Yorkville

If you trotted your horse southeast down Davenport Rd. from the old

stable on New St. it took you only five minutes to reach Yorkville Ave.

In the early 1960’s the street and its environs had slowly become a

haven for a few art galleries and jazz clubs but as time passed, the number of

these places increased and were joined by folk music venues, gift shops and

coffee houses. All the residences on Yorkville were converted into

storefronts and the whole street was transformed into a bohemian village at

the very centre of the very conservative city of Toronto.

Every summer night and most days, the street was filled with huge

crowds milling about going in and out of the clubs and shops and having a

good look at the regulars who had become known as hippies.

These were kids who had truly bought into the scene, wandering the

streets decked out in their colourful smocks, fringed leather vests, beads and

headbands, and trying desperately to look cool. The amount of long hair and

beards being sported prompted one the guys on the unit to speculate that the

only thing the street didn’t have was a good barbershop.

There was always a cacophony of sound as the crowd noise competed

with the cries of the street hawkers and blare of the loudspeakers posted

outside each of the clubs. The sugary tones of Gordon Lightfoot down at the

Riverboat competed with the throbbing backbeat of the music accompanying

the Go-Go girls dancing in the second floor window of the Myna Bird.

It was like a circus and hanging over it all, was a sweet cloud of

marijuana smoke. I think it was this, the blatant use of illegal drugs that

caused the Police Force to focus its attention on the area and launch a couple

of raids on the street under the guise of opening it up to allow motor vehicles

through. There were plenty of alternate routes in the area and lots of parking.

Nobody really needed to drive through the street.

Prior to these raids the men of the Mounted Unit had a very good

rapport with the people of the street. Now relations were strained and for the

first time I heard the word ‘Pig’ whispered as I rode through. If I had the

choice I would always ride a mare when I patrolled Yorkville. That way

when some smart-ass said, “Look at the big prick on that horse” he would

have some explaining to do.

Quite frankly I didn’t give a damn what the so-called hippies did as

long as they didn’t hurt themselves or anybody else. Of course, occasionally,

someone would have a bad acid trip or an overdose or assault someone who

didn’t agree with them concerning one of the hot political issues of the day,

like keeping troops in Vietnam or Abortion on Demand but in general,

things were strained but manageable.

I knew and was friends with many people who worked and hung out

around Yorkville and although I didn’t mention it around the station, I spent

quite a bit of my off-duty time around the street myself. I loved folk music,

and after a few beers around the corner at Place Pigalle, to gain some

courage, I would hit one of the coffee houses and join in the hootenannies;

neither was I immune to the siren call of the Go-Go girls.

For the most part I liked the people. Of course there were a few that I

disliked but only one that I detested. His name was Eset Greiber

The street had become a magnet for runaway kids from all over the

country, many of them slipping into town to see the Beatles and then

staying. The young girls were most at risk: some of them survived by couch

hopping and working part-time at the coffee houses and clubs. Still others

ended up as sex slaves for petty dope dealers.

Greiber preyed on these girls. Knowing that they had little choice, he

would offer them food, a flop, and a very small amount of money in

exchange for selling flowers for him.

I would see these sad, stoned little Lisa Doolittles plying their trade

around the area at all hours of the night.

He was a weird looking fellow, dark and thickset with a heavy accent.

He was a recent immigrant from Eastern Europe and dressed, formally in a

jacket and tie with a Homburg on his head. The only good impression his

clothes might have made was negated when you noticed that his trousers

were too short and that he wore no socks or shoes, ever!

He might have looked comical but he had the personality of a viper,

evil personified, a man who thwarted the law, took illicit advantage of his

new country and used every opportunity he could to discredit the Police

Department.

Once when I returned to the station and checked through the

photographs in my lost kid file I recognized a picture as being one of the

flower girls I’d seen on the street earlier that evening. I jumped in my car

and headed back to where I had seen her but she was gone.

When I found and confronted her sleazy boss with the photograph. He

denied ever having seen her and then took my badge number and

complained to Headquarters that I was harassing him. I had quite a bit of

explaining to do: policemen, unlike the general public, are considered guilty

until proven innocent.

