Bruce Bell's History Show

he view south towards the intersection of Front and Church from the St. James Cathedral steeple in 1970. The buildings that house C'est What can be seen in the bottom left corner.

Page four of The History Around Front & Church Streets The area surrounding C'est What by Bruce Bell back to previous page Decay And Demolition In 1860 William Russell a leading correspondent for the London Times wrote of Toronto‚ "The city is so very surprising in the extent and excellence of its public buildings that I wrote to an American friend in New York to come up and admire what has been done in architecture under a monarchy. Churches, cathedrals, markets, post office, colleges, schools, rise in imperial dignity in the city." However, amidst the opulence and grandeur that Mr. Russell wrote of, there were horrendous and unimaginable slums. The area that today is St. James park was the site of a horrific ghetto as was the site of our present day city hall on Queen street and the area of King and Parliament. If it weren't for a few courageous photojournalists of the late 19th century who managed to take a few snaps, these areas would have gone unnoticed. The living conditions for the poor, as deplorable as they were, was not the face Toronto or any other large city at the time wanted the world to see. Public housing was unheard of; construction was for profit, not for the needs of everyday people. So the most profitable business leaders of the day built for themselves ornate palaces, to conduct their work in. As these grand as they were, these now demolished yet flamboyant buildings were surrounded by a very polluted city, shrouded in the smoke that belched from the factories these men owned. The harbour became an open sewer and the once pristine shoreline was now a tangle of sheds, lumber piles and grain elevators. When a local enterprise grew into an empire they would abandoned their earlier place of business (Church and Front) and proceed to build a new one (King and Yonge). It would be only a matter of time before fire, weather, or just plain neglect put their former home on the path to destruction. So, by the time it came to obliterate these buildings from the landscape they were largely left to ruin anyway. Some felt, at the end of the 1950's, that these buildings were hideous eyesores and should get what they had coming to them. If they only had a chance at restoration the 200 plus banks, warehouses, factories, stables, hotels, stores, restaurants and churches that once made up our neighbourhood, the old downtown core of Victorian Toronto, the effect today would have been dazzling.

Parks Or Parking Lots? The dust has settled, for now, along that stretch of Front street. Although most of the buildings that at one time graced the street have long gone, my anger over their destruction diminishes slightly when I walk amongst the trees in Berczy park on a summer's night. There is now grass beneath my feet where at one time a factory once stood. For all the destruction this section of Toronto has seen there is ironically, as I sit by a gushing fountain, a sense of serenity. I'm grateful it looks as peaceful as it does, it could have been a lot worse. In the late 1970's instead of laying out the present day Berczy Park there was serious talk of constructing a two level parking garage on the site and placing the park, trees and all, on the top level. Yikes! Or sadder still the majestic banks and the utilitarian warehouses that once made up this area could have remained standing as decayed burnt out shells. In the end we have faired better than most with our inner city. Besides if one of those warehouses built in 1872 by D.W. Alexander to house his leather business now home to C'est What? wasn't saved I wouldn't be writing this now.

The southeast corner of Front and Church in 2000, home to C'est What, Brack Electronics, Harry Young Shoes, and The Second Cup.

Bruce Bell's History Show