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Demise of the Neighbourhood

Industrial Expansion

During the 1950s and 60s Stelco grew; expanding through an aggressive infilling strategy and by buying up as houses and buildings to ultimately demolish them for its industrial expansion.  

This photo from the late 50s shows two young women from the neighbourhood standing at Gage Avenue near Sheffield where houses once stood. A fence has replaced the demolished houses, dividing the remainder of the neighbourhood from the parking lot beyond. (Courtesy of Diane Morelli)
Stelco Flashes February 1964 publication showing two bulldozers pushing rubble during Stelco expansion.
Stelco’s modernization in the 1950s included expanding its lands through infilling water lots obtained from the Harbour Commission and purchasing the land upon which Brightsiders’ homes stood individually to eventually demolish the houses. (Source: <em>Stelco Flashes</em>, Feb. 1964; Courtesy of <em>Brightside Memories</em> FaceBook page)
Aerial image of land reclamation efforts for Stelco expansion.
The caption for this image describes Stelco’s use of land reclamation (replacing ‘dredged muck’ with ‘stable sand’) to create more land for industrial expansion. (Source: Stelco Flashes, Feb. 1964; Courtesy of <em>Brightside Memories</em> FaceBook page)

Listen: Slag In Front Of The Houses. Click the play circle below.

Show/Hide Transcript

Speaker 1:    

Morris Gawlik, he lived on Birmingham, about three, maybe five houses down.. 

Speaker 2:    

Yeah yeah. 

Speaker 1:    

He never sold. And Stelco used to come there at night with the derrick and they had ingots, you know, and they put him on this and they drop them, so the guys couldn’t sleep. But the guys weren’t home at night.  

[laughter] 

So, they got wise and they didn’t know what else to do. So they paid the money. 

Speaker 2:    

In fact, you know the Gallos, who lived next door to us, and they didn’t want that done, so they built a wall around it. They’d be protected but they would be about that far down. 

Speaker 3:    

Like they built a big fence around the house? 

Speaker 2:    

They built fencing.  

Yeah. 

So, they didn’t get the slag up through the house like we did. 

 

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