Spacing

Diverse communities shape the streets in Toronto, regarded as one of the most multicultural cities in the world. The largest Chinatown, known also as Chinatown West, shines as one distinct neighbourhood that showcases the city’s motto, Diversity Our Strength. The streetscape is crowded with pedestrians jockeying around street vendors and aunties hawking their garden produce. The smells, sights, and sounds compete with heavy traffic, clogged by streetcars, delivery trucks, bicycles, and passenger vehicles. With so much overwhelming the senses, store and street signs go unnoticed. Without a doubt, however, their glowing lights and vibrant colours are dominant visual cues that uniquely define Chinatown.

No other ethnic neighbourhoods, like Little Italy or Greektown, match the sheer density and vibrancy of signs. A dizzying array is plastered on all available wall and window space.
Chinese writing and design elements are the strongest expressions of cultural identity. Traditional colours of black, yellow, blue, and green dominate, especially red and gold that symbolize good luck and prosperity.

Signs are silent but speak volumes about the historical struggles of the community and the diversity of Chinese immigrants who have settled there. A trip down memory lane gives a broader context to their evolution.

The Dark Years

Going back in time to the city’s first Chinatown in The Ward, the Chinese population was small with 2,735 recorded in the 1931 census. Primarily from the rural areas of Guangdong province, the early Chinese immigrants shared common customs, traditions, and language that was called Taishanese. Most were married men who lived their lives like bachelors. Canada’s head taxes, 1885-1923, and Chinese exclusionary law, 1923-1947, forced them to leave their wives and children in China. Systemic discrimination dictated where the Chinese could live, work, and spend their leisure time. While this kept them segregated within the city, Chinatown was their haven and supported a self-sufficient community.

The ethnic identity of the inhabitants and businesses was not represented in any architectural designs and features. The Chinese had moved into an aging and rundown neighbourhood as its last immigrant group, vacated by the Jewish community and before them, a roll call of other immigrants. The two- to three-storey buildings were nondescript and any activity in them was hidden from view. What distinguished these as being Chinese were the signs on the windows, doorways, and awnings.

Most of the signs were hand-painted and simple in design. The Chinese script provided a sense of familiarity and connection through the goods and services that were provided. The addition of English translations, with their typefaces taking on an exaggerated and stylized Chinese character, showed that the business owners were eager for both Chinese- and English-speaking customers. The Chinese characters were the same scale as the English words. This practice contrasted Quebec’s current language policy that requires French as the dominant language on outdoor commercial signs.

Chinese restaurants were the exception to the simple, hand-painted signs. Because so many of them were on the rent-friendlier second storey, they typically had vertical elements on signs and banners that were hung from the upper levels. Vertical signs reflect the Chinese tradition of signs that hang down on doorways or on building pillars. An example was the International Chop Suey House sign on Elizabeth Street. It was rescued from demolition in the 1950s and installed at a Chinese restaurant with the same name on Kingston Road in the city’s east end.

Lighting Up Chinatown

The end of the Second World War was a turning point in the history of the Chinese on several fronts, all of them influencing the signage in Chinatown. The Chinese Immigration Act that had outright banned the Chinese from coming into Canada was repealed. The right to vote was granted and now allowed them to run for public office and enter into professions, like medicine and law. As much as these legislative milestones opened up immigration and expanded business and professional opportunities, a more menacing threat challenged the community.

Two-thirds of Chinatown was appropriated in the 1950s for development, including a new City Hall and public square. Two outcomes had an impact on signs: the Save Chinatown campaign and the forced move westwards.

One-third of Chinatown was left standing after new City Hall opened in 1965. When the city made proposals for further land expropriation, the Chinese community rallied under the Save Chinatown campaign. Posters were prominently and extensively displayed in store windows and doorways, likely the first signage campaign ever waged by the Chinese community. Chinatown was saved.

