot is the one Mitchell famously refers to in her song “Big Yellow Taxi.”
That Saturday, Yorkville was half thoroughfare, half amphitheater. People got their faces painted as Sylvia Tyson sang about The Night The Chinese Restaurant Burned Down. For one day, it all came back to us.
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