{"id":555346,"date":"2026-07-18T02:00:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T02:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/555346\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T02:00:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T02:00:27","slug":"as-new-tower-rises-near-toronto-street-old-stories-burn-brightly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/555346\/","title":{"rendered":"As new tower rises near Toronto Street, old stories burn brightly"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The exterior of the Consumers\u2019 Gas building on Toronto Street, an example of the Renaissance Revival style. Actually two buildings with a common fa\u00e7ade, it and a neighbouring historic building will be retained when work begins on a new tower.Dave LeBlanc\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

When Queen Victoria was 22 years old, Toronto first saw the light. However, it took until the formation of the Consumers\u2019 Gas Company in 1848 for the smattering of gas lamps to multiply and really illuminate the city. <\/p>\n

As with all new technologies, there were kinks. One dissatisfied Torontonian wrote to The Globe in 1856 to complain that \u201cmany of the gas lamps in various streets of the city are not lighted \u2026 the city pays \u00a37 or more for each lamp erected.\u201d<\/p>\n

By 1876 a Globe editorial outlined the company\u2019s \u201cvery handsome\u201d profits from its 1,151 street lamps and the erection of a \u201cvery handsome edifice on Toronto Street\u201d by Consumers\u2019 Gas.<\/p>\n

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The public entrance to the Consumers\u2019 Gas building at 17 Toronto St.Dave LeBlanc\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

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An old gas lamp is still in place outside the Third York County Courthouse.Dave LeBlanc\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

All that to say: architect David B. Dick\u2019s Consumers\u2019 Gas Company Renaissance Revival buildings at 17 Toronto St. are treasures. The company\u2019s first building on the site was designed by Joseph Sheard in 1852, which Mr. Dick then significantly altered in 1876. <\/p>\n

He then added a second building in 1899 and unified them both with a fa\u00e7ade, with all of this growth speaking to the burgeoning financial and industrial might of the city. Consumers\u2019 was so dominant in that area, it took over the west wing of the Third York County Courthouse (55 Adelaide St. E.) for a showroom when courts moved to E.J. Lennox\u2019s then-new City Hall in 1899. Interestingly, the courthouse suffered an incredible fire in 1982 that gutted the building, so most of the building above the first-floor fa\u00e7ade is a reconstruction. <\/p>\n

The main courthouse at 57 Adelaide St. E. (today home to Terroni) is pre-Confederation (1852), designed by architects Frederic Cumberland and Thomas Ridout, and it has connections to some historically significant groups: \u201cIt became a hub for cultivating some of the most important Toronto institutions,\u201d says ERA Architect\u2019s Sharon Hong, \u201cthe Arts and Letters Club and the Group of Seven.\u201d<\/p>\n

Architourist: A new boat tour tells the architectural stories of Toronto\u2019s harbourfront<\/a><\/p>\n

Thankfully, 17 and 19 Toronto St. and 57 Adelaide St. W. will be retained in full when work begins on B.C.-based Goband Investment\u2019s very tall 91-storey tower by WW+P (formerly SvN) in a few years.<\/p>\n

Goband\u2019s site wraps the southeast corner of Toronto Street and Adelaide Street East, meaning there are two other buildings that will be affected by the project. The Renaissance Revival Trust and Loan Company building at 25 Toronto St. (architect Henry McDougall, 1871) will be fa\u00e7aded but improved upon with a reconstructed cornice and parapet while the heavily altered 1960s Consumers\u2019 Gas showroom (in use until 1977) at 23 Toronto St. will be removed to make way for a similarly low-rise, infill building that will house the new tower\u2019s lobby.<\/p>\n

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This rendering shows the planned 91-storey tower by WW+P at Toronto and Adelaide Streets in downtown Toronto.Architect: SvN Architects + Planners (WW+P)\/Handout\/Supplied<\/p>\n

Which means, when all is said and done, passersby won\u2019t sense much change from the sidewalk, says WW+P principal Jonathan Tinney: \u201cThe intent is to allow what you experience at the public realm level to shine through,\u201d he says. \u201cThe tower itself is meant to be experienced from a distance; it\u2019s a very tight part of downtown \u2026 so its context is bank buildings in the background and so it has a bit more of a sleek expression.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even better, when pedestrians are in front of 55 Adelaide St. E., the public realm will be that much better, as the entrance (formerly a sushi restaurant) will forge a connection to one of the city\u2019s best-kept secret patches of green: Courthouse Square Park.<\/p>\n

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Courthouse Square Park, a little-known greenspace in downtown Toronto with European plaza potential.Dave LeBlanc\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Formerly home to a firehall and then a parking lot, Courthouse Square was proposed in 1978 but not realized until 1997, when Janet Rosenberg & Studio and CS+P Architects won a competition to regreen the space. The next year, The Globe and Mail\u2019s Marjorie Harris opined that it was \u201cwhat sophisticated cities in Europe have had for centuries \u2013 a place that is timeless in its design and offers succour in a crowded city centre.\u201d It\u2019s lovely, yes, with plants \u201cthat would have been growing in 1853\u201d and sculptures by Susan Schelle, and award-winning, too, but the purity and simplicity of the design has been compromised in the past three decades. <\/p>\n

Not only are the trees closest to Court Street obscuring the park from view, Terroni\u2019s patio is shielded by tacky, temporary fencing. That lack of \u201ceyes\u201d on the park \u2013 only the odd office worker occupies it during business hours \u2013 means it\u2019s a somewhat unfriendly place post-6 p.m.<\/p>\n

How are Toronto building owners filling vacant office space?<\/a><\/p>\n

But, says Mr. Tinney, \u201cthe proportions are amazing; if Terroni can open up [to the park], the new building can have an opportunity to provide some retail activation to the backside, all of this suddenly becomes almost Italian piazza-ish.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s right: Toronto doesn\u2019t possess a great many sheltering squares where espresso-sippers sit cradled by heritage architecture. Here, one would be able to gaze up at the old Consumers\u2019 Gas logo against the red brick, the four chimneys and the fine oculus window of the courthouse, and the tower, if noticed at all, would be an abstract and linear object mixing with the clouds.<\/p>\n

The mix of history here is special; a stone\u2019s throw away is the King Edward Hotel (E.J. Lennox\/Henry Ives Cobb, 1901\/1921), the white, Italianate, Excelsior Life Building (E.J. Lennox, 1915), and Toronto\u2019s Seventh Post Office (1853 Storm\/Ridout, and once owned by Conrad Black). And, should they be able to unearth some physical evidence, says Ms. Hong, there\u2019s yet another layer: \u201cthere\u2019s Albert Jackson, the first Black postman [he worked out of the Toronto General Post Office at the top of Toronto Street, demolished in 1958], and the first Black publishing company along King Street East, there was a bit of a Black business district along King East,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Perhaps, as new towers rise, old photographs and stories will emerge from the darkness and burn brightly again. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: The exterior of the Consumers\u2019 Gas building on Toronto Street, an example of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[12327,307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60,9115],"class_list":["post-555346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-architourist","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-real-estate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}