When I learned that I was being transferred to the Exhibition grounds

to act as horse trainer and riding instructor I knew that I was going to miss

the excitement of Yorkville but I sure wasn’t going miss Greiber.

I had one last evening shift to spend on the street and I spent most of it

enjoying the sights and saying goodbye to some of the regulars.

It was almost time to head back to the stables and I was making some

final entries in my memo book when I noticed a crowd gathering at the

intersection where Hazelton Ave. meets Yorkville. I couldn’t see what was

going on from where I was situated so I put my book away and gave old

Major a dig in the ribs and pointed him towards the commotion. I leaned

forward in anticipation of the surge of power that was to follow, I had

forgotten which horse I was on, and there was no hurrying old Major. He

just took his time ambling over to the scene with me kicking away at his

sides and clucking encouragement.

We arrived at the corner to find a denser pocket of the already

crowded street gathered around a yellow cab parked by the curb with its rear

passenger door swung open over the sidewalk. An older man was

confronting one of the flower girls. He had hold of her basket of roses and

they were engaged in a gentle tug of war.

A woman, who looked to be the same age as the man, stood between

him and the girl with her arms stretched out and her hands resting on each of

their shoulders. She seemed to be pleading with them as she turned to face

first one and then the other.

I climbed down off of Major and he stood quietly while I made my

way over to the kafuffle to see what was going on. The woman explained

through her tears that the flower girl, one I had never seen before, was their

daughter; she had disappeared from their farm near Orangeville, north of

Toronto, several months earlier and they had just found her but she wouldn’t

listen to reason and come home with them.

“How old is she I asked? “ “She’s only fourteen” the woman wailed.

I have a sister, Brenda, who was about the same age as this girl at the

time and living with my parents on a farm north of the city. I pictured my

parents trying to deal with a situation like this and it didn’t take me long to

make up my mind whose side I was on.

I took the basket from between the father and daughter and keeping

the girl in view out of the corner of my eye, I turned to her father and said, “I

know how these kids think. Why don’t you and your wife wait in the cab

while I see if I can convince her.

Obviously stoned, the girl was by now looking frantically around for

an escape route so I grabbed her firmly by the shoulder with my free hand,

leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “Listen you little bitch, you get in

that cab before I kick your ass. Don’t say a word or I’ll have you down to

the station so fast it will make your head spin.”

With that I shoved her into the back of the cab and into her parents’

arms. I slammed the door shut and the cab sped away.

I was feeling pretty smug and self satisfied as I turned to see how my

horse was making out in my absence. That’s when I realized that I still had

the basket of roses in my hand. Major noticed them immediately and was

chewing away on one of the blossoms before I could swing the basket out of

his reach.

“Stop that!” I said, while I held the basket even further away as he

edged forward looking for seconds.

What to do? What to do? It was getting late-- I had to get going but I

couldn’t just dump the basket. I had just explained my way out of my last

scrape with the basket’s owner and I didn’t want to start a new one.

There was nothing for it. I got one of the women who had been

patting Major to hold the basket of flowers while I mounted up. She handed

me the basket and I ran my left arm through the arch of the handle and then

grabbed my reins in the same hand. As I settled myself into the saddle and

adjusted the basket into a comfortable position I set off through the crowd

trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. Who was I kidding? We hadn’t

gone ten feet before the boos, hoots and jeers started. Someone yelled out

the inevitable, “Look at the big prick on that horse!” and that is when I lost

it. I could hear the strains of a song drifting down from a second story

window: “Now if you’re going to San Francisco-------” I think that’s what inspired

me. I took a rose from the basket and shoved the stem under my hatband so

that the flower looked to be resting on my ear. Then while moving forward I

started tossing flowers left and right into the crowd. The effect was

immediate, the hoots and jeers turned to clapping and cheers and everyone

seemed to be smiling and laughing. When I reached Avenue Road Greiber

was standing bare foot on the corner glaring up at me. I took the basket into

my free hand and tossed it down to him and then, giving him the finger, I

rode off into the sunset.