For Toby and Wayne--Riverdale Farm/Zoo Controversy

On Nov. 22 of last year I posted a series of photographs suggesting they were the old Riverdale/Toronto Zoo:

The Circus "NO SPIN ZONE": 11/22/10

One of the photo's, above I suggest was possibly of an old feline or bear enclosure. I received emails from both Wayne Jackson and Toby Styles suggesting that the photo's were not photos of the old Riverdale Zoo and were in fact possibly photo's of another facility:

From Wayne Jackson:

G’day Wade,

My old boss passed the attached photos that were on your blog to me, I was wondering where you got them? I helped take the last of the animals out of the Riverdale Zoo and they don’t look familiar to me. Plus the site of the old zoo is now Old McDonalds Farm. There was another zoo on the west side of Toronto, but most of it got burned down back in the 20’s or 30’s. I also have a series of photos of the Riverdale Zoo, if you are interested in seeing them? The first zoo in Toronto, was called Pipers Zoo, it had monkeys, birds, small mammals a pair of Asian elephants and one winter had a Blue whale on exhibit.

Wayne's "old boss" adds Ken May say's definitely not pictures of the old Riverdale Zoo.

G’day Wade,

As you can see from the info below(thread posted below) the photos that were sent to you are not of the Riverdale Zoo! In the history of the zoo, they only had two gorillas, a very young male that they received from the National Zoo, who they swapped for a male Orang, named Archie that sired the first twins, I saw him there in ’74. The other was a female that was moved to the Metro Toronto Zoo and then flown to Hawaii and she was in her late teens or early twenties.

If you would like, I will e-mail you photos from around the time it closed and it actually closed to the public in ’73 and was used as a holding area for the new zoo!

"Thank you for the offer Wayne. I will look forward to the pictures." Wade Burck

From Toby Styles:

Wade

Away back you had posted some photos of deserted zoo structures purported to be the Toronto Riverdale Zoo.

Went to a zoo retirees function yesterday and showed them to some of the old keepers they don't think they are from there I wonder if they might be from the A.W. Miles Zoo that was a private deal up here many years ago, I will continue looking.

"In researching further I suggest we were all wrong. What I thought was a feline/bear enclosure was in fact a "monkey house," and the photo's posted last year were indeed pictures of what is left of the original Riverdale/Toronto Zoo."

From FRIENDS OF THE FARM AT RIVERDALE:

Map of Riverdale Farm

On the far right of the map linked above, you will see the location today of the old "Monkey House."

The photo above from www.skyscrapercity.com taken in 2011 states this is the "monkey house."

Above we see a stone bridge leading to what is variously known as the Island House or the Monkey House in the middle of a pond in 1921. The structure and bridge still exist. From UrbanToronto.ca