Among the businesses that survived expropriation was a new style of Chinese restaurants, including what came to be known as the Big Four: Nanking (1947), Lichee Garden (1949), Sai Woo (1953), and Kwong Chow (1959). For a neighbourhood that had been regarded as a place to avoid, Chinatown became a popular destination. The chop suey houses were the biggest draw and enticed diners hungry for Chinese food, adapted for the Western palate.

Their signs, so unlike the black-and-white ones before the war, were enlivened by the colourful craftsmanship of neon. Other restaurants followed suit and embraced the advertising advantages. Signage illuminated their buildings and added an element of safety and appeal for late-night hours. Cultural symbols and ornamentation glowed with light, colour, and movement. Lichee Garden with its Chinese decorative motifs and lichee fruit rendering. Nanking and the Kwong Chow with pagodas on their vertical signs. Golden Dragon with its fire-breathing dragon.

The Brothers Markle, Jack and Sam, whose company lit up Yonge Street at Sam the Record Man, Brown Derby, Eaton Centre, and hundreds of other sites, created many of the signs in Chinatown. This included the second location of Sea Hi Famous Chinese Restaurant at Bathurst and Wilson streets. It not only was a Jewish institution and family favorite in North York but a backdrop for two films: Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas and Where the Truth Lies starring Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth. As one of the longest running Chinese restaurants in the city, Sea Hi closed in 2019 after 59 years. Its exterior neon sign was donated to the Downtown Yonge BIA for the future Neon Museum Toronto.

Brighter Days Ahead: Chinatown West

The second major impact of the land expropriation for new City Hall was the forced move westward along Dundas Street to Spadina Avenue. Toronto’s second Chinatown emerged. Once again, the Chinese had moved into a neighbourhood that was being vacated by Jewish businesses, organizations, and residents.

Although there were already a handful of iconic signs, notably at the El Mocambo and the Victory Burlesque Theatre, signs became an even more dominant feature of Chinatown’s urban landscape. As the Chinese community increased in population, signs were one solution to fierce competition for a growing customer base with money to spend. A-frame sidewalk boards began cluttering the sidewalks outside of shops and restaurants.

Food remained a major draw. The chop suey houses were eclipsed by restaurants that catered to the newly arriving Chinese immigrants. By this time, Hong Kong, rather than the rural areas of Guangdong province, was the primary source of newcomers. Coming from one of the worst light polluters in the world, they arrived with urban and cosmopolitan sensibilities and yearned for dishes and food that they had left behind. Dim sum palaces, fine dining, banquet halls, and other eateries broadened from Cantonese cuisine to Hakka, Sichuan, and other regional fares.

Yen Pin Palace (1971-1978) was one of the few buildings with Chinese architectural features. The historic Labor Lyceum building was refurbished as a restaurant with elaborate reproductions from Beijing, a bright yellow exterior, a green ceramic roof, and two stone lions guarding the front entrance. Rumours soon started circulating that the building was haunted. One explanation was the two rooftop billboards across the street on Spadina Avenue. They were positioned in a way that allegedly pointed evil spirits to the restaurant. Exorcists and feng shui masters were hired. Mirrors were positioned to reflect away bad luck. More drastic measures changed the main entrance to St. Andrew Street and added two additional guardian lions. Despite these efforts, seven restaurants, including the Bright Pearl, opened and closed at this site.

The surviving remnant of the sign for a fortune cookie factory presides over Huron Public Square. Far East Food Products opened in the 1960s and produced 10,000 cookies an hour, including custom-ordered monster ones. When Mel Lastman, the former mayor of the City of North York, travelled to the People’s Republic of China (China) on a goodwill mission, he handed out 400 giant fortune cookies. They were stuffed with messages inviting everyone to come and make a fortune in North York.

