City
The lost hotels of Toronto
The recent loss of the building that housed the Empress and then later the Edison Hotel at Yonge and Gould got me wondering about Toronto's other formerly grand but now inevitably lost hotels. While the Royal York, King Edward and Gladstone hotels continue to fulfill their original purpose, there are loads of structures around the city -- like the one at Yonge and Gould was until a few days ago -- that were once part of the hotel landscape that now house an assortment of other businesses. And, not surprisingly, there are plenty of other former hotels that were knocked down as the city expanded.
The original use of some of the remaining buildings is easy to identify in some cases, but more often than not, modifications over time have obscured the fact that they used to be places of accommodation (rather than restaurants or retail outlets). As such, a little trip down memory lane might offer a timely reminder of how lovely some of these buildings were and how important they remain (in the cases where they haven't already been demolished) to the city's heritage.
Some of these structures are in a sorry state, and it'd be fitting tribute to the old Empress to ensure that a similar fate doesn't befall them. For more information and additional images check out Toronto History on Flickr, which has links to Google Street View links that illustrate what these hotels look like today or what has replaced them. Lead image of the Rosedale Hotel (Yonge just south of Scrivner Square, still standing).
Empress/Edison Hotel (Yonge and Gould, destroyed by fire)
Alexandra Hotel (demolished in the building of Nathan Phillips Square)
Walker House Hotel (Front and York streets, demolished)
Barclay Hotel (Wellington and Simcoe, demolished)
Hotel Falconer (King and Spadina, still standing)
Imperial Hotel (Dundas just east of Yonge, still standing)
Hotel Municipal (Queen near Bay, demolished)
Union Hotel (Queen near Bay, demolished)
National Hotel (King and Sherbourne, still standing)
Quigley Hotel (Danforth in between Woodbine and Main, still standing)
Shamrock Hotel (Southwest corner of River and Gerrard, demolished)
Hotel Sheldon (southeast corner Victoria and Richmond, still standing)
Ocean House Hotel (At the intersection of Queen/King/Roncesvalles, still standing)
Scholes Hotel (864 Queen St. West, demolished)
Broadview Hotel (Broadview and Queen, still standing)
Rossin House / Prince George Hotel (King and York, demolished for the TD Centre)
Dominion Hotel (Queen and Sumach, still standing)
Heydon House (St. Clair Ave. West and Old Weston Rd., still standing)
Queen's Hotel (site of the current Royal York, which it was demolished to build)
Images 1-18 from Toronto History (via the Toronto Archives), Heydon House by johnfitzgerald, remaining images from the Wikimedia Commons.
Discussion
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760 Queen Street East (still standing)
Parkdale Arms Hotel - Queen Street West @ Strachan (still standing)
Palace Arms Hotel - King Street West @ Strachan (still standing)
One blog about the goings on in Toronto.
The other one filled with masturbatory nostalgia.
Would you be interested in blogging about your own masturbatory exploits for us?
I'm very happy to see the best of the new AND the best of the old. Keep it up!
Keep up the awesome work.
Try Yonge St. - #201 or 203.
Amazing post, by the way, I truly love seeing these old pictures!
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However, the upper section is now home to low income, seedy apartment dwellers.
Nothing beats walking by the entrance on any warm summers eve to see scantily clad dancers mingling with the riff-raff as they have smokes and solve the worlds problems. Its really quite the sight to behold.
Send me a note if you still want to use it. I don't see it as a commercially valuable photo, but a credit would be nice. And I might even see my way clear to providing a better-edited version.
I wondered if you would put the FORD HOTEL as part of your collection - it was opposite the Bus Terminal on Bay Street. There is also an interesting storefront on College at Ossington with the title THE LAKESIDE - was it always a cafe or was it a hotel when the Silver Slipper was still in existance.
Please keep up the research. Great!
When visiting the city at that time, I used to stay at a "Hotel Toronto"--A modern tower hotel
with a glass elevator on the side of the bldg, and a great sunday buffet too.
It was one of the tallest buildings in the city at the time.
Obviously, it has long since been re-sold, renamed, etc
I remember staying there the same night Darryl Sittler had an NHL-record 10-point game for The Leafs (we did not have tickets to the game & were doing other stuff that night).
What hotel currently occupies the same building Hotel Toronto used to occupy back in the 70s?