Frontline Centre

Community Development · 1985–1994

Friends of the Valley: The Brick Works Saved for Everyone

How a group of neighbours kept a worked-out quarry in Toronto's Don Valley from becoming housing, and made it a marsh that belongs to everyone.

A great blue heron fishing beside the beaver lodge.

For almost a century, the Don Valley Brick Works turned the clay of its quarry into the bricks that built Toronto. By 1984 the quarry was nearly worked out, and a developer, TorValley, had bought the land. It planned to fill the quarry and build 756 luxury homes on the floodplain.

In 1985 my friend Jeffrey Smyth and I started Friends of the Valley. Our slogan was simple: "The valley belongs to everyone!" We brought together everyone who cared about the site, for their own reasons: geologists, naturalists, historians, landscape architects, ratepayer groups and city leaders. We walked the public to the quarry, held Valley Rallies at Edwards Gardens, and kept the story in the papers. When TorValley was ready to grade the slope where fossils from a warm period between ice ages lie in the clay, East York Council asked for a stop-work order, and got it.

That September, the province committed $24 million to buy the Brick Works and other threatened valley lands. In 1994 Premier Bob Rae came to the site to announce a $5-million park, and I gave him a brick sprouting a bouquet of flowers, labelled as a new species: Amicus Valliensis, Friends of the Valley.

Today a stream winds through reeds and bulrushes in the old quarry, the ducks feed on the marsh, and the valley around it is still public land. I consider it the best thing I ever helped to build.

Life on the marsh today

Beavers at work by their lodge in the marsh.
A beaver lodge of piled sticks in the marsh, with a turtle on its edge.
Early spring: a beaver lodge in the marsh, with a turtle basking at its edge.
A snapping turtle swimming among lily pads.
A snapping turtle surfaces among the lily pads.
Several painted turtles basking on a rock at the water's edge.
Painted turtles sunning themselves on a rock.
A mallard drake and painted turtles on a grassy island in the marsh.
A mallard drake resting among painted turtles.
A red-winged blackbird perched on a branch.
A red-winged blackbird, one of the first signs of spring on the marsh.
Lily pads and reeds on the marsh, with the old brick buildings behind.
Summer lily pads, with the old brickworks kilns beyond the reeds.
Visitors on the boardwalk over the marsh, with the VALLEY chimney behind.
The boardwalk at dusk, under the old "VALLEY" chimney, with ducks below.
The stream tumbling over the stones into the quarry, the water that feeds the marsh.
A paved path with a rail fence below the quarry's north slope.
The path along the north slope, the quarry wall that holds fossils from between the ice ages.
The Brick Works park seen from the slope above, with the Toronto skyline beyond.
From the top of the slope: the valley park, with downtown Toronto on the horizon.
Visitors on a footbridge over the marsh, with autumn trees on the quarry slope reflected in the water.
Autumn on the marsh: visitors on the footbridge, with the old quarry slope in fall colour behind.
The marsh covered in snow, with reeds in front and the VALLEY chimney and brick buildings behind.
Winter: the marsh under snow, beneath the "VALLEY" chimney.

Timeline

  • 1889 – The Don Valley Pressed Brick Company opens; for nearly a century its bricks build Toronto.
  • 1983–84 – The conservation authority's option to buy runs out, and developer TorValley buys the land.
  • 1985 – Friends of the Valley forms. Public walks, Valley Rallies, a stop-work order to protect the fossil slope, and on September 6 the province commits $24 million to buy threatened valley lands, the Brick Works first in line.
  • Early 1990s – A Weston Foundation gift builds the first wetland ponds and boardwalks, today the Weston Family Quarry Garden.
  • March 28, 1994 – Premier Bob Rae announces a $5-million park at the Brick Works.
  • 2010 – Evergreen Brick Works opens in the old industrial buildings.

See the Brick Works buildings and their history at Evergreen Brick Works.

Hear Francesco tell it

Call and Via the Greeter will answer and introduce you to Francesco, the AI voiceprint built from Frank's own voice. Francesco speaks as Frank will for his family after he is gone, telling these stories in his own words.

You might ask:

  • How did the Brick Works get saved?
  • Tell me about the brick that grew flowers.
  • What happened at the second Valley Rally?
  • Why did the fossils in the quarry matter?
  • Who helped you?
Call Francesco

Or dial 506-616-0001 from any phone.

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