Brightside park commemorates bulldozed community and surviving, lifelong friendships

A bulldozed community and former home to workers and immigrants in Hamiltonwill be honoured through the naming of Brightside Park.

Letters from former Hamilton Tiger-Cat John Michaluk and friend John Brodnicki to the general issues committeeon June 16 recall their vibrant, beloved community of Brightside.

Planned in the early 20th century and demolished for industrial expansion by the 1960s, the neighbourhood of more than 200 homes in Hamilton's lower city survives in the form oflifelong friendships between Brightsiders.

"Childhood neighbourhoods make an indelible mark on people," Michaluk wrote.

The park commemorating the neighbourhood will sit on the former lands of the Dominion Glass factory site, nestled at the corner of Gage Avenue North andLloyd Street in theStipley neighbourhood.

In his letter, Michaluk recounted his communitythe British street names that evoked industrial communities of Sheffield, Manchester, Leedsand Birmingham and how it welcomedItalians, Ukrainiansand Polish people, among other eastern Europeans.

The Stelco steel mills and other factoriesloomed bythe waterfrontand homes in the community were eventually bought up and swallowed in the expansion of industrial plots andparking lots.

Today, pockets of housing remain alongBurlington Street. The manufacturer, Homer and Wilson, also remains, still operating at the same site on Lancaster Streetfor more than100 years since it started in 1913.

In his letter, Brodnicki remembered making 60 cents an hour atMain Heating, bouncing between local stores like the "one-man show" machine shop and securing printing accounts in the area.

"The Brightsidecommerce folks looked after their own."

Brodnicki said the park will keep the community's "eternal flame" burning.

Referred to in city documents as the Stadium Precinct Community Park,the4.6-hectare site was acquired to replace the former Brian Timmis Field.

'I'll meet you at Brightside'

Ward 3 (central lower city) Coun.Nrinder Nann called it a "beautiful way" to recognize the people who used to live in the neighbourhood, and whose stories might otherwise be lost.

"It was a wonderful way to bring the legacy of their community into the future so that this generation and future generations of Hamiltonians just have a sense of a past that is often around us," she said.

"I can just hear it alreadyfolks just saying, I'll meet you at Brightside.' It brings the name back into the vernacular and into the community."

Despite its demolition, Brightsiders and childhood friends have soldiered on in keeping the spirit of the community and its stories alive.

"Ignored and forgotten after the destruction of our family homes, many of us Brightsiders have taken it upon ourselves to tell our story about our old neighbourhood in our own way and with our own words," Michaluk wrote.

Mapping out memories

Artists Simon Orpana and Matt McInnes were part of Notes from The Brightside Neighbourhood Project: a 2019-2020exhibition that visually represented interviews with Brightsiders to "re-animate memories" and map thecommunity.

The pair also worked alongside Brightsidersand researchers in the Brightside Collective to bring together stories:

Brightsiders walking the picket line of the massive Stelco strike of 1946, others stuck inside the mills and receiving smuggled packages.Kidsdigging holes and making rafts to float along the inlets. Families moving out of the neighbourhood, wondering about the debris their homes would leave.

"It means a lot that, at a moment when so many Hamiltonians are wrestling with housing precarity, a new park should celebrate the history and legacies of one of Hamilton's most iconic working-class and immigrantneighbourhoods," said Orpana.

The Brightside Neighbourhood Project is a nominee for the President's Award for Community Engaged Researchfrom McMaster University.

A bright side to focus on

Reunions have kept the band of friendship between community members strongthe1983 program for that year's get-togetherhas a home in the local history and archives section of the Hamilton Public Library central branch.

Nann said she's amazed by the relationships, which bring insight into an era of Hamilton. It's a soft spot for her, she said, this tight-knit group of Hamiltonians who don't want to see their definitive experience "faded away."

The naming will be a "game changer" for the area, she said, as well as the transformation of an industrial space into a green space.

"It's such a hopeful name for a park. It gives us the bright side to focus on, which is how do we as a municipality continue in investing in important infrastructure that enables communities to thrive together."

Those memories, once vivid, are becoming "blurring recollections," Michaluk said. He recalls that "toxic places" like garbage dumps and factory sites were playgrounds to the kids that played therea "paradise to be explored."

"We hope that the naming of Brightside Park in memory of our old neighbourhood will help give kids and others a chance to play outdoors as we did, to flourish and be happy, and healthy. This would be a most valuable legacy for the Hamilton of tomorrow."