Ajax Division
History
In the 1940s, Skule was faced with a problem much larger than that of the current double cohort. Before the end of World War II, the University of Toronto anticipated a possible engineering class of up to 1500 first year students (mainly war veterans) at the conclusion of the war. At this time, the St. George campus facilities could only accommodate around 350 students.
The University began planning to secure additional facilities for the incoming veterans, and in August 1945 a suitable place was found to accommodate them all: the Ajax munitions plant, some 40 kilometers from the St. George campus. With less than one month until the start of classes it was impossible to open the new campus for September, so 400 first year engineering students were accepted at the St. George campus. Ajax was to accept an additional 1500 students four months later in January.
With hardly enough time to complete the construction, university staff frantically converted buildings into residences, labs, and lecture halls. It was an incredible effort, as described in the The Varsity:
For example, some of the earlier [women's residences] to be constructed went up so quickly that fire exits were forgotten: so later two rooms had to be chopped out. The Varsity, January 16, 1946
Another article, one day before classes started at Ajax, mentioned:
One classroom is called for at 9 a.m. on Thursday’s timetable. The Superintendent’s staff expect to have it ready by Wednesday midnight. The Varsity, January 15, 1946
But in the end, everything was finished according to schedule and on January 16, 1946, the Ajax Division opened its doors to 1400 first year engineering students. By the time it closed in 1949, over 3100 students had completed their first two years at Ajax and moved downtown to continue their studies. Closing Ajax was only possible after two new buildings were completed at St. George: the E.A. Wallberg Memorial Building in 1948, and the Mechanical Engineering Building in 1949.
An L-shaped campus with each side a mile long and an area four times that of the home campus, the Ajax Division had residences for 3000 students and staff; a gymnasium; theatre; dance hall; library; 8 tennis courts; baseball diamond; skating rink; soccer field; a 32-bed hospital; and a cafeteria that could seat 700 and serve 2000 men in an hour and a half – men, since there were only 9 women enrolled that year at Ajax.
Spirit
All these, however, are not what Ajax alumni fondly remember to this very day. And they are definitely not what make Ajax so special in Skule history.
From crowding 150 engineers at a time into the "green dragons" (the semi-trailers used to move students between classes), to having to trek the great distances between classes during winter when one missed the green dragon, to the many dances and sporting events, everything brought the students much closer together than was possible at the St. George campus. Many students fondly recall Big Red, the Irish settler around the cafeteria – but they less fondly recall the food served there.
Pranks were not uncommon, be it a car on a roof; a student’s room filled to the ceiling with straw; switching the lights in front of the girls’ residence with red light bulbs; or giant water wars between entire residences using fire hoses. One such war occurred between houses 734 and 736, and was described in detail on the front page of the next day’s Varsity. There were also the fabled evenings at the Rouge Hills Golf Club where disciplines "competed to see which could throw the best party with the best strippers and the dirtiest movies". Johnny Bahen of Civil Engineering – whose name you might recognize – reportedly "had a lock on the best movies."
At 5pm every day, dozens of student cars started racing on the road back to Toronto – to the point where truck drivers on that road would just pull over and wait until it all passed. And, of course, there were many traditions that survived to this day. For example, a certain engineering semi-formal named Cannonball started at Ajax. A.J. Paul La Prairie was an Ajax student – a 5T0 known for, among others, stealing the University College Gargoyle to recover the Skule Cannon; and for forming the beloved Lady Godiva Memorial Bnad.
Written by Alex Curelea, Archivist 0T3-0T4 and published in the Cannon, October 1, 2003
Songs
The Ajax Song
Sure'n a little bit of Hades
Rose from out the earth one day
And it settled on the lakeshore
Not so very far away.
And when the Faculty saw it
Sure'n it looked so bleak and bare
They said 'Suppose we grab it.
We can send the Skulemen there.'
So they sprinkled it with sliderules
As the Skulemen came in view
With here and there a demi
To give out a precious clue.
Now the DVA supports us
While we learn a million facts
Sure'n it never will be heaven
It's just U of T - Ajax!
Ajax Men
To the tune of "Bless 'em All"; written by Pete Philpott and published in the Varsity March 29, 1946
Engineers, Engineers,
From Ajax we flock for our beers
Our Annex, Toronto,
Is learning right pronto
That we are the best Engineers!
With your cheers, drown all jeers,
Exams drawing near bring no fears
We study like beavers
Put profs into fevers
But hell, we're the best Engineers!
From the east, from the west,
At Ajax we've had all the best
We came here to study,
We know every buddy,
And don't give a damn for the rest!
Stories
Dog is Man's Best Friend
Do you remember the old, mangy, brown dog, perhaps a collie, that used to always slouch around near or in the cafeteria seeking handouts (and some of that food they served us was really for a dog)? The dog had a name as most dogs but my memory recall is not what it was. Maybe Big Red was its name.
Anyway, from time to time some of us used to drink a little, and indeed sometimes a lot. And I don't believe that I was the only Ajaxman who actually fell asleep after a serious drinking session ("fell asleep" sounds better than "passed out").
