History of ABCRA

History of ABCRA

ABC - black and white line drawing of houses in area

ABC was formed in 1957 as the Bay Avenue Road Ratepayers’ Association with aims to monitor changes in the neighbourhood and to improve life in the community.

Inga Fogelberg was instrumental in its founding and lawyer Louis Duncan, an Annex resident, was helpful in setting up the new organization.

In the late ’60s, the Association briefly joined the residents to the north of the railway tracks to form Avenue Bay Cottingham (hence ABC).

The logo of three adjoining gable houses (at the southeast corner of Hazelton and Berryman) was drawn for the Association more than thirty-five years ago by Toronto artist Albert Franck (1899-1973) who lived at 90 Hazelton and who celebrated old Toronto houses in art.

Decades of community involvement

For more than sixty-five years, ABC Board Members have contributed thousands of volunteer hours and provided leadership to residents in a rapidly-changing area of the city. Inga Fogelberg was our founding leader in the late 1950s, and residents remember her rushing enthusiastically from door to door to inform them of Yorkville happenings. Her daughter, Ida Jackson, recalls that Inga preferred not to be the first president of the organization and she believes a plumber on Hazelton, probably Frank Soule, took the role. Inga did serve later.

Histories of ABC and the area