"Harbord Village is always like this. You ask them to do something, and they turn it into a piece of genius."
Councillor Adam Vaughan is talking about the lane-naming that's been going on
in and around Harbord over the past several weeks. Naming laneways around town has become a priority for the city in the last couple of years, as emergency services makes it clear that it can help them locate people and situations more precisely, and communities have used the opportunity to celebrate themselves.
Harbord Village has used its namings as an impetus to remind its residents, and the city at large, of the neighbourhood's history, organizing events around each naming, and setting up a
website to provide more details.
Recent laneways have been named in honour of Barbara Barrett, founder of the Toronto School of Art, the Greenberg family, several generations of whom have lived in the same Harbord Village house for about a century, writer and poet Barker Fairley, and Albert Jackson,
Toronto’s first black postman, who lived in a house currently occupied by literary editor Patrick Crean. According to Vaughan, there were guests from as far away as Atlanta who came in for the naming ceremony back on July 6.
The lane that's received the most attention, though, is the
Boys of Major Lane, named for six boys, all from Major Street, who fought in WWII. Only two, including the aforementioned Greenberg family’s son Joe, returned.
Vaughan says the next neighbourhood that will be announcing its line-up of lane-names will be Seaton Village. They’ve got a tough act to follow.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Adam Vaughan