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Imposing stuctures like Scarborough General Hospital are landmarks that are recognized city wide. A stroll along parts of St. Andrew's Road leaves us with a clear sense of 19th century Bendale. Many of the earliest landmarks of Bendale still stand relatively untouched by the modern world while some reside only as archival images and in the memories of long time residents. The local landmarks are places that residents have identified as having meaning to the community, both past and present.

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Scarborough General Hospital looking northwest from McCowan and Lawrence
1969
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

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The Sisters of Misericord built the first hospital in Scarborough. In 1952 they bought twenty-five acres near the original Thomson settlement for $30,000. One of the ways the building of the hospital was funded was through the "selling of bricks". Members of the community bought the bricks that would build the hospital and in return received a paper brick to mark their contribution. The hospital opened officially on May 12, 1956.

When the hospital first opened there was no TTC service. Local firefighters volunteered to give regular service everyday to the hospital. They did this for almost two months until the dirt road we call Lawrence Avenue was improved to the TTC's satisfaction.

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Bendale Post Office and Store
1930
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

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The community was initially given the Scottish name Benlomond, in 1878, when a post office opened on the south west corner of what is now Lawrence Avenue and McCowan Road, in William Forfar's General Store. However, as that name was already in use elsewhere, in close proximity to Scarborough, the post office was formally renamed Bendale in 1881. The name refers to the topography of the area, the hills and valley which make up this part of Scarborough. The post office closed in 1913 as rural mail delivery was introduced to Scarborough.

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Bendale Post Office and Store
1930
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

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"Bendale post office in those days, years gone by, every little community had its own post office. Bendale itself was on the south side of Lawrence. If you recall, across from the hospital, there is a Shell Gasoline station. About fifty to one hundred feet to the west of McCowan there was the Bendale Post Office. The houses that are there now didn't exist. It served the area south, east and west of that point. Then of course the name Ben began the name of every street in that subdivision east of McCowan".

-Harold Fearon recalling the Bendale Post Office.

"When you talk about Bendale, it was funny…it was a little house and a store all the time I remember, and there never seemed to be anything else around...There was no mail delivery and you had a post office within walking distance, then when they put this local carrier service in, that shut a lot of them down, and Bendale was one of them. And it had no other [buildings], like Woburn had a hotel, blacksmith shop, and all the things that went with a village".

-Bill Walton recalls the Bendale Post Office

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Jack Goodlad Seniors Residence
15 December 2004
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

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"Jack Goodlad's Senior Citizens Residence, that's named after a fellow that was on Scarborough Council with me, Jack Goodlad. We started doing the fundraising in 1986 with different groups to build this place and named it after Jack Goodlad, because he was a guy who cared about seniors.
I negotiated that deal with the people out front that owned the land that this building sits on. They couldn't do anything with it because the zoning wouldn't allow them to build condominiums or similar buildings like that. So I looked at this whole strip and went and looked at the zoning regulations. One of the things it allowed for was housing, senior citizens' housing. I liked the area where it was because of the fact that the hospital is near, everything's there". -Barry Christensen, member of Council, City of Scarborough, 1979-1983

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Hub Plaza
15 December 2004
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

Credits:
Photo: George Dunbar

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"The Suburban is just a little restaurant over here on McCowan just south of Lawrence. It's a family restaurant, [it serves] breakfast, lunch and dinner. A lot of the people from the community go there. It's what we would call a real community thing for the people who go there for breakfast and that. I'd say its been over there for forty years. Its had different owners. It serves Canadian food, just traditional food".

-Barry Christensen talks about the Suburban restaurant located in the Hub Plaza.

As a City Councillor for the City of Scarborough from 1979 to 1983

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Scott Farm
1925
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

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"Just northeast of us was the Scott farm. They originally owned two hundred acres, from Ellesmere to Sheppard. There was one son in the family and two daughters. He was left the north hundred, but he didn't seem to want it, and he sold it after a bit. The two girls stayed on at home, and they rented it to somebody as long as they were able. And then of course they eventually passed away". -Bill Walton

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The Scott House
1841
Bendale, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada