Central Technical School: Al Hamilton

Grand Central Station Dept: Emerging from the subway at Bathurst, the apprehension returned, if only for a moment. This was once Grand Central Station for the black immigrant community. The cops camped out there such was the perceived danger of the multitude of black kids pouring out of Central Technical School, bubbling, shouting, ghetto blasting with teenage abandonment. Now, it s just another cold subway station, according to The Star. I m back in the neighbourhood because some 60 people from that time have gathered at the Trane to reminisce about a man who is all but forgotten: Al Hamilton, founder of Contrast , now defunct and was back in the old neighbourhood at The Trane Studio restaurant, across the street from where I spent my first night and first year in Canada, back in the day when man was rooting around the surface of the moon with one small step for man, one giant leap . . . Bathurst St. was the axis of immigrant Caribbean-Canadian life. Honest Ed s was the black Eaton s. Go north past the subway to patty shops, barber shop, beauty shop. Go south from Honest Ed s and you pass Ram s Roti, then Lennox St. Turn right to number 28, Contrast Newspaper , the eyes, ears and voice of Canada s Black Community. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.