Jeff Ribeiro did not buy the old brick garage at the corner of Rogers and Old Weston Rds. for what was inside. Nor could he possibly imagine what awaited him when he first entered the building last month.

The garage, purchased through an estate sale, was literally crammed to the rafters with stuff. In addition to enough machinery and tools to outfit a small auto parts manufacturer, the warehouse housed cartons of unused motor oil from decades past, boxes of bullets and a bazooka.

“You couldn’t walk when you first went in there. You had to crawl,” Ribeiro recalls.

Parked out back was a U.S. army jeep from World War II and an old farm tractor. Then were the seven automobiles, including a 1956 Mercury Montclair, a 1965 Cadillac, a 1967 Mustang and a 1969 Olds Cutlass.

“I didn’t know any of this was in there,” says Ribeiro, who bought the property in partnership with the Nova Era bakery outlet next door. “The previous owner was some kind of hoarder. It’s strange. Why would a bazooka be here?”

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You may have caught this story in the Toronto Star earlier this month.

Just goes to show that the tv shows about pawn stars and bidding on abandoned storage units have nothing on the potential of our neighbourhood!

The Heydon House is located not far from the garage in this story.

Some of you may recall the story that during the First World War, the hotel was used as a barrack by the Royal Flying Corps, and its outlying buildings filled with military supplies.  When the war ended, the servicemen left the hotel and also abandoned the supplies.  Old timers recall children breaking into the supplies and playing with flares and flamable liquids. Fortunately, no one was hurt nor was the neighbourhood burned down.

David Raymont

Earlscourt History Club