Public telephone booths were fashioned as pagodas and labelled with Chinese writing meaning telephone and Chinese-styled fonts for the English wording. Even the local police station has Chinese characters for “Police Services Station” prominently displayed above the main entrance. These pay tribute to its location in Chinatown and also serves, in some measure, as a peace offering. In the 70s, the proposed site would have demolished a row of homes at 141–147 Beverley Street. Community protests succeeded in having the 52 Division housed at the intersection of Dundas and Simcoe streets instead.

Vital Signs: 80s Onwards

Chinatown suffered from the migration of the Chinese community to other areas of the city: Chinatown East, Scarborough, and North York, as well as to Markham, Richmond Hill, and other municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area. Canada’s Business Immigration Program, however, revitalized Chinatown beginning in 1985. It attracted entrepreneurs and investors from Hong Kong, Taiwan, then China.

The intensification of signs was proof as new restaurants, shops, and services opened. Multi-level malls were built, the two largest ones being Chinatown Centre and Dragon City, topped with a giant digital billboard. In 2010, Chinatown was designated as a Special Sign District that recognized the style, number, and type of signs as contributing to the character of the area. Exemptions to the city’s by-law allowed an increased signage density, as well as signs on the third storey, as opposed to only the second.

Chinese is complex with miscellaneous languages and dialects that are mutually unintelligible to their respective speakers. The three predominant ones in Chinatown have changed over the years. Taishanese is the village dialect that was spoken up until the 60s. By the 70s, the Cantonese language replaced Taishanese when Hong Kong was the largest source of newcomers into Canada. After China outpaced Hong Kong as the largest source, Mandarin became more widely spoken in Chinatown.

Chinese writing has two different forms: traditional and simplified. Traditional Chinese has been used for thousands of years. On horizontally-oriented signage, the characters are written from right to left. Simplified Chinese was introduced in the 50s by China to improve the rate of literacy. The Chinese characters were modified by reducing the number of strokes. These are arranged to be read from left to right. The orientation of Chinese writing was controversial up until the 70s as it indicated political affiliation. Right-to-left writing was practised by supporters of the Guomindang or Nationalist party in Taiwan, left-to-right writing by China.

Bilingual public signs can be found throughout Chinatown. The street signs are written in traditional Chinese as transliterations of the English pronunciation into Cantonese. For example, Spadina is transliterated to sound like “See Bah Da Na.” Traffic on the Gardiner Expressway is directed to Chinatown by an English-Chinese sign at the Spadina exit ramp. It was installed in 2003 as an initiative of the Chinatown Business Improvement Area (BIA) to help revitalize Chinatown in the aftermath of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome).

Bilingual signs have only recently been introduced by city planners for public meetings regarding development applications. In 2019, an English-only sign was posted about a proposed development at 315-325 Spadina Avenue. The proposal would dramatically alter the character of the area and shutter more than ten long-time Chinese businesses, including the beloved Rol San Restaurant and Ding Dong Bakery. The Friends of Chinatown Toronto responded with a parody sign that called out the city for the unilingual sign that left many directly affected people unaware. The grassroots group successfully brought about the city’s first-ever non-English development sign.

Chinatown has established roots in multicultural and multiethnic Toronto where diverse peoples, cultures, and lifestyles are celebrated, accommodated, and interwoven into shared community. Like anywhere else, Chinatown is changing. Time will tell if the richness and density of signs will continue creating a lively atmosphere that are key to the pulse and life of the neighbourhood. What will endure, however, are their history and stories as a testament to what Chinatown was, what it is now, and what it may become.

The TORONTO sign in front of City Hall is one of the top three most visited attractions in the city. It glows as a beacon that lights up the site of Toronto’s first Chinatown – when there was no light.

Chinatown is crowded with pedestrians jockeying around street vendors and aunties hawking their garden produce. The smells, sights, and sounds compete with heavy traffic, clogged by streetcars, delivery trucks, bicycles, and passenger vehicles. With so much overwhelming the senses, store and street signs go unnoticed. Without a doubt, however, their glowing lights and vibrant colours are dominant visual cues that uniquely define what is also known as Chinatown West.

