Rick Waern Registrar outside Rochdale College construction site, Spring 1968
An Idiot's Guide to the History of Rochdale College
In 1958 Howard Adelman was hired by the University of Toronto's Campus Co-op to solve the growing need for student housing at the U of T. Adelman convinced Campus Co-op to acquire additional properties and form Co-operative College Residences Inc., a non-profit off-shoot. Later, while a Lecturer in Philosophy at the U of T Adelman was one of the principal founders of Rochdale College. After obtaining federal mortgages, Campus Co-op incorporated Rochdale College in 1964.
The other founder of Rochdale was U of T English Professor Dennis Lee, who wanted to start a college that would be an experimental avant-garde "free university". With the backing of Campus Co-op, Rochdale College was constructed as an 18 floor high rise student residence at 341 Bloor St. It could accomodate 840 tenants. Around the same time Neill Wycik College on the Ryerson campus and Pestalozzi College in Ottawa were also constructed along the same lines. Unfortunately, all 3 so-called colleges were located in fascist and corrupt Canada, so the rotten mortgage structure was unworkable. It was impossible to pay off the mortgages with rental income. Furthermore, Adelman's plan to have Rochdale declared an educational institution as a tax dodge failed. The City of Toronto concluded Rochdale was merely a student residence and not eligible for a tax exemption. This decision meant Rochdale College had no budget for education, and therefore could not function as a college.
Rochdale College opened in September 1968, although it was not yet completed. The elevators did not work, so Stan Bevington of Coach House Press had to walk up the stairs to his apartment on the 18th floor. Residents first learned about Rochdale by word of mouth. Many idealistic people moved in, such as Sci-Fi writer Judith Merril and sculptor Ed Apt. There were no classrooms or teachers, only "Resource People" who had reduced rent in exchange for sharing their knowledge. As Judith Merill said, Rochdale was "dedicated to a concept of education that had everything to do with learning and almost nothing to do with teaching." But the sad fact is that most "education" in Rochdale was U of T students studying their U of T books, and secondarily the educated residents having casual intellectual conversations. There was a library, but never any formal education whatsoever at Rochdale College.
Unfortunately, Rochdale was located just a few blocks from Yorkville Village, Toronto's version of bohemian Greenwich Village and Haight-Ashbury. Speed freaks, crashers and street people soon discovered Rochdale and moved in – a large percentage of them as non-rent paying residents. However, their numbers have been greatly exaggerated. There were far more American draft dodgers in Rochdale than deadbeat Canadians from Yorkville. Furthermore, Yorkville hippies had contempt for empty, sterile, institutional and plastic Rochdale College. Not until 1970 did wannabe hippies begin moving into Rochdale. Eventually the speed freak and crasher problems were solved, but Rochdale became a hippie Mecca and school to learn how to be a hippie. This was not what Dennis Lee wanted, so he divorced himself from Rochdale. He did not have to move out, because he never lived there.
From the beginning some Rochdale residents were dissatisfied with the external management of the building by Toronto Student Management Corporation, so by September 1969 Rochdale College successfully ousted external management and administrators. This was done primarily by Paul "Destructo" Evitts, a member of the Governing Council, and a fascist "practicing anarchist". This shithead motherfucker also had earlier removed the main front door lock, which created disastrous consequences such as the speed freak and crasher problems. He sabotaged and destroyed the very expensive buzz-in intercom system at the same time to ensure the lock was not replaced.
Yes, a fascist teeny bopper "practicing anarchist" with a grade 11 education fundamentally re-organized Rochdale with the inmates running the asylum and an open door policy that suited his anarchist beliefs. This explains the origin of the anarchist element that was thereafter always part of Rochdale. It also explains why Rochdale turned into a hippie drug store and why the college was destroyed by the government. Paul "Destructo" Evitts did it. Period. He quickly moved out and then blamed others for the consequences of his fascist crimes.
The building was now controlled by the college, which was the biggest blunder in Rochdale's history considering the astonishing mismanagement of the building that was to follow. For example, drug dealing began on a spectacular scale and nothing was done about it. Rochdale was publicized by the media as the largest drug distribution center in North America. This free "advertising" attracted countless hippies from everywhere, more drug dealers, huge crowds of drug customers – and the police.
At this time the Vietnam War was going on, and many young American men fled the draft to Canada. Most of them ended up in Rochdale because they were actually advised to go there by Canadian authorities. Soon Rochdale was Toronto's American enclave as well as illicit drug store. There were always far too many American residents, and they didn't have a clue about Toronto or Canada. Many of them rarely left the building. These ignorant Americans tended to make the decisions about Rochdale – while high on drugs. For example, "ugly American" King Bill became the General Manager in 1970, and he is responsible for turning the college into an illicit drug store.
Probably the worst aspect of Rochdale being an American enclave was its total isolation from Toronto and Canada. The Americans were fugitives who didn't like or understand Canada, and they considered Rochdale to be their sovereign autonomous "country", accountable only to themselves. They did not believe Canadian laws applied in Rochdale, which led to much criminality by the drug-crazed foreigners. In fact, the Security desk at the entrance had a sign: "Rochdale Customs Immigration Security". Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of Canadians in Rochdale were not from Toronto and their attitude about the city was the same as the Americans. This complete isolation meant that the Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations and other organizations could never help Rochdale when the inevitable closure of the building began.
