Sir Novelty Fashion
Senior Member
Ah, the sweet sound of someone who knows what he's talking about. How seldom we hear those dulcet tones...
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Kahlua17
Active Member
So the demolition begins today at 2:00pm. Should be interesting to watch.
digitalcabana
Active Member
National Post Article
Just another change at Yonge and Bloor, but this one's the biggest yet
Brianna Goldberg
National Post
May 28, 2008
As demolition for an 80-storey condo begins at Yonge and Bloor tomorrow, its developer is making sure everyone who passes by knows just how historic the change will be.
“One Bloor is at the most important intersection in Canada,†said Veronika Belovich, vice-president of sales and marketing at Bazis International.
“That whole corner is about to make a really significant transformation, and Bazis wanted to give everyone a sense of its history.â€
And so, as excavators chomp into the former eyesores of City Optical and Harveys at 2 p.m. tomorrow to make way for the luxury condo/five-star hotel/boutique shopping structure that will be 1 Bloor, images of the intersection’s history over the past hundred years will dissolve one into another on a gigantic plasma television screen, 10 feet tall by six feet wide.
“It’s like watching a movie of the corner’s history,†said Ms. Belovich, who was part of the team that assembled the archival images.
Toronto historian Bruce Bell said there’s not much Bazis could to to that intersection that would surprise Yonge and Bloor. It’s been through a lot.
“Yonge Street started in 1797 as a highway for British soldiers to walk from the city to as far north as Newmarket. It wasn’t intended for commercial use at all,†he said.
No stores, no theatres. Not even any animals, unless they were paid for: Mr. Bell said that in the 1830s, Yonge and Bloor (then the northern boundary of the city) was installed with a toll booth to keep the wooden highway in good condition.
“At that time, it would cost you about a penny per animal,†he said.
And that would have been a lot to the people living around Yonge and Bloor. Mr. Bell describes it as a working class neighbourhood with many houses, and Joseph Bloor’s beer brewery pumping away just north of the street that would later take on his name.
Toronto grew in the 1850s and ’60s as the railroad chugged into the city, pushing commerce ever northward (though still not up to Bloor). The resulting residential demands caused Toronto to annex the working-class village of Yorkville into the city.
Mr. Bell said things started to pick up at Yonge and Bloor in the 1920s. That’s when the Uptown vaudeville theatre (by the same designer as the Elgin and Wintergarden) started bringing people there for entertainment, and when Yonge Street was widened with the inception of the TTC.
This was the first of many thanks Yonge and Bloor owes to public transit: Mr. Bell said the intersection came into its own only with the opening of the Yonge and Bloor subway station in 1966, 12 years after trains started running on the Yonge line.
From then on, it was gravy: Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Margaret Atwood and the rest of the artistic hippie culture founded a countercultural haven in Yorkville.
And, with the opening of the subway station, the city approved zoning for higher density buildings, so department stores like the Bay and Holt Renfrew could bulldoze local retail further into the city’s periphery.
And now, tomorrow, bulldozers again. An excavator driven by Bazis partners Michael Gold and Roy Varacalli, as well as city councillor Kyle Rae, will start to demolish the city block from Bloor down to Hayden Street.
At 80 storeys, 1 Bloor will be among the tallest structures in Canada.
Just another change at Yonge and Bloor, but this one's the biggest yet
Brianna Goldberg
National Post
May 28, 2008
As demolition for an 80-storey condo begins at Yonge and Bloor tomorrow, its developer is making sure everyone who passes by knows just how historic the change will be.
“One Bloor is at the most important intersection in Canada,†said Veronika Belovich, vice-president of sales and marketing at Bazis International.
“That whole corner is about to make a really significant transformation, and Bazis wanted to give everyone a sense of its history.â€
And so, as excavators chomp into the former eyesores of City Optical and Harveys at 2 p.m. tomorrow to make way for the luxury condo/five-star hotel/boutique shopping structure that will be 1 Bloor, images of the intersection’s history over the past hundred years will dissolve one into another on a gigantic plasma television screen, 10 feet tall by six feet wide.
