They were onlookers in 1837 as soldiers marched past their doorways on their way to crush Mackenzie’s rebellion and later from their upper-floor windows people watched in quiet protest as the rebel leaders were hanged across the street a year later.

The buildings miraculously survived the Great Fire of 1849, which destroyed their neighbours including St. James’ Cathedral. They were around when the new cathedral, the one we have today, opened its doors in 1853.

They saw the first sidewalks in Toronto laid outside their doors; the first street gaslights lit followed by electric ones; felt the roar of the first streetcars to roll by; witnessed the great tides of immigration to flood this city in the mid 19th century and were there to celebrate the 1867 Confederation. They have survived war, fire, urban renewal—and even Andy Warhol.The first business to make 107 King St. E. home was Joseph Rogers’ Fur and Hat Manufacturer where, before he got famous, was one of Canada’s greatest painters Paul Kane was hired to paint the sign that was to hang from the front door.

On Nov. 22, 1848 fire breaks out in the block that houses the Joseph Rogers store and it is here that William Thornton becomes the first Toronto firefighter to die in the line of duty.

The store was rebuilt and Roger’s son and later grandson stayed on at 107 King St. E. running the business to at least the mid 1870s.

In 1891 Mrs. Gallagher’s Foreign and Domestic Fruits moved into 107 St. E. and next door, at 109-111, The Great London and Liverpool One Price Clothing House took up residence (currently La Maquette Restaurant). Today on the façade of 107 King St. E. you can still see the tiny remains of the iron hooks imbedded into the stone that once held Gallagher’s awning.

By 1893, Oak Hall, one of the most impressive stores in late 19th-century Toronto stood next door on the site of the present day Sculpture Garden (1981).

This gentleman’s clothing emporium at 4-storeys-high with floor-to-ceiling windows and 12 Greek Goddess statues adorning the façade was sadly demolished in 1938. However it did create that terrific vista of St. James’ Cathedral we have today.

After the demise of Oak Hall King Street East started its descent into a series of second-hand clothing outlets, machine shops and empty store fronts.

However by the late 1950s, upstairs at 107 King St. E. becomes the art studio of one of the most celebrated painters in Canada: Tom Hodgson, a founding member of the highly influential group of abstract artists known as the Painters Eleven.

This group that also included other notable Canadian artists—Jack Bush, Alexandra Luke, Jock Macdonald, Kazuo Nakamura and Harold Town—was formed in 1953 and by the time the group formally disbanded in 1960, Tom’s King Street studio dubbed The Pit was the coolest place to be in pre-hippy-era Toronto.

It would be there, in what was then a very depressed area of town, that Tom would host some of the wildest parties this city had ever seen up to that time.

Local artist Don George tells me he remembers going to The Pit one night when cold cuts were being served on the bodies of nude women lying atop the buffet table, all the while naked young art students swung shamelessly from a rope across the studio’s floor.

And all of this happening a stone’s throw from stately St. James’ Cathedral in a time when Toronto-the-Good protesters were picketing the King Edward Hotel because then unmarried Liz Taylor and Richard Burton were “living in sin.”

During the years 1960 to1967 when Hodgson lived and worked at his King Street East studio, the people and parties—not to mention the work—kept on coming. One of the great local myths that survives to this day is whether Pop Art icon Andy Warhol, when visiting Toronto, would spend time at the Pit. Tom, the last surviving member of the Painters Eleven, died in 2006. Beginning in the early 1980s King Street East, which up until then had spent the last half century in decay, began its way back to recovery. In 2003 107 and 109 King St. E. were completely renovated by developers Michael and Anne Tippin. Today the two buildings (their ground floors joined) are home to a new restaurant called Origin, a perfect name for one of Toronto’s oldest and most historic treasures.

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Please visit my website www.brucebelltours.ca or call me at 647-393-8687 for info on my local upcoming tours & my next tour to New York City Oct. 15-17.