Rochdale was a very unpleasant place because of the druggies, so in 1970 Merril, Bevington, and Apt moved out along with most of the scholarly and artistic tenants. The college quickly degenerated into a hippie drug store with bullshit educational pretensions. For instance, the entire entire east wing of the 6th floor was a "dealing commune". It was converted into an ugly fortress with its own security guards.
The hippie movement died in 1970. It relied entirely on Rock Stars for its ideology, but the Rock Stars abandoned hippyism. For evidence of this, you only have to listen to hit rock songs from that time. John Lennon sang, "The dream is over", Joni Mitchell sang, "They won't give peace a chance. That was just a dream some of us had.", and the Who sang, "Take a bow for the new revolution...But the world looks just the same, And history ain't changed...We don't get fooled again, Don't get fooled again." Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison died, and the Beatles broke up. The sixties were over.
But for the truly hip, it was long over before 1970. On October 6, 1967, those remaining in Haight-Ashbury staged a mock funeral, "The Death of the Hippie" ceremony. But it's important to know that this event was a parade of "Diggers", because the word "hippie" was a media pejorative that hippies never used themselves. They called themselves "heads", "diggers", and "freaks" if anything, but never "hippies". In the 1960's I always cringed with embarrassment when anyone referred to me as a hippie.
Hippyism continued in Rochdale on a large scale and nowhere else in the world. But it was an anachronism. Although it had all the trappings of hippyism such as communes and recreational drugs, it was a perverted version. For you idiots, I won't confuse you with all the details except one. Yippie Jerry Rubin, the American activist and founder of the Youth International Party said, "Don't trust anyone over thirty." This was a fundamental rule for hippies. However, in Rochdale there were very many people well over the age of 30. A good example is Syd Stern, an almost elderly convict who learned about Rochdale while in prison. In Rochdale he dressed like a silly teenybopper and ran a large drug dealing franchise. Obviously he thought he was ultra hip, but he looked foolish and talked about ancient suburban Jewish topics that nobody could understand or relate to. His thinking usually seemed illogical to me.
Compared to the genuine hippies of 1966 and 1967, Rochdalian hippies were sleazy, obnoxious phonies. They were not hip, they were the sleaziest motherfuckers on Earth, and their bell bottom jeans and tie dyed T shirts were just a facade to hide their phoniness. Probably the sleaze came from their poverty and drug dealing, and the obnoxious behaviour came from alcohol and the punk movement which had replaced hippyism. There were very few punks in Toronto at the time, but the punk ethos was definitely part of Rochdalian behavior in the 1970's. Most Rochdalians were assholes. The sardine can environment meant lots of hick town gossip, confrontations, and an invasion of privacy. For example, a woman who was a complete stranger wanted to have sex with me. I told her truthfully I was celibate, and she actually asked if I jerked off. With a contemptuous look I walked away. Another virtual stranger on an elevator started to interrogate me about my food budget. I told him to "Fuck off and mind your own business."
In the 1960's authentic hippies hated alcohol, which they considered the older generation's recreational drug. However, in Rochdale alcohol was possibly more popular than cannabis and psychedelic drugs. There were many booze cans in the building and very many alcoholics. The alcohol situation was so severe that one tenant actually made his living by collecting empty beer bottles in the building.
Because of the enormous crowds of drug customers and the inevitable problems with the police, Rochdale started its own security force. Basically Rochdale Security was working for the drug dealers, or more accurately it owed its existence to the drug dealing situation. They were unlike any security officers anywhere. Their job was to screen visitors, especially drug customers, and keep undesirables out. They knew which visitors were drug customers, and allowed "cool" customers to visit "cool" dealers. There are photos of Rochdale Security guards in black uniforms holding guns and working with their attack trained dogs, which they claimed were not attack trained. All of this para-military crap was an entirely American image. It was an image they changed around 1972 to a casual and friendly one, but nothing else changed about them or the drug dealing.
Although I was born in Toronto and grew up in the Rochale area, only a tiny percentage of Rochdalians were from Toronto. There was the large population of Americans, plus the mostly Canadian hicks from small cities and towns. They learned about Rochdale from the media, and imitated what they read. The media complained about drug dealing in the building, so they sold drugs. Many of them considered Rochdale to be a school to learn how to be a hippie. Believe it or not, the nickname "The Rock" came from "Time" magazine originally. A reporter made it up, and Rochdalians began using it. What Rochdale College evolved into was largely determined by media reports. Politicians and ordinary Canadians believed the bullshit, of course. And although Rochdalians distrusted the media completely, they loved being interviewed and were absolutely fascinated by media reports of Rochdale, which they inevitably imitated.
