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How Syd went to jail for the same length of time as a murderer - - During the depression and before the war, Syd made a name for himself buying from and selling to jobbers all over the “Golden Horseshoe” and Montreal. He knew the bullshit and dishonesty of the so called straight world and opened my eyes to the blatant criminal activity of characters like “Honest Ed” Mirvish and Mel Lastman. I have since had many of his stories corroborated and verified by people that knew all of them back in the forties and fifties. About a year after Syd moved in I asked him if he ever had a car; we would talk but I knew nothing about his past. This started the tale of a beautiful convertible he had back in the forties and how things worked within the post war slippery period. He was used by the up and coming entrepreneurs of the day as the fall guy. Syd’s business was going out of business. At the end of WW2 foreign and domestic companies were getting back into peace time production and product sales. There were shipments of cheap imported and domestic products waiting to be put on the market. He bought the products for a promissory note and a down payment then sold them, at below purchase cost, to business men starting their own stores and supply houses. These up and coming business men passed the savings on to their customers so they were local folk heroes. Syd did not have the money to pay for the products and would offer a lesser amount. The complaints came to the notice of the fraud squad and charges were threatened. Before formal charges could be laid, Syd would declare bankruptcy absolving himself of any responsibility. This was legal by the way the law was written at the time. He did this several times, while filling his friend’s stores and warehouses. An example he gave me of this way of doing business was a shipment of electric toy trains he sold to Honest Ed’s at Christmas one year in the early fifties. Ed priced these new devices so far below the Eaton and Simpsons stores he drew attention to himself. He used this product as a draw to his store and it worked very well. This act also put Honest Ed’s, and by extension Syd, on the police radar. His ‘business of going out of business’ caused the Canadian bankruptcy laws to be changed; I’m sure he wasn’t alone in the activity but he was a major player and his name was mentioned in parliament while the act was being debated, Syd is in the daily Hansard. He was part of both Mirvish’s and Lastman’s early successes, Syd’s unpaid for products were found in both of their warehouses and stores. To cover their asses and save themselves they sold him down the river. They paid two men to lie in court and deny they knew the product was unpaid for. The entrepreneurs were popular with the public and helping move money within the society, they were deemed victims. That is how Syd went to jail for fifteen years. His new home -- Syd was a true believer in Rochdale, he would build the resident’s courage by preaching the values of change. Talking about Rochdale being a major player in the next period of social adjustment. Building himself into a rage about the necessity for Rochdale to stand its ground and take its place in history. He gathered a following and had a regular group around him, he would hold court in a variety of places around the building. It might be a private room or in a public space. Syd liked the open acts of nakedness that were practiced within the building. He enjoyed sunning himself in public and sought out the sunniest spots in the building. He would set up his chaise lounge and reflectors and lay in the sun. The two places in the building set up for this activity were the 17th floor patio and the 2nd floor patio. The 2nd floor patio was the one most convenient to the building’s activities. One hot summer week in the late summer of 1971, I was given the unenviable job of tearing down the dome band shell and stage on the 2nd floor patio. This was a bad job because it was a favourite spot for a lot of people to hang out, myself included, but the City of Toronto made us remove it because it didn’t have a building permit and they refused to give us one. While taking it apart I was regularly cursed at from the Ashram Lounges and bedroom windows and had bottles thrown at me. Groups and individuals would come out on to the patio and give me a hard time for the destruction. Nobody liked what I was doing, myself included. But the city building department was going to post a condemnation and eviction notice on the building if it was not removed. We had fought the case in court and lost. The city was looking under every stone to find a way to close Rochdale College and the residents were having a tantrum. So as you can see it was an unenviable job. About the 3rd day Syd came out, set up his chaise lounge & reflectors to sun himself. Syd asked what I was doing, I explained the situation and he simply said, “That’s too bad, it’s a fun structure” and continued sunning. The problems stopped immediately, nobody wanted to hit me with debris or look bad in front of him. On the Friday I was down to the last bits of the dome frame, a large diameter shaped pipe that was the support arch for the front opening. Syd had happily set himself up a safe distance from me. I told him that I was down to the short strokes and that the arch was going to come down but I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it yet. He said to let him know if he was in danger and continued sunning. The main arch stood perfectly straight until I undid the last bolt, then it came down fast, with a horrendous crash and boom on to the raised wooden deck. I was behind the arch and had a perfect view of Syd as he sprung out of his chaise and scampered towards the door to the 2nd floor lobby. He stopped at the door, turned around, saw me laughing and saying I was sorry but it got away, then he started to laugh his big toothy deep down belly roll laugh. He knew I hadn’t scared him on purpose. I got us a cold pop, he rolled a joint and we partook of our refreshments with another laugh. All was well and he went back to sunning and I took the arch apart. I liked Syd and he liked me, we were friends. |