Jack Creley and David Smith, pioneer Gentrifiers

I'm in the City Archives today trying to collate the research on gentrification, and tie up some loose ends.  Over the past months I have been following the history of gentrification in Toronto.  In more recent days I have been working on George Herczeg, a key figure in the old-house renovation trade.

I am now able to bring two of these threads together.  It seems that Herczeg got his start in old-house renovation on MacPherson Ave in 1961.  In one of his 1968 interviews he mentions that he bought his first house on MacPherson for $22,000, and apparently in 1961.

A check through the TEELA market survey books reveals only one house being sold on MacPherson in 1961 for $22,000, and that was 82 MacPherson.  It sold in January 1961 for $22,000 and resold in July 1961 for $24,170.  Checks in the assessment rolls seem to show that 82 MacPherson did not change hands before late June 1961, and remained owned by Jack and Drusilla Mitchell, who lived next door in 84 MacPherson.

But the 1962 assessment rolls show that by late June 1962 82 MacPherson has passed into the hands of David Smith and Jack Creley.  Smith was a couturier, who kept an antique shop in Bloor-Yorkville.  Creley was a celebrated actor, US-born, but firmly settled in Canada.  These guys were a couple.  David Smith was listed as tenant of part of 82 MacPherson, with Milan and Isabelle Chvostek tenants of the other unit.  Milan Chvostek was a production assistant with CBC.

Creley and Smith were still living in 82 MacPherson in 1979 when they had it remodelled, and a balcony added.

So Herczeg, pioneer developer of old-house renovations, who had done more than 200 by 1970, sold his first serious house reno to David Smith and Jack Creley, two key figures in the city's arts and gentrification scene in the 1960s.  A very neat conjunction between two threads of the story.

Incidentally, one of our family friends was Mona Colicos, ex-wife of John Colicos, John was an actor contemporary of Jack Creley and appeared with him in several productions, at Stratford and elsewhere.  Actor James Doohan, best known for his role as Scotty in the original Star Trek series, was another contemporary of Creley, and another actor who appeared in productions with him.  John Colicos has the distinction of playing the first Klingon with a speaking part on the original Star Trek.  I realize now that James Doohan, John and Mona Colicos must have been frequent visitors to 82 MacPherson Avenue.  It's a small world.