Frankly, I would never have even visited Rochdale if it were not in my neighbourhood. Therefore, it always amazed me that some people made the pilgrimage to Rochdale from thousands of miles away. They learned about it in the media and had to go. The situation was similar to the 1967 John Phillip's hit song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" that prompted thousands of kids to visit Haight-Ashbury.
The tenants in Rochdale were of three types: Rochdalians, the elite, and the filler. Rochdalians were neo-hippies whose main goal was to have a good time. The elite were motherfucking power trippers who believed their bourgeois upbringing made them superior and entitled them to run the building. Basically the elite were what later became known as Yuppies. Filler were students and workers who did not have time to get involved in Rochdale, but there were very many and they paid their rent. Rochdalians referred to the elite and filler as "Tightasses", and the elite called the Rochdalians "Sleazes". The social structure of Rochdale was essentially like George Orwell's "Animal Farm". Bullishit rhetoric was egalitarian, but in reality the elite were despicable swine who behaved like the pigs in "Animal Farm". If Rochdale was really "The dream that turned into a nightmare", it was the elite who converted the utopia to a dystopia by their disastrous mismanagement of the building.
In 1972 the Canadian government was under much pressure from fascist Toronto City Hall to close Rochdale. This they did by foreclosing the unworkable mortgage. They did the same with Neill Wycik College and Pestalozzi College. All 3 colleges had paid what they could towards their mortgages, but it was never sufficient. Neill Wycik and Pestalozzi continued to attempt paying off their mortgages, but Rochdale Governing Council decided on a different suicidal route. They stopped mortgage payments.
This was actually done by the greedy elitist members of the Governing Council (GovCon) for themselves. It created Rochdale's so-called "Golden Age", with the mortgage money used as an education budget, that is money for the Govcon members. They bought a farm, a "Boogie" bus and lots of other toys for themselves. Kevin O'Leary started up a video studio that cost over $10,000. It was Kevin's studio, just as the "Boogie" bus was Kevin's bus. The video studio did not record anything whatsoever regarding Rochdale, so there is virtually no video of Rochdale College despite the expensive funding of the studio. If you are looking for the villains who destroyed Rochdale, just find out which GovCon members decided to stop paying off the Rochdale mortgage. They did it.
There was also the Educational Council (EdCon), which didn't function very well because there was no budget – except during the so-called "Golden Age". Meetings were less popular than Govcon meetings but usually interesting. EdCon had control of most of the east wing of the 6th floor (the former "dealing commune") and the Ashram on the 4th floor for educational projects. These projects included a pottery studio, a publishing office, an inventor's work shop, a radio station, a video studio, and the Alternative Press Center. I had an indoor vegetable growing space with Kim Foikus, the former Town Fool of Vancouver, as my partner. He lived in the "educational" space, which was common, but it was counter-productive for our project.
Because of the foreclosure, the college increasingly lost control of the building to an external management company worse than the one it had removed in 1969. Clarkson, Gordon, and Company were appointed the interim receiver for the building. On September 15, 1972, outside security guards arrived whom the residents called "Greenies" because of the colour of their uniforms. A joint security program was set up in the lobby with one Rochdale Security guard to "offer advice", and the Greenies were at first not allowed above the 2nd floor. Although Clarkson initially had "token possession" of the building, it used it's security force to gather information to proceed with a "planned program of eviction".
The Rochdale Farm near Killaloe was sold to over a dozen Rochdalians just before the end of Rochdale College's existence. It was just a run-down farm house on crappy land in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles from Toronto. The Rochdale Farm was never anything like Rochdale. From the beginning of mortgage problems there was the idea of moving Rochdale to another building. They did not understand that Rochdale was all about location, location, location. Rochdale College could not be moved to another location and remain the same, or even be similar.
Neill Wycik still exists because they attempted to pay their mortgage and took legal action regarding the impossible mortgage structure. Pestalozzi continued until the end of the 1970's by doing the same thing. Otherwise, how were they different from Rochdale? Neill Wycik was simply a boring and sucky student residence, whereas Pestalozzi was more like Rochdale – with one major difference. Pestalozzi was very gay. Rochdale, on the other hand, was the most homophobic place on Earth. The residents of Rochdale despised gays, and their hipper than thou attitude was included in this prejudice. Of course there were gays in Rochdale, but they were all completely in the closet, and the homophobic atmosphere has kept them there to this day. I could include a long list of Rochdale gays here starting with Reg Hartt and Don Holyoak, but there's no point because they will deny being gay. They will deny it with lisps and limp wrists.
By the end of 1974 the unprecedented mass eviction of tenants from Rochdale was in full swing. The elitist swine who created the eviction situation fled the building first. None of these arrogant motherfucking scumbags had the courage to be evicted. In September 1975 the last tenant of Rochdale College, David Lawrence in 1608, was evicted. The building was allowed to cool down for a few years, then was renovated into the subsidized senior citizen residence known as the Senator David A. Croll Apartments.
Do I have anything good to say about Rochdale College? Yes, I had a good time and Rochdale was infinitely superior to the boring and fascist shit hole of Toorotten, Rottentario, Canacaca.
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© 2011 Wolf Sullivan
