City
Nostalgia Tripping: Union Station
In Toronto Remembered: A Celebration of the City, William Kilbourn writes that Union Station is "the soul and heartbeat of Toronto." Over the years, it has been the main point of entry to the city and to Canada for new immigrants (along with Pier 21 in Halifax), and saw thousands of soldiers depart to Europe during World War II.
Located right across from the Royal York Hotel on Front Street, Union Station remains the focal point of transportation in Canada. According to the City of Toronto, the latest statistics from 2007 reveal that it serves about 165,000 passengers daily (and this number is expected to rise).
According to Mike Filey's Toronto Sketches 3: The Way We Were, government officials first started planning a new railway station in 1905. Aside from the dire necessity for a new station due to the gradual increases in traffic, the Great Fire of 1904 was also likely one of the reasons behind this new arrangement. The devastating inferno destroyed a large chunk of the city, razing 104 buildings between Melinda Street in the north and the Esplanade in the south. It's thus likely that many Torontonians longed to see their city revived after such a disaster, and a new Union Station would provide quite the symbol of renewal.
One of the reasons behind the delay in construction, (in addition to the outbreak of World War I) was the fact that the new station required the erection of a viaduct, which would elevate the numerous tracks on the edge of the waterfront. This way, the waterfront would be more accessible to both pedestrians and vehicles. The need for the viaduct caused considerable tensions among the authorities with regard to its financing, but the construction on the new railway station finally commenced on September 26, 1914 and ended six years later.
The new station was completed in 1920, built in the Beau Arts style and designed by the architecture firm of Ross and Macdonald from Montreal in collaboration with Hugh Johnes. The first train, however, didn't pull in until August 6, 1927, when the station was opened by the Prince of Wales and his brother, Prince George. In 1920, there were still no railway tracks going into the station. Even though the officials finally agreed on the matters pertaining to the much disputed viaduct in 1905, the plan for it was altered in 1913 and again a year later. The work on the elevated track scheme did not start until late 1924, nearly five years after the new station had been constructed.
Kilbourn remarks that despite all the bureaucratic difficulties that were finally overcome, Union Station was still not in a proper working order. For example, some tracks had not been extended to the new station, meaning that many incoming passengers would exit their trains at the old station located just down the street and then have to walk over a labyrinth of rails, often next to moving locomotives.
Union Station was built at the time when the railway served as the primary medium of long-distance transportation, and it's obvious for people who use it regularly that it requires extensive renovations. Back in June work began on revitalizing the station, which will cost $640 million with joint funding coming from the municipal, provincial and federal levels of the government. One of the key aims of this project is to preserve the heritage aspects of the building. Let's hope that this revitalization will bring Union Station back to its former glory.
Photos from the Wikimedia Commons and postcard from the author's collection.
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Very cool great pics and story, well done.
Daniel .. Toronto
http://bit.ly/bKGa13
* I doubt that there were many people arriving at the station by horse and buggy after it opened in 1927 although they were still used for commercial deliveries on the streets of Toronto into the 1950s.
* The moat is not going to be filled in; it will become a pedestrian area and will be covered over with a transparent roof.
* The "tunnel" in the postcard was underneath the pedestrian plaza that is the main entrance to the station. Although not apparent in the postcard, the driveway came out in the open again on the east side of the moat. The city is just now completing the rebuilding of this "bridge" at a cost of several million dollars. 90 years of salt corrosion have done their damage.
* The vehicle driveway went out to York and Bay streets. It's hard to explain in words but because of the slope of land that once defined the shoreline of Lake Ontario, vehicles would enter at grade but once the driveway curved around to the front of the building it was well below grade.
Now the commercials. I conduct monthly tours of Union Station, the next being this Saturday. For more information, go to:
http://www.trha.ca/news.html
Also, my book "Toronto's Railway Heritage" has many photos and information about Toronto's Union Stations (the current one is actually the fourth).
Derek Boles
I thought he was talking about the one at the eastern most end at Bay Street, but now that I look at it closer it's just the far bridge to the eastern entrance.
a Turbo train or a Rapido to Montreal. I've also
used in for a trans-continental trip once or twice
back in the 1960s and 1070s.
The lower level where GO transit commuters head lemming-like
to the underground concourse network was where taxis
received passengers. It helps to remember that Union
is a bi-level station with arrivals and departures at
different levels. This was particularly helpful during
the war years with the moving through of military and
the arrival and transfer through of prisoners of war.
If memory serves me well, there were parking meters on
Front St. in the 1950s and the photos in the article
are from an earlier time.
https://gencat4.eloquent-systems.com/webcat/systems/toronto.arch/resource/ser372/ss0079/s0372_ss0079_it0072.jpg
Notice that the York Street bridge, opened in 1897, is being dismantled. It was replaced by the temporary Bay Street bridge which you can see in the background. This was itself dismantled in 1929 and was replaced by the York Street, Bay Street and Yonge Street underpasses (or subways as they were then known).
The five arched windows that you can see on the south side of the centre block of Union Station correspond to the new track level, which was completed in 1930.
Derek Boles
How about just Great Western Tower? I think there's only one.
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