“It’s like watching a movie of the corner’s history,†said Ms. Belovich, who was part of the team that assembled the archival images.
Toronto historian Bruce Bell said there’s not much Bazis could to to that intersection that would surprise Yonge and Bloor. It’s been through a lot.
“Yonge Street started in 1797 as a highway for British soldiers to walk from the city to as far north as Newmarket. It wasn’t intended for commercial use at all,†he said.
No stores, no theatres. Not even any animals, unless they were paid for: Mr. Bell said that in the 1830s, Yonge and Bloor (then the northern boundary of the city) was installed with a toll booth to keep the wooden highway in good condition.
“At that time, it would cost you about a penny per animal,†he said.
And that would have been a lot to the people living around Yonge and Bloor. Mr. Bell describes it as a working class neighbourhood with many houses, and Joseph Bloor’s beer brewery pumping away just north of the street that would later take on his name.
Toronto grew in the 1850s and ’60s as the railroad chugged into the city, pushing commerce ever northward (though still not up to Bloor). The resulting residential demands caused Toronto to annex the working-class village of Yorkville into the city.
Mr. Bell said things started to pick up at Yonge and Bloor in the 1920s. That’s when the Uptown vaudeville theatre (by the same designer as the Elgin and Wintergarden) started bringing people there for entertainment, and when Yonge Street was widened with the inception of the TTC.
This was the first of many thanks Yonge and Bloor owes to public transit: Mr. Bell said the intersection came into its own only with the opening of the Yonge and Bloor subway station in 1966, 12 years after trains started running on the Yonge line.
From then on, it was gravy: Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Margaret Atwood and the rest of the artistic hippie culture founded a countercultural haven in Yorkville.
And, with the opening of the subway station, the city approved zoning for higher density buildings, so department stores like the Bay and Holt Renfrew could bulldoze local retail further into the city’s periphery.
And now, tomorrow, bulldozers again. An excavator driven by Bazis partners Michael Gold and Roy Varacalli, as well as city councillor Kyle Rae, will start to demolish the city block from Bloor down to Hayden Street.
At 80 storeys, 1 Bloor will be among the tallest structures in Canada.
urbandreamer
recession proof
Didn't I hear a rumour about this site?
digitalcabana
Active Member
Southeast corner of Yonge and Bloor, 1926
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
I think it's somewhat ironic that people are crying rivers over the demolition of four vacant townhomes on Charles street - townhomes that are to make way for a Hariri Pontarini-designed condo that is a contextual extension of their McKinsey building next door - while an entire block of thriving businesses in Roy's Square are about to be pulverized to make way for a rather cartoonish highrise tower.
Oh Hipster, think of the children!
Children love cartoonish towers, and since Harry's moved to Hamildumb, we have Bazis now.
42
Children love cartoonish towers, and since Harry's moved to Hamildumb, we have Bazis now.
42
Towered
Senior Member
Easy - because aesthetically there's nothing nice or worth saving about the block at Yonge and Bloor, except perhaps that one building that housed that Toronto archives.
smuncky
Senior Member
bah i forgot about this happening today.
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
Yeah, but it was a vibrant block with a number of successful and interesting businesses. This, more than aesthetics, is what makes a city what it is.
I would be more sympathetic about the demise of Roy's square if I didn't have a sinking feeling that 1BE will be the next decade's version of TLS.
Sir Novelty Fashion
Senior Member
alklay
Senior Member
I wonder at what point people will stop predicting doomsday for this project. Hording has certainly not stopped the predictions. Neither has sales or demolition. I am sure that even when completed, if there are a few 'for lease' signs in the retail windows, before opening, people will be saying "see, I told you it would fail."
urbandreamer
recession proof
I dunno. I just saw a post on BlogTO (re: 1 Blow) that scared me. One of the comments promoting the development is by someone I'm 99% certain is related to a mobster.
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
I just walked up there, I can't see any ceremonial chunk pulled down. I took my camera to grab a shot, but I couldn't see anything to photograph.
casaguy
Senior Member
Bizarre.
Not even a big screen or signs of any sort of ceremony?
Not even a big screen or signs of any sort of ceremony?
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