Mount Sinai's humble past faces the wrecking ball

For many baby boomers, Toronto's Yorkville Avenue is forever linked to the the 1960s, when it was the gathering place for Canada's hippies. Four decades earlier, however, Yorkville Avenue was notable for another reason — the facility that would become Canada's first Jewish general hospital was established at 100 Yorkville Ave. in 1922.

Figure. The entrance marking Mount Sinai's humble beginnings: calls mount to save the building from the wrecking crew Photo by: Peter Wilton

Eighty years later, that 33-bed maternity and convalescent hospital has evolved into Mount Sinai Hospital, a 462-bed teaching facility on University Avenue, but the building where it got its start sits vacant and boarded up, awaiting the wrecker's ball.

The original back section is already gone, and signs have sprouted advertising a 13-storey building for the site. But Toronto residents, including award-winning writer Margaret Atwood, protested the proposed demolition, and the matter is now before the Ontario Municipal Board.

“Mount Sinai was a product of necessity,” explains Jane Beecroft of Canada's History Project, a group that is trying to protect areas of historic importance from destruction. She points out that in the first part of the 20th century there was systemic discrimination against not only the Jewish community but against anything non-British. In Toronto's hospitals, for instance, there was a policy of not hiring Jews.

In 1916, members of Toronto's Jewish community decided that they needed a hospital of their own. Four determined women, known collectively as the Ezras Noshem Society, then set out to make a Jewish hospital a reality. By 1922, through vigorous campaigning and fundraising, Ezras Noshem had raised $12 000, enough for the down payment on 100 Yorkville, and the Toronto Hebrew Maternity and Convalescent Hospital was founded, with all 40 of Toronto's Jewish doctors joining its staff. Thirty years later it moved into a state-of-the-art, $7.3-million facility on University Avenue.

Today, little remains to remind passersby of the role 100 Yorkville Ave. played in the evolution of medicine in Canada, but those who look closely can still see the Star of David etched into the plaster on either side of the front door. — Peter Wilton, Toronto