The Board of Trade Building was a seven-storey tour de force built in 1892 on the northeast corner of Front and Yonge streets. It was home to the Toronto Board of Trade and the Toronto Transit Commission. This stunning and iconic structure was demolished in ...
Read More »Bell in Brief: Dominion Public Building still dominates Front St. landscape
The Dominion Public Building was built by architects James Henry Craig and Thomas W. Fuller between 1926 and 1935 on the southeast corner of Front and Bay streets in Downtown Toronto to be a federal customs clearing house. Presently this gorgeous structure houses the ...
Read More »Crystal Ballroom King Eddy hotel’s crowning glory
In 1900 George Gooderham—the richest man in Toronto, founder of the Bank of Toronto, CEO of the Gooderham and Worts Distillery as well as builder of the famed Flatiron building at Church and Wellington—had a new idea. New: check out ...
Read More »Toronto 1867/1967: An evening of story, song and…shopping?
At the time of Confederation, St. Lawrence Hall was the social, political and cultural centre of Toronto. It was also one of the sites where Confederation was made. Sir John A. Macdonald would promote the idea at the Hall on ...
Read More »Bell in Brief: Demolition gutted glorious Toronto Street
Toronto Street (one block west of Church between King and Adelaide streets) reached its zenith as an architectural jewel the same time the British Empire did in 1897 during Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebrating 60 glorious years of her reign. ...
Read More »Bell in Brief on this date—Dec 19—in the year 1846
On this date December 19th, 1846 the first telegraph in Canada was sent. That historic telegraph was sent from Toronto’s former City Hall (now partly encased within South St Lawrence Market) between the Mayor of Toronto to the mayor of ...
Read More »Once abandoned and ‘ramschackle’ now Church and Front thrives
In 1810, Church St. south of Front St. E. was open land with a sharp 20-foot drop to the beach below. Long before the colossal landfill operations that were to begin in the 1850’s, the south side of Front was ...
Read More »St. Michael’s Cathedral is born again
St. Michael’s Cathedral on Bond Street has reopened after years of exhaustive renovations, making the cathedral today just as spectacular as when it first opened in 1848. A century and a half of grime, coal dust, candle wax and just ...
Read More »Bell in Brief: Art deco doorway was first step for women workers
It was through this gorgeous art deco doorway built in the 1920’s that thousands of young women entered the workforce for the first time. Bell hired 3,000 women working round the clock to be telephone operators. The Downtown core was ...
Read More »Bruce Bell: Queen’s Hotel was supreme
The most famous hotel in York’s early years was Jordan’s York Hotel first built in 1805 and stood near where the new Globe and Mail office tower is today on King Street at Princess. Today if still standing (it was ...
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