A group of 28 weavers and other artisans set up the society to open their own store selling food items they could not otherwise afford.

Some areas were divided into independently operated communal units of about a dozen bedrooms (called ashrams), each with its own collective washroom, kitchen and dining room.

After obtaining federal mortgages at well below the market rate, Campus Co-op incorporated Rochdale College in 1964.

[4] This meant an unanticipated jump to 840 residents, a fact that was originally greeted with great enthusiasm, due to the expansionist attitudes of the founders.

[3] Zoning regulations also stipulated that the site was to be an apartment-hotel, which meant that only half the floor space could be used for apartments with self-contained kitchens.

[3] This disadvantage was not fully appreciated due to faith in a communal system, in which residents would be expected to effectively share the space available to them.

In addition, the west and east wings differed by planners’ fiat in matters of self-containment and density of intended occupation.

In a symbolic rather than a practical sense, a visible seal was put on this east-west division by a fire door that split the floors in half.

Mietkiewicz writes, "[p]erhaps because of their idealistic preoccupations, few of Rochdale's academic leaders were fully aware that much of Campus Co-op's enthusiasm for education had stemmed from its vision of the program as a sort of tax dodge.

[10] The simple fact that the building was still in some ways a construction site may have deterred many of the students who were attracted to the idea of the hip, alternative education envisioned by its founders, torpedoing the raison d’être for the enterprise on day one.

Rochdale College was established as an alternative to what were considered traditional paternalistic and non-democratic governing bodies within university education.

Conversely, Rochdale's government policy was decided at open meetings in which all members of the co-operative could attend, participate in debate, and engage in consensus decision making.

It was the largest of more than 300 tuition-free universities in North America, and offered no structured courses, curriculum, exams, degrees, or traditional teaching faculty.

From humble beginnings in seminars on phenomenology and a Recorder Consort that performed with the London (Ontario) Symphony Orchestra, it became a hot bed of freethought and radical idealism.

Resource persons of note included an Anglican priest, Alderman and later Member of Parliament, Dan Heap, author Dennis Lee and Futurian Judith Merril, who founded Rochdale's library.

Indicative of the playful humour of the times, anyone could purchase a BA by donating $25 to the college and answering a simple skill-testing question.

Residents, realizing that they were edging towards a kind of separate society right there in the building, founded a health clinic (where babies were born!

), a library, a range of food services, a child care centre, an in-house radio and TV station, a vibrant newspaper, and a series of floor-wide communes.

It had a health-food store, a laundromat on the roof, a day-care, a free school called Superschool where the kids designed their own curriculum, and a medical clinic run by an RN.

This included homeless squatters and bikers who dealt hard drugs, along with a substantial number of undercover officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

[19] CBC Archives also describe how "[d]ue to problems with cops and bikers, the governing council set up a paid security force to be on 24-hour alert.

After increased clashes with police, and unable to pay its mortgage, political pressure forced financial foreclosure by the government, and Rochdale closed in 1975.

"When it was clear that the game was up," writes Sharpe, "Rochdale published its own wry comment: 'Drugdealing is now the domain of the professionals, i.e. lawyers, doctors, etc.

This product of the Sixties -- the mix of ideals and attitudes that Rochdale concentrated from the surrounding youth culture -- had to be dropped from a height, pounded, stretched, and put under heat.

The accomplishment of Rochdale cannot be separated from its eventual destruction, and an institution that was not allowed to be self-destructive about such sweeping questions would have tested nothing at all.

"[22] The story of Rochdale was turned into a play by Canadian playwright, David Yee, and was staged during the Summerworks theatre festival in 2022.