‘We were patrons, but we were not respected’
The planned Halo Residences development, which includes the firehouse clock tower.
“Below that tower there were moments of queer history and those of us that were a part of that queer history don’t want to forget it,” he said.
“But we also don’t want to memorialize it, in the sense that it was a step on the road to where we are now and where we’re going to in the future.”
There were positives, he said, in that the St. Charles created a “somewhat-positive” space for LGBTQ people to gather.
In the early days of gay people coming out of the closet, “toleration was better than total rejection,” he said.
But there were negatives. Police would frequently wander through the tavern, and “their presence implied a distaste for the fact that we were gay,” Findlay said.
“We were patrons, but we were not respected or appreciated or loved.” The slogan “Meet Me Under the Clock,” which was plastered across the tavern’s menus, also has historic meaning.
“In Toronto in the ’70s, that would be kind of like a campy slur that kids would use on the playground to insinuate that other kids were gay,” said Lauren Hortie, whose 2017 short film titled Meet Me Under the Clock explored how the bar’s Halloween party and drag show became an annual confrontation with straight spectators.
“Thousands of people would line up outside (in) kind of a mixture of admiration and jeering and egg and brick throwing,” Hortie said.
In 1979, the Star reported on the chaotic scene as a crowd of about 5,000 gathered outside the tavern to throw eggs at people arriving for the party.
Hundreds of partygoers instead used the back entrance, reporter Stef Donev wrote in a piece from Nov. 1, 1979: “With the music blaring, they couldn’t even hear the noise the outsiders were making with their shouts, noisemakers and firecrackers.”
As the night wore on, the crowd outside instead lobbed eggs at each other, police and passing cars, as spectators looked on.
“I’m here to watch the homosexuals and the eggs being thrown,” one spectator, 17, said.
The site of the tower itself has a long-standing place in city history. When the Town of York was founded in the late18th century, the land was divided into 100acre country estates for members of the provincial government.
The site was once part of a lot owned by John Elmsley, chief justice of Upper Canada.
The Yonge Street Fire Hall and clock tower opening in the 1870s, serving the northern district of the city.
By the time of the First World War, the fire hall was one of the last in Toronto to still use horse-drawn steam engines.
Tamar Harris is a general assignment reporter based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @tamarmharris