Jon Brown’s children were drawing with their sidewalk chalk when Toronto woke up to a city without Jack Layton.

Brown grabbed a stubby bit of purple chalk and walked to the Broadview Ave. constituency office, bent over and wrote “THANKS JACK” in capital letters. Then he underlined it.

“It’s just what I felt,” he said.

On Monday, hundreds were compelled to pay tribute to the smiling politician who was synonymous with Toronto-Danforth politics.

Photos: Toronto pays tribute to Jack Layton

On a leafy street away from the traffic, a family put a black shroud over its “Re-elect Jack Layton” sign. A bar on the Danforth used its sandwich board to mourn “an iconic Canadian.” Linda Truong wept as she stacked four plump oranges on the stoop of his constituency office.

“He said he’d be back,” she said.

They came to the stoop from all over the city, driving rusty cars and luxury automobiles, on public transit and by bike. They were gay, straight, old and young, and they brought handfuls of Layton’s favourite political colour: orange flowers, orange Crush, orange tomatoes ripening on a vine. They thanked him by yelling out of car windows, writing tributes, and pausing in front of the office.

“I never met him, but I loved him,” said Shirley Lyddon, who arrived on her bicycle. “He was just like one of us.”

“It’s rare to be proud of a politician,” Ed Chee said as he stood outside the office.

“I’ve always felt like an underdog, growing up Chinese Canadian in the ’70s, so he resonated with me,” Chee said.

Karen Harrison, 54, walked along Broadview Ave, shaking her head.

“He cared so deeply about people,” she said, her face crumpling. “He was a treasure for all Canada. Nobody can replace Jack Layton, but everybody must try to do what he was doing for this country.”

Outside Layton’s home, his neighbour, Ted Hawkins, laid a single red rose on his doorstep. It soon grew into a shrine of sunflowers, orange lilies, with a photo of Layton dressed up for Caribana.

“I guess I didn’t expect him to go so fast, I guess I kind of shared his optimism a little bit,” Hawkins said. “It’s kind of infectious.”

Neighbour and friend Bryonny Nichol held back tears as she talked about his sparkling eyes and clear direct look.

“Little kids liked him, he remembered them, he talked to them,” she said, “He believed in people.”

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Along the Danforth, where Layton was a fixture at parades and festivals, Beryl Reid, 83, walked in a daze.

“I went to the library and didn’t know what I was doing and thought I’d better go home because he’s on my mind. I must go home and pull myself together,” she said.

“Who is going to take his place? He’s irreplaceable, this man. He was wonderful for us. Oh dear.”

“We’re depressed. There’s a black cloud hanging over us,” said Teri Cordileone, who dropped the plate of breakfast she was serving at Three’s Company when she heard the news.

“He put (the Danforth) on the map as one of the best neighbourhoods in the city,” chimed in Chad Cooke.

Later in the day, hundreds gathered outside City Hall, where Layton first made his name as a city councillor. Dozens signed a condolence book in the lobby, dozens more a poster board in Nathan Phillips Square. On posters, he was remembered: “Today, we remember a fighter. Tomorrow we continue the fight.”

Toronto-Danforth NDP MPP Peter Tabuns, councillors Janet Davis and Pam McConnell, among others, read Layton’s last letter aloud.

“He was one of those people who always seemed to really want to make the world a better place. I never got the sense that he was just in politics for himself. And you can’t say that about everybody,” Chet Scoville, 43, said outside City Hall. “It’s not that he never made mistakes, it’s not that I agreed with him about everything, but he always seemed like one of those people who had the courage of his convictions, and his convictions were real.”

And in chalk, on the east ramp at Nathan Phillips Square, people kept writing.

“How lucky we were to have known you.”

With files from Daniel Dale