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The
view west along the south side of Front St. from Church
St.
The view west from Front and Scott in 1890
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Page three of
The History
Around Front & Church Streets
The
area surrounding C'est What
by Bruce
Bell
In
the 1870's work began on the warehouses west of Church
Street and they too remain relatively intact. In 1871 the
building opposite C'est What on south west corner of Church
and Front was originally home to P.G. Close Importers
and a few years later a Mr. J.W Lang opened a
wholesale grocery business there. His specialty was tea
imported from Japan, India and Ceylon. To insure his tea was
the very best he employed a full time tea-taster, a very
novel and lucrative touch. Mr. Lang's building was unique
because the front door was situated on an angle at the
much-coveted corner-lot of Front and Church. During the
numerous alterations the building has endured that door has
long since disappeared but you can still see the rounded
corner where it once was. The buildings original exterior
was removed in 1960 and replaced with a layer of glazed
white bricks. In 1970 stucco was applied and the painted-on
relief work we see today was added.
Next
door, now home to the offices of Toronto Life
Magazine, Nanno Restaurant, V. Tony Hauser
Photographer and Flatirons card shop, was in 1891
the import business of J.P. Clemes the former mayor
of Port Hope who sold dried fruits and
vegetables.
This
small unpretentious block was built to a serve a purpose; to
hold the goods a thriving 19th century city craved. When the
wholesale business left the area, hundreds of warehouses
just like it came crashing down. A few have miraculously
survived thanks to heritage conscience developers like the
late Philip Greey who could of easily replaced them
with more lucrative mega structures. Mr. Greey also restored
the west side of Church street, south of Front (the
Keg and Papillon restaurants); the north side
of The Esplanade west of Church (Old Spaghetti
Factory, Esplanade Bier Garden and Fionn
MacCool's Irish Pub). In doing so he rescued a unique
grouping of once unassuming warehouses and factories from
the wreckers ball.
The
three buildings next door to the block are anything but
unassuming. They are the most elaborate examples of high
Victorian Romanticism left standing in Toronto and without
these highly ornamented warehouses our city would be a
poorer place.
The
Dixon Building (45-49 Front street east) built in
1872, is Toronto's only remaining structure with a totally
cast-iron facade. During the height of the industrial age
anything made of steel was considered state of the art, you
had to have it if you were to be considered leading edge. At
one time the whole south end of Front street west of Yonge,
where today the enormous Dominion Federal Building
now stands, was known as the Iron block. Building after
building all sported this new architectural innovation. The
effect was to make the exterior look like carved stone, only
less expensive.
On
February 14 1872 a massive fire swept through the Iron block
where not only did the facades literally melt onto the
street in a messy liquefied heap of molten steel but also
their heavy weight came crashing down on surrounding
buildings.
The
Dixon building, originally home to the Canada
Vinegrowers and now occupied by Europe Bound and
Nicholas Hoare was owned by real estate tycoon B.
Homer Dixon who also built the wondrous 280 Queen west
between Soho and Mcall streets. Next door at
the Perkins warehouse, built in 1874 now home to
Hikers Haven, you find the perfect example of what
the businessmen of the 19th century wanted all whom came to
Toronto to see, prosperity in the guise of a Venetian
palazzo and its effect is truly stunning. This is a
remarkable building and at one time the entire street was
filled with buildings just like it. Next door the
Beardmore Building -1872, now home to Frida's
and yet another hiker paradise, Out There, was
originally a world-renowned harness and saddle-making
factory. Its namesake, leather king George Beardmore,
also built one of the most beautiful homes in Toronto, still
standing on Beverly Street across from the
AGO, and is now the Italian
Consulate.
What
all these former warehouses share today is a stripped down,
bare bricked, exposed beam ceiling, ground level interior.
You can bet your life in their day they were anything but.
With dark walnut paneling and heavily detailed ceilings,
their insides were as opulent as their outsides.
From
1850 on, thanks to the railroad with its easy access to the
Erie Canal, New York City and the world,
Toronto overtook all other cities in Canada, with the
exception of Montreal, to be the richest and most
influential of them all. It had only been a mere 50 years
since the time we were considered a backwater colonial
outpost. In that short span, to prove to the world that we
had arrived, a stunning metropolis with the look and feel of
an ancient Imperial city was built. These last remaining
warehouses with their powerful facades still intact are a
true testament to that time.
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