No other ethnic neighbourhoods, like Little Italy or Greektown, match the sheer density and vibrancy of signs. A dizzying array is plastered on all available wall and window space. Chinese writing and design elements are the strongest expressions of cultural identity. Traditional colours of black, yellow, blue, and green dominate, especially red and gold that symbolize good luck and prosperity. Signs are silent but speak volumes about the historical struggles of the community and the diversity of Chinese immigrants who have settled there. A trip down memory lane gives a broader context to their evolution.

The Dark Years

Going back in time to the city’s first Chinatown in The Ward, the Chinese population was small with 2,735 recorded in the 1931 census. Primarily from the rural areas of Guangdong province, the early Chinese immigrants shared common customs, traditions, and language that was called Taishanese. Most were married men who lived their lives like bachelors. Canada’s head taxes, 1885-1923, and Chinese exclusionary law, 1923-1947, forced them to leave their wives and children in China. Systemic discrimination dictated where the Chinese could live, work, and spend their leisure time. While this kept them segregated within the city, Chinatown was their haven and supported a self-sufficient community.

The ethnic identity of the inhabitants and businesses was not represented in any architectural designs and features. The two- to three-storey buildings were nondescript and any activity in them was hidden from view. What distinguished these as being Chinese were the signs on the windows, doorways, and awnings.

Most of the signs were hand-painted and simple in design. The Chinese script provided a sense of familiarity and connection through the goods and services that were provided. The addition of English translations, with their typefaces taking on an exaggerated and stylized Chinese character, showed that the business owners were eager for both Chinese- and English-speaking customers. The Chinese characters were the same scale as the English words. This practice contrasted Quebec’s current language policy that requires French as the dominant language on outdoor commercial signs.

The vertical sign for International Chop Suey Restaurant was rescued from demolition in the 1950s and installed at a Chinese restaurant with the same name on Kingston Road in the city’s east end.

Chinese restaurants were the exception to the simple, hand-painted signs. Because so many of them were on the second floor, where rent was cheaper, they typically had vertical elements on signs and banners that were hung from the upper levels. Vertical signs reflect the Chinese tradition of signs that hang down on doorways or on building pillars. An example was the International Chop Suey House sign on Elizabeth Street.

Despite these promotional efforts to attract non-Chinese customers, public, medical, and media opinions kept people away from Chinatown. The Chinese had moved into an aging and rundown neighbourhood as its last immigrant group, vacated by the Jewish community and before them, a roll call of other immigrants. It had gained a reputation as a slum after the House of Industry, known as the poor house, opened. The rundown buildings had been declared unfit for habitation by the city’s Medical Health Officer. News reports fueled negative opinions and attitudes. These included a 1907 editorial in the Globe that warned of the “Asiatic peril to national life”.

Lighting Up Chinatown

The end of the Second World War was a turning point in the history of the Chinese on several fronts, all of them influencing the signage in Chinatown. The Chinese Immigration Act that had outright banned the Chinese from coming into Canada was repealed. The right to vote was granted and now allowed them to run for public office and enter into professions, like medicine and law. As much as these legislative milestones opened up immigration and expanded business and professional opportunities, a more menacing threat challenged the community.

Two-thirds of Chinatown was appropriated in the 1950s for development, including a new City Hall and public square. Two outcomes had an impact on signs: the Save Chinatown campaign and the forced move westwards.

One-third of Chinatown was left standing after new City Hall opened in 1965. When the city made proposals for further land expropriation, the Chinese community rallied in 1967 and launched the Save Chinatown campaign. The coalition of Chinese organizations found support from reform politicians, like John Sewell, who supported the preservation of neighbourhoods and the fight against urban sprawl. Posters were prominently and extensively displayed in store windows and doorways, likely the first signage campaign ever waged by the Chinese community. The campaign’s success in 1969 saved Chinatown. However, further proposals in the early 70s recommended the construction of high-rise office towers. Mayor David Crombie set a 45-foot height restriction as a holding action to allow time for a more considered plan for the downtown core.

