Boots was really Rick’s place.”Īds for establishments owned by Rick Stenhouse, circa early-1980s. “Jerry was best known for the Club Toronto, while Rick also owned Crispins and Buddys at Gerrard and Church. “Rick and Jerry were part of a group of businessmen that had individual interests in a number of enterprises,” explains Brent Storey, a Boots regular-turned-staffer who soaked up a great deal of the Selby’s history from stories told to him by two long-serving bartenders and the building’s handyman of four decades.
By the 1970s, it was in decline-however, Boots’ best-known co-owners, Rick Stenhouse and Jerry Levy, were not deterred by the Selby’s rundown state. The address is also said to have housed a brothel, and a popular licensed establishment in the 1950s named the Skyway Lounge. Ernest Hemingway and his wife took up temporary residence there during the 1920s while the writer worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star. Photo via Upper Jarvis Neighbourhood Association.
