By DAVE KOSONIC

A car crash that occurred almost 60 years ago has a bizarre similarity to the violent vehicle mishap on Bloor Street West near Islington Avenue that claimed one young man’s life in the middle of the night and gravely injured another recently.

Back then a Metropolitan Toronto Police cruiser was idling by the curb in 1963 at the same location where the vehicle struck the pole early the other morning. Then a large 1960s station wagon clipped the side of the patrol car at about 3 AM and veered diagonally across Bloor Street before ramming into my father’s electronic business store at 3321 Bloor Street just west of Eagle Road.

Police at the time estimated that the speeding station wagon was travelling at about 80 miles-per- hour based on our former speed rating system when the driver side-swiped the Toronto cruiser. The police officer involved in this incident was shaken up physically and emotionally but suffered no serious injuries. He was attached to the former Dundas Street station in Islington Village.

The station wagon driver was identified as David Winston Logan who was in his mid-twenties and a local resident. He died soon after the violent crash that knocked the cement dividing wall between dad’s store and the next business completely out of position. Our family business named Belmont Television was badly damaged but recovered in time after extensive repairs were negotiated through insurance companies and the building landlord.

Area residents were awakened by the explosive sound of the 1963 crash. The Kingsway Ambulance depot was just across Bloor from dad’s store. The next day Kingsway Ambulance driver Ben Brown told father that he and his partner heard the crash and came running across the road to the mishap.

Brown said that he knew Logan was likely dead but they could not rush him to the hospital because an ambulance from another company had already been called. Driver Brown was quite seasoned in dealing with trauma but he told dad that the site was horrific.

I saw the smashed-up station wagon a day later at a nearby vehicle salvage yard and I realized what Brown was talking about. It was in real rough shape.

The landmark for both of these crashes so-to-speak is just across Bloor from the Bell Telephone facility at Eagle Road.

Let us hope that history does not repeat itself at that location again.