Among the businesses that survived expropriation was a new style of Chinese restaurants, including what came to be known as the Big Four: Nanking (1947), Lichee Garden (1949), Sai Woo (1953), and Kwong Chow (1959). For a neighbourhood that had been regarded as a place to avoid, Chinatown became a popular destination. Chop suey houses, as they were called, were the biggest draw and enticed diners hungry for Chinese food, adapted for the Western palate. Chop suey is a stir-fry of diced meat and vegetables with a starchy sauce. Already a hit in New York City by the 1880s, it was further popularized when Sinclair Lewis wrote about this dish in his 1920 novel, Main Street. The demand for chop suey filtered into Canada and its popularity resulted in so many Chinese restaurants not only featuring it on their menus but also including it in their names, like Kwong Chow Chop Suey House.

Their signs, so unlike the black-and-white ones before the war, were enlivened by the colourful craftsmanship of neon. Other restaurants followed suit and embraced the advertising advantages. Signage illuminated their buildings and added an element of safety and appeal for late-night hours. Cultural symbols and ornamentation glowed with light, colour, and movement; Lichee Garden with its Chinese decorative motifs and lichee fruit rendering, Nanking and the Kwong Chow with pagodas on their vertical signs, and Golden Dragon with its fire-breathing dragon.

The Brothers Markle, Jack and Sam, whose company lit up Yonge Street at Sam the Record Man, Brown Derby, Eaton Centre, and hundreds of other sites, created many of the signs in Chinatown. This included the second location of Sea Hi Famous Chinese Restaurant at Bathurst and Wilson streets. The sign that spanned 20 meters in length was unique in having only oversized letters. A dragon head topped a serpentine letter “S”, the dragon symbolizing power and strength. Chinese traditional colours of red for good luck and gold for prosperity lit up the letters in the evenings.

Sea Hi wasnot only a Jewish institution and family favorite in North York but a backdrop for two films: Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas and Where the Truth Lies starring Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth. As one of the longest running Chinese restaurants in the city, Sea Hi closed in 2019 after 59 years. Plans are underway for the iconic eatery to re-open under new ownership in Vaughan. What will be missing is the exterior neon sign that was donated to the Downtown Yonge BIA for the future Neon Museum Toronto.

Brighter Days Ahead: Chinatown West

The second major impact of the land expropriation for new City Hall was the forced move westward along Dundas Street to Spadina Avenue. Toronto’s second Chinatown emerged. Once again, the Chinese had moved into a neighbourhood that was being vacated by Jewish businesses, organizations, and residents.

Although there were already a handful of iconic signs, notably at the El Mocambo and the Victory Burlesque Theatre, signs became an even more dominant feature of Chinatown’s urban landscape. As the Chinese community increased in population, signs were one solution to fierce competition for a growing customer base with money to spend. A-frame sidewalk boards began cluttering the sidewalks outside of shops and restaurants.

Food remained a major draw. The chop suey houses were eclipsed by restaurants that catered to the newly arriving Chinese immigrants. By this time, Hong Kong, rather than the rural areas of Guangdong province, was the primary source of newcomers. Coming from one of the worst light polluters in the world, they arrived with urban and cosmopolitan sensibilities and yearned for dishes and food that they had left behind. Dim sum palaces, fine dining, banquet halls, and other eateries broadened from Cantonese cuisine to Hakka, Sichuan, and other regional fares.

