Toronto One Bloor East | 257.24m | 76s | Great Gulf | Hariri Pontarini

It looks like that building on the north West corner in that last photo was a really nice one too. Nothing ever fails to bring a tear to my eye quite like pre-60s pictures of Toronto. Having been through Sydney Australia quite a bit in the last couple months, I can really see how well they've managed to hold on to their historical building stock. It really gives the city a wonderful character, and it truly is a shame what "modernism" and "progress" did to our once much more beautiful city.
 
Was it a hotel? I'd never seen those shots.. So they basically cleared the site for 2 Bloor East, preserved the historic building, then RBC came along and razed it for a one storey concrete bunker? Criminal!
 
innsertnamehere said:
The only building on that strip worth preserving is the orange brick one, so it is basically a clean slate if a developer can piece together the land. (Which I wouldn't be surprised if one is doing)
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Actually, most of the block is worth preserving. Even if it wasn't, the old built form of many buildings with narrow street frontages and a variety of facades seems better than an entire block of glass panels and a couple of larger stores. It makes walking more engaging.
 
wait, so this is worth preserving?

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And this is a prime example if we don't invest and preserve our heritage buildings - the few left on Yonge. I don't want more of this dreck and this is what we are going to get if don't do something about it.
 
DarkSideDenizen said:
Was it a hotel? I'd never seen those shots.. So they basically cleared the site for 2 Bloor East, preserved the historic building, then RBC came along and razed it for a one storey concrete bunker? Criminal!
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Not a hotel; just the earlier Royal Bank building that the present one replaced.

And there was no intent to "preserve the historic building"; it was merely a staged demolition/construction, i.e. they built the tower and HBC first while keeping the bank "active"; and then once that was done and they presumably set up a temporary Royal branch somewhere, the old building was demo'd and the present corner bunker was built in its stead.

In the early 70s, Edwardian classicism was still a "borderline" heritage concern.
 
It was originally built way back when as an apartment building but converted to an office building (mainly medical offices) at a later date. Wish it was still there..............
 


On second look, I actually think the bulding on the North-West corner rather deserved to be saved. Besides the southern facade of the North-East building, there isn't much lost here.
 
Thanks for that adma. The building on the northwest corner was, at least in part, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. They must have torn down their own offices around about 1969-70 and erected the tower that currently occupies the corner (CIBC).
 
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