My friends, my buddies seeing my condition were anxious to help by getting me ready and into bed so that consciousness only came to me some time after the sun came up.
A few days later my friends showed me a picture depicting their earlier kindness to me. Not only did the get me into bed but also that mangy dog Big Red and as shown in the photo graciously draped my arm around the dog and somehow managed to get its head on my shoulder before they took the photo.
As people have often said, "One of the best things about university is the friends you develop there." With friends like mine, who needs enemies.
About the author: Course - Electrical 4T9. House at Ajax 730, East Wing. Those are the only clues you'll get.
The Racers
Most of the Ajax students lived in residence in the "H" huts built for the munitions plant war workers.
A second student group commuted every weekday in car pools, primarily to the east end of Toronto.
This alternative was expedient because accommodations for a married student was virtually unobtainable around Ajax. Many rented rooms, or flats in east Toronto. Also, a single student with parents who had the room, could live at home and significantly reduce living expenses, by commuting.
The car pools were made up from these students, passengers, usually were in the same year and course in a particular car. There was a lot of last minutes substitution from one vehicle to another in order to expedite departures.
The cars were mostly dilapidated, used, from five to fifteen years old, unless subsidized by a parent or purchased from a veteran's demobilization backpay situation, then they were newer. The oldest from my recollection was a 1929 Durant Sedan, possibly followed by a 1930 Peirce Arrow Cabriolet and a 1937 Lasalle. The newest may have been a 1946 Studebaker Starlite Coupe, but it was not a contender.
The route to Toronto was on Kingston Rd. Highway No. 2 - as construction was incomplete on 401. At five o'clock the dozens of student cars jockeying for a "pole" position for the race to Toronto was a sight to behold. We got to know most of the cars of our classmates, and in the true competitive spirit, to pass them on my way home was a source of satisfaction to driver and passengers alike.
Eventually the traffic situation was so wild after five p.m. between Ajax and West Hill that truck drivers who were familiar with this stretch of the road pulled over and waited to "let it all go ahead".
The only race rule that I can recall that was considered for implementation was "No passing three abreast on a Hill!".
Imagine what could have been the situation when some ex-fighter pilot types drive in front of the cars, and trying to sustain their image, while some equally determined ex-P.B.I. (Bloody Infantry) drivers were trying to squash this image by passing each other.
About the author: Course - Mechanical 5T0.
Social Life at Ajax
Speaking for the 4T9ers, most of us were a pretty determined lot having been out of school for up to five or six years. Recently demobilized from the Army, Navy or Air Force we had to work hard to cope with the demands of post secondary academic life. And those who came to Ajax directly from high school got caught up with this determination and the sense of "let's get on with it".
Truth to tell we were drudges during the week nights, struggling to grasp the rudiments of various disciplines and courses and trying to keep the process under control. But Friday nights and Saturday nights were given to the pursuit of all manner of entertainment.
Sometimes it was an evening of all male company at the Spruce Villa with ten cent draft beers, sawdust on the floor and bawdy songs though some were lucky enough to be invited into the barely more genteel atmosphere of the "Ladies and Escorts". But mostly it was a search for congenial access to the company of the fair sex.
Thus was born "THE HOUSE PARTY".
Each residence or "hut" had a House Committee with the all important Entertainment Subcommittee which had the responsibility of arranging the band of disc jockey, the food and above all, THE GIRLS!
Disarming phone calls to Toronto managed always to coerce a group of 40 to 50 single young ladies from the telephone company, a nurses residence, a college or any other source of girls to attend the "House Party" and to even pay for the chartered bus that brought them to Ajax and returned them home at the end of the evening.
The utilitarian barracks style residences were ill-suited for the party atmosphere but we did our best in the all male house. We hung streamers and arranged for flowers to brighten the scene. And, with propriety, we assigned one of the two large communal washrooms for the ladies use and with a blinding display of male class we made the washroom more suitable for the ladies by stopping up the long and incredibly ugly trough type urinal, filling it with water and a couple of dozen goldfish.
The common room was arranged with a small dance area, the small band ground out the simple tunes of the day and the ritual of "getting acquainted" began. Romances bloomed in those heady days after the war and we know that some have lasted to this day.
About the author: Course - Mechanical 4T9. Written on 10/19/94.
The Great Ajax Tombstone Caper
One Saturday morning some time back, I heard Arthur Black on the CBC interviewing some American hack who was flogging his book about what he thought were hilarious college pranks. Not long after, the winter edition of the University of Toronto Magazine arrived, and in it your column on the planned celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of AJAX. This has prompted me to write to you about what to me is a real college prank. And much better, a stunt in which no one was hurt, showed some skill, imagination and more lean than most sophomoric exploits do.
No doubt, you remember and have heard much about the "Green Dragons", "Big Red", playing gastronomical Russian Roulette with the boiled eggs stamped 'CANADA FOR EXPORT ONLY', and on and on. Herewith the "Great Ajax Tombstone Caper". You may or may not remember anything about it, but at the time we could have done with some consultation from a Civil. I hope that you will find it interesting, mildly amusing and of some use at the Ajax Remembered celebrations.