Yen Pin Palace (1971-1978) was one of the few buildings with Chinese architectural features. The historic Labor Lyceum building was refurbished as a restaurant with elaborate reproductions from Beijing, a bright yellow exterior, a green ceramic roof, and two stone lions guarding the front entrance. Rumours soon started circulating that the building was haunted. One explanation was the two rooftop billboards across the street on Spadina Avenue. They were positioned in a way that allegedly pointed evil spirits to the restaurant. Exorcists and feng shui masters were hired. Mirrors were positioned to reflect away bad luck. More drastic measures changed the main entrance to St. Andrew Street and added two additional guardian lions. Despite these efforts, this site remained bedevilled. After Yen Ping Palace closed in 1978, it was succeeded by six more restaurants: Genghis Khan, Paul’s Palace Deep Sea Shantung, President, Hsin Kuang (1985-1997), Bright Pearl (1997-2010), and Gold Diamond (2013). In 2017, the building was extensively renovated as an office space that has remained unrented. Only rumours of superstitions and ghosts have held off fifty years of changes in occupancy.

Chinatown began to suffer from the exodus of the community as its real estate and rents increased beyond reach. First it was to the east end around Gerrard Street and Broadview Avenue to become Chinatown East, later nicknamed “Little Saigon”. By the 80s, the lure of spacious homes, large lots, and affordable prices moved people moved to the suburbs of North York and Scarborough, then beyond the city limits to Mississauga, Markham and Richmond Hill.

What saved Chinatown was Canada’s Business Immigration Program in 1985. It attracted entrepreneurs and investors from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. The intensification of signs was proof as new restaurants, shops, and services opened. Multi-level malls were built, the two largest ones being Chinatown Centre and Dragon City, topped with a giant digital billboard. In 2010, Chinatown was designated as a Special Sign District that recognized the style, number, and type of signs as contributing to the character of the area. Exemptions to the city’s by-law allowed an increased signage density, as well as signs on the third storey, as opposed to only the second.

Chinese is complex with miscellaneous languages and dialects that are mutually unintelligible to their respective speakers. The three predominant ones in Chinatown have changed over the years. Taishanese is the village dialect that was spoken up until the 60s. By the 70s, the Cantonese language replaced Taishanese when Hong Kong was the largest source of newcomers into Canada. After China outpaced Hong Kong as the largest source, Mandarin became more widely spoken in Chinatown.

Chinese writing has two different forms: traditional and simplified. Traditional Chinese has been used for thousands of years. On horizontally-oriented signage, the characters are written from right to left. Simplified Chinese was introduced in the 50s by China to improve the rate of literacy. The Chinese characters were modified by reducing the number of strokes. These are arranged to be read from left to right. The orientation of Chinese writing was controversial up until the 70s as it indicated political affiliation. Right-to-left writing was practised by supporters of the Guomindang or Nationalist party in Taiwan, left-to-right writing by China.

Bilingual public signs can be found throughout Chinatown. The street signs are written in traditional Chinese as transliterations of the English pronunciation into Cantonese. For example, Spadina is transliterated to sound like “See Bah Da Na.” Traffic on the Gardiner Expressway is directed to Chinatown by an English-Chinese sign at the Spadina exit ramp. It was installed in 2003 as an initiative of the Chinatown Business Improvement Area (BIA) to help revitalize Chinatown in the aftermath of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome).

Bilingual signs have only recently been introduced by city planners for public meetings regarding development applications. In 2019, an English-only sign was posted about a proposed development at 315-325 Spadina Avenue. The proposal would dramatically alter the character of the area and shutter more than ten long-time Chinese businesses, including the beloved Rol San Restaurant and Ding Dong Bakery. The Friends of Chinatown Toronto responded with a parody sign that called out the city for the unilingual sign that left many directly affected people unaware. The grassroots group successfully brought about the city’s first-ever non-English development sign.

Chinatown has established roots in multicultural and multiethnic Toronto where diverse peoples, cultures, and lifestyles are celebrated, accommodated, and interwoven into shared community. Like anywhere else, Chinatown is changing. Gentrification, re-development, e-commerce, and the pandemic will leave their mark. Time will tell if the richness and density of signs will continue creating a lively atmosphere that are key to the pulse and life of the neighbourhood. What will endure, however, are their history and stories as a testament to what Chinatown was, what it is now, and what it may become.