The tragic history of how Toronto demolished one of its most beautiful buildings
It's been decades since Toronto lost one of its best examples of Streamline Moderne architecture — the William H. Wright Building — and most of the people who frequent the bustling Financial District in the modern era remain blissfully unaware of the area's impressive but ultimately lost architectural history.
The long-gone six-storey office building on the corner of York and King Streets was designed by the firm Mathers and Haldenby and built between 1937 and 1938.
The site of the structure was previously home to a list of local establishments, including the Imperial Hotel, a tailor, a restaurant, a hardware shop, and a barber shop.
The site of the future William H. Wright Building in 1936. Photo: Toronto Public Library Archives.
Situated at 140 King St. W., the building was named after the founder of The Globe and Mail, William Henry Wright, and served as the newspaper's headquarters for over three decades.
Photo: Toronto Public Library Archives.
But by the start of 1974, The Globe and Mail had started to outgrow its offices at the William H. Wright Building, and began preparing for its move to a sprawling, white-brick building at 444 Front St. W., designed by the firm Webb Zerafa Menkes Housden (WZMH) Architects.
Until 1971, the 444 Front St. W. building was home to another newspaper at the time, called the Toronto Telegram. Once the conservative, afternoon newspaper ceased operations, the building was leased to the Toronto Star before The Globe and Mail made it its new official home in 1974.
That same year, the original William H. Wright Building was demolished to make way for the Exchange Tower, a 36-storey building in the First Canadian Place complex.
The international style building, which was completed in 1981, was named after the Toronto Stock Exchange, which was its highest-profile tenant.
However, one of the William H. Wright Building's most defining features — its beautiful, art deco entrance — was preserved and reinstated at the entrance of the newspaper's new home on Front Street, where it lived on for another generation.
The original building's signature doors were reinstated at its new home on Front Street. Photo: Jack Landau.
For the next few decades, Globe and Mail journalists would write millions of stories from their new location at Front and Spadina.
However, as time went on, the excitement over the paper's shiny, modern printing presses was overshadowed by critiques of the building's appearance, which quickly became outdated against the city's evolving architecture and condo boom.
The Globe and Mail building in 2007. Photo: City of Toronto Archives.
In 2016, The Globe and Mail officially bid farewell to the building and relocated to the Globe and Mail Centre on King Street East.
The vacated factory-like building, along with the Toyota dealership next door, was subsequently demolished to make way for The Well, a mixed-use megacomplex home to multiple towers with offices and residential units, a sheltered shopping galleria, and a sprawling food hall.
The original building's massive doors were again spared, and reinstated in 2022 within the lobby of the Toronto Star's new headquarters at The Well, leaving Toronto with a relic of one of its most beautiful buildings.
However, it's not the only one.
You can also find preserved stonework from the lost landmark at the Guild Park and Gardens in Scarborough.
SimonP via Wikimedia Commons
Relics of the William H. Wright Building and other demolished landmarks from Toronto's past live on in this public space.
City of Toronto Archives
