In Toronto, ghosts can be found everywhere: in hospitals, private homes, banks, the Hockey Hall of Fame, and even in buildings where young people learn science.
Army of ghosts
It contains a variety of persons. There are commoners. Like, for example, a worker who, in 1930, cleaned the bells on top of the Soldier's Tower, a memorial to the students and teachers of the University of Toronto who died in World War I. The worker fell down and crashed to death. Since then, the wave of reports that the shadow of the unfortunate man flickers through the windows of the tower has not abated.
There are famous characters who became legend during their lifetime. For example, Canada's founding father is the country's first prime minister, John MacDonald. His features are guessed in a translucent gentleman in a tailcoat who wanders at night through the corridors of Knox Private College.
And the Royal Museum is home to, according to its ministers, the ghost of the first director of the museum, Charles Carrelli. His shadow, dressed in a nightgown, most often comes across in the department of East Asia.
The majority of the Toronto ghost army are women. A little to the south of the Royal Museum there used to be a planetarium and a Children's Museum. It was here that the ghost of a little girl, named Celeste (Heavenly), settled. There are witnesses that he sometimes sat in the planetarium and listened to lectures on astronomical topics with everyone.
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Already in the new millennium, the building was sold to the University of Toronto, and now, they say, is subject to demolition. Who knows if Celeste will like the new structure built on this site, or she will leave here forever.
There are two ghosts at the Royal Conservatory. Here they meet a ghostly girl who loves to attend rehearsals. Her friend finds herself on the stairs and in the hallways.
Glendon College of York University was also not deprived of ghosts. Sometimes it is a female figure lost in the haze in the garden of the library, and sometimes it is voices in an empty basement or strange signs on the feet of students, which they find when they wake up in the dorm in the morning.
At the Ryerson University Theater Department, a female figure appears in the corridors and in the attic, trying to convince everyone in the room in her reality, whispering his name to him. The fact of such an appearance in the fall of 2008 was attested by the research of experts of the Toronto Society for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena.
Room 29
Regis College is located in a mansion that once belonged to the family of pastry chef William Christie. He became famous for his cookies, which are still popular in the city to this day.
After the death of the famous baker in 1900, the house was inherited by his son Robert, who moved into the mansion with his wife and mistress, whom his wife had no idea about. And no wonder: the secret abode for the lady of the heart, Robert and the butler were equipped in the library behind wooden panels. Between themselves they called this room room 29. It was a fully furnished room, with a bed and a bathroom, but no windows.
Only the butler knew about the voluntary prisoner, who regularly supplied the lady with everything she needed. They say that Robert, who was fueled by the idea of secret love, at first visited the prisoner every day, forbidding his wife to go to the library due to the fact that he was busy with a tense and focused business.
But soon the subject of his concentration began to bore him, and the butler who brought the food turned out to be the only person whom the unfortunate woman sometimes saw. The awareness that she had been abandoned was growing. The woman gradually went mad with loneliness. She finally hanged herself.
Robert instructed the butler to bury the body in King's Park. But the villain was not left unpunished. He himself was gradually moved by his mind, his business fell into decay, he sold the mansion to an educational institution and followed his unfortunate mistress into another world.
The mansion later became a women's hostel. They say that the girls complained that they often felt an invisible presence in room 29, and some, trying to leave the room, could not open the door. It seemed like someone outside was holding her. The girls had to scream for help.
Of course, the inhabitants of Room 29 feared most of all that one day the irreparable would happen and they would be trapped for many hours. Just like Robert's unfortunate beloved once ended up in a dungeon.
But the cries for help were usually met by the neighbors in the dormitory, together with the recluses, surprised that the door immediately opened without the slightest effort.
It is clear that the girls sinned on Robert's mistress - they say, these are her intrigues: she wants the young ladies to understand what it is like to be a prisoner. But it is possible that this ghost of Robert himself cannot calm down and continues his monstrous experiments.
Love triangle is not a chimera
The University of Toronto is also considered a haunted abode. Perhaps this is due to the presence of a complex of buildings with dark and confusing corridors, as if specially created for the manifestation of the paranormal.
Amazing events take place at Trinity College (this is the very first building of the university). The college was founded by the Anglican Bishop John Strachan, who died in 1867. On the days before or after the date of his death (which, incidentally, fell on Halloween), the bishop in full vestments comes here.
As it is supposed, in order to remind about oneself and at the same time to check what the students have achieved over the past year. When the witnesses of the apparition are asked why they decided that it was him, they point to the preserved portrait of the bishop: "We are quite capable of recognizing him from this image."
It would seem a strange statement within the walls of the university, where insulin was invented, stem cells were discovered and the first working electron microscope was constructed. Oddly enough, these outstanding discoveries fit well with the main university legend.
However, the legend, like outstanding researchers, also has specific names. Ivan Reznikov, a Polish stonecutter of Russian origin, came to earn extra money by participating in the reconstruction of the campus in 1856. The same idea was attracted by his Greek (according to another version, Italian) colleague Paul with a very remarkable surname Diablos.
There are two versions of what happened between them.
The first one says that a partner with a character that fully corresponded to his satanic surname loved to make fun of the simple-minded Ivan. Diablos spent several weeks working on the image of the two chimeras on the pediment of the building. When the work was completed, he allegedly invited Reznikov to admire the fruits of his labor, and he was surprised to find that the twisted face of one of the chimeras was an image of his face.
Reznikov decided to pay back with the same coin: at night he came to the chimeras and began to give the second features of the hated mockingbird. But as soon as he did it, he literally disappeared into thin air. Diablos replaced Reznikov with another bricklayer, and when asked where the former was, he just shrugged his shoulders.
According to the second version, Diablos decided to take away the bride from Ivan - a pretty maid whom Paul noticed while secretly following Reznikov to find out where he was in a hurry after work. He not only entered into a love affair with the girl, but also persuaded her to steal all the money Ivan earned, which Reznikov collected for family life, and flee with him to the west of Canada.
Upon learning of this, Ivan grabbed an ax and rushed at his opponent in a rage. Diablos had few chances - Reznikov was much stronger. Therefore, hiding behind the stairs, Paul despicably drove a dagger into Reznikov's back, and then threw his body into the shaft, over which a spiral staircase leading to the tower was soon built.
Since then, according to the students, Ivan wanders the campus and tries to tell everyone he meets his sad story.
To prevent Ivan from wandering around the building and tormenting the students (especially on the eve of the session), the ghost was assigned a kind of meeting room - the Reznikov cafe was named after him.
How everything really happened, no one knows. But two years after the disappearance (or murder) of Reznikov, a fire broke out in the building. It burned out almost completely from the inside. But in a strange way, a door with traces of notches from an ax survived. It is located in the same corner as the chimeras.
They say that workers who were dismantling the ruins in the conflagration found a skeleton in the mine, on which a belt with a buckle-emblem of the masons' guild, to which Ivan belonged, was preserved.
Both chimeras, by the way, are still grinning from the southwestern corner of the building and from the shop window of the cafe, recalling the unusual competition and the sad history of stonemasons.
Alexander MELAMED