Looking southwest along Queen St W from Old City Hall at the corner of Bay St in downtown Toronto.
A few of the establishments in the archive photo, from left to right, include the Dominion Bank, Municipal Hotel, Osgoode Restaurant, Union Hotel and the Broadway Theatre. The four-storey, half-timbered Tudor Revival building with the Teperman Wrecking sign is the Hamilton Trust Building, constructed around 1915. The vintage photo shows the building shortly after a 3-alarm fire had roared through it.
In 1965, this block—located directly across from Nathan Phillips Square and described by a local newspaper writer as a “ramshackle row”—was demolished to make way for redevelopment. Today, this area is home to the TD Bank, the Thomson Building, and the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel.
Then and Now
SOURCE
- City of Toronto Heritage Register
- Heritage Toronto
- Ontario Heritage Trust
- Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada
- The Globe and Mail Newspaper Archives: Apr 8, 1963, pg 5 (Hamilton Trust Building, looking southwest along Queen St W from Bay St)
- Photo: Denise Marie for TorontoJourney416
- Vintage Photo: City of Toronto Archives
- City of Toronto: Maps
- Toronto City Directory, courtesy of Toronto Public Library
