A Church Manse
There was another clergyperson living in the manse at 10 High Park Gardens when I came to Emmanuel-Howard Park (now Roncesvalles United Church) in 1997. He hadn’t retired yet, so I rented a house on Triller Ave. in Parkdale. That was an eye-opening experience — we were right on the stroll for the sex trade workers.
Some of the sex workers were BIPOC and trans. One would sometimes sit on our front porch and have tea with us. I love that stretch, actually. It reminded me of where I briefly lived in the 1970s in New York City, on the Lower East Side — a slum and dangerous, but a street filled with artists, sex trade workers and bikers.
Triller was a little bit like that. Queen West was a no-go zone at night — crack, heroin, sex trade workers, you name it. And then of course, High Park Gardens was exactly the opposite. It was people with money.
Moving into the manse
We moved in when the other clergyperson retired. By then I had met someone and we ended up living together and eventually marrying.
It was a beautiful little cottage of a house that could have been in some English borough. We fixed it up a great deal while we were there. But we weren’t there for long because the church needed to sell it. They sold it for far less than it was worth, of course.
The Toronto Zen Centre was right at the corner. I started sitting zazen with them in the mornings from time to time because it was so close, and it was a good thing to do.
Making friends with the neighbours
I remember having an open house for our neighbours when we first moved into the manse. One of the top wine experts in the city lived on the street. As soon as he told me what he did, I thought, oh my God — because we had brewed our own wine at one of the make-your-own-wine stores. It was plonk by comparison.
He was so gracious, though — a lovely, lovely man. I remember him sitting there and drinking way too much of it with us. I thought: well, there’s class.
All in all, I was nine years at Emmanuel-Howard Park. When the church sold the house, we moved to a condo on Beverley St. And when I was elected to political life in 2006, I felt I should live in the riding. That’s when we bought the house I’m in now on Elm Grove Ave.