'The Great Ajax Tombstone Caper'
Out of the night the menacing looking Franklin limousine braked to a stop with a crunch of gravel on the shoulder of the road. It was a chilly drizzling night in mid-October in the haphazard settlement that straggled along the Rouge River near Lake Ontario. The huge doors clicked open and five roughly-dressed young giants strode confidently through the dripping grass toward the single light bulb that barely lit a work site. Tom Citizen was mixing concrete and pouring a front porch for his modest cottage.
"Hey Mac!" said Turner who led the group as usual, "How would you like to trade some concrete for a bag of cement?"
"Whu, Whu, What do you want it for?" stuttered Tom not knowing what was coming next.
"We're making a tombstone." growled six foot six inch Keen.
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Word had come down - or so we were told - from the Blue and White Society to the Engineering Society and thence to Heisey (ever the promoter and our Eng.Soc. representative) of a task for the Ajax Engineering and Business Club. The Rah-Rah geniuses had decided that they wanted a tombstone to mark the weekend when the Varsity Blues would finally "bury" the Western Mustangs. We had the people, the place and the enthusiasm to bring off this super-optimistic venture. The main problem was time! We had less than a week. Could we do it? Damn right!
One of our "real" engineers, (the Hespeler and later IMAX boy Shaw) had the form together in no time in the hobby hut. Fortunately, time dims all memories, so I can't remember who from the crew scaled the barbed-wire fence into the nascent housing development and returned with a bag of in-scarce-supply cement. There we were having agreed to this hare-brained scheme, with a form to make the tombstone, a bag of cement and no aggregate or a place to mix the concrete even if we had.
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Hughson's family had stored their magnificent air-cooled Franklin limousine during the war, and he had driven it down to Ajax from Ottawa, so we had wheels. Into that cavernous car we loaded form and cement and we were off! Where? To look for some mixing cement at night - of course I'm not sure what spirit guided us to the Rouge valley. But we had cruised through most of the Ajax-Pickering area looking in vain for the elusive "do-it-yourselfer" when that single bulb glowed in the distance dimly illuminating Tom and his cement mixer.
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The tombstone form, now filled to the top with concrete, was far from light work for us as we slid it carefully onto the floor of the Franklin. Back in the Hobby hut cum shack, the Quebec heater was glowing in preparation for some forced concrete curing. It was my assignment to organize the curing detail. A roster was set up so that some poor sod would struggle out of bed throughout the night to stoke the stove and douse our handiwork with a bucket of water at hourly intervals. Someone had heard that we needed to keep fresh concrete damp, (reinforcing wire would have been of more use). By the next morning the shack was awash and steaming, and the tombstone was set.
Shaw undertook to chisel the inscription into the still plastic surface as we all watched anxiously. The visible portion of the stone carried the words that went something like, "October 23, 1948 HERE LIES JOHNNY METRAS AND HIS WESTERN MUSTANGS - MAY THEY REST IN PIECES". Below the ground line we decided we'd identify our production by roughly carving "MADE IN AJAX ENG BUS 5T1". The powers-that-be (Heisey) decreed that this might leave us open to some sort of discipline. Hence "ENG BUS 5T1" was defaced. At least "they'd" know it came from Ajax!
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It was almost midnight Thursday as the Franklin ghosted down Mount Pleasant Road. We were on our way to the main campus to "plant" our handiwork. Now at 6 foot 2, Anderson and I were no longer the midgets of the crew having been joined by Bates who was always game for a gag. Six of us now, with two long handheld shovels from God knows where and the completed stone resting on the car's back floor, headed for the tricky part.
The murky campus was deserted as we pulled up outside the Red Schoolhouse at about one a.m. It seemed to take just a minute or so until we'd wrestled the two hundred pound plus hunk of concrete out onto the campus, and planted the Ajax tombstone where we had turned over the sod for a three foot by eight foot "grave" smack in the middle of the main circle. The ever-alert campus police arrived about half way through the operation, but were persuaded by the well-lubricated Mutt & Jeff - Bates and Keen - that we were only doing some "authorized fall landscaping".
Back to Ajax we drove in triumph, along the empty fog-shrouded road (that has become 401) with Bates "navigating" the dotted line from his prone position on the left-front fender. The "grave" discovery was made early Friday morning but our effort was removed to allow for the Varsity vs Western Soccer Games that were played on Saturday. The "Officials" couldn't possibly have left it there for any time.
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When last seen, the tombstone lay sadly in two pieces at the bottom of the basement stairs of a Frat house on St. George, (green concrete with no reinforcing!). No doubt it is long gone now, but finally, everyone can know who was responsible for the Great Ajax Tombstone Caper, and that it ranks right up there with the legendary bricking up of U.C.'s front door and the Ajax 1934 Plymouth convertible chariot in the first Chariot Race. What happened at the game? The Ajax tombstone seems to have had an effect. Cursory research fails to tell what the score was, but the Blues whomped Western, setting the scene for the triumphant '49 season.
But, by then U of T Ajax Division was just a memory too.
Written by R.W. 'Bob' Scott