Looking southwest towards the corner of Front St E and Scott St, in the St Lawrence neighbourhood of Toronto.
The archive photo shows the buildings that once stood at the corner. At the corner was Sloan & Crowther, a wholesale grocery company, and to the right, in the four-storey portion, was W.B. Hamilton’s wholesale boot and shoe factory. In the background on the left, the structure with the arch-shaped roof was, at the time, the Grand Trunk Railway freight depot.
The grand three- and four-storey buildings at the corner were constructed in 1873. Architect Henry Langley designed the two warehouses for William Ramsay, who ran his wholesale grocery company from the 3-storey corner building until the early 1880s. This portion of the warehouses later housed various companies, including other wholesale grocers, furniture storage, and a salvage company. Meanwhile, the attached four-storey building remained home to Wm. B. Hamilton’s Shoe Co. during the building’s entire existence.
The warehouse buildings, along with this stretch of Front St E from Yonge St to Scott St, were demolished in 1957 to make way for the O’Keefe Centre, which opened in October 1960 and is today known as Meridian Hall.
Then and Now
SOURCE
- City of Toronto Heritage Register
- Heritage Toronto
- Ontario Heritage Trust
- Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada
- The Globe Newspaper Archives: Feb 1, 1873, pg 3
- The Globe Newspaper Archives: Dec 11, 1873, pg 3
- The Globe Newspaper Archives: Apr 30, 1897, pg 7
- The Toronto Daily Star Newspaper Archives: Dec 4, 1957, pg 3
- Photo: Denise Marie for TorontoJourney416
- Vintage Photo: Toronto Public Library
- City of Toronto: Maps
- Toronto City Directory courtesy of Toronto Public Library
