Video transcript:

Almost nothing’s left of Honest Ed’s now except empty space and it’s eerie. It didn’t feel eerie watching it gradually vaporize into air. That was almost soothing. First wire fences went round it. It looked like Berlin in the Cold War. Then the signs went, in bits. But now that it’s not there at all, you feel like you’re looking through it, as if a there’s a ghost hovering just above the bare ground.

I used to take visitors there but only if they were sophisticated and got it. It anticipated Toronto’s journey to a city of immigrants and diversity. It wasn’t that way when Ed’s began, it was a WASP-y place with a few minorities like Jews and Italians, but it moved in the direction that the store pointed.

The departure’s been heavily documents in photos, films and events like closing sales. It’s been like a peaceful passing of someone much loved with lots of time to say goodbye. Then when they’re finally gone, they only continue in the minds of those who knew them.

What felt weird is that as the bricks and mortar came down, something as concrete but immaterial, felt like it was also being demolished. I guess that’s what being an institution means. It’s different from a Leon’s or an Ikea going because there are many of them. So they’re actually less real because they’re all just copies. The real thing isn’t anywhere, it’s a concept. But when Ed’s goes, that’s it.

What happens to institutions we shop at or identify with, and to their meaning for us, when they’re no longer intimately embodied in bricks and mortar and have become “virtual” instead, like, say, Amazon? I have no idea.

Rick Salutin’s video commentary appears every Tuesday.