Commercial site.
Details of Site Location: 131–139 Yonge Street, between Adelaide Street East and Richmond Street East.
Current Use of Property: A new Arcade building was constructed between 1958 and 1960.
Historical Description: In 1883, an important public building was under construction (architect: C.A. Walton of Detroit). The Arcade, with its front entrance on Yonge Street, constructed of red brick, had a cut-stone façade five stores wide. The four-storey blocks on Yonge and Victoria Streets looked even taller as they had large pediment arches on the top. Carvings were by Holbrook and Mollington. Between the blocks was the Arcade. It was 3 1/2 storeys high under a peaked glass roof 130’ long and 35’ wide. It had 24 shops on the ground floor, and offices and shops on the second floor, which was fronted by a balcony that ran round the open area. Offices and shops on the third floor were reached by stairs in the front and back blocks. To allow maximum light to enter the interiors, the central part of the roof was entirely of cast-iron-framed plate glass and the inner walls were the lightest possible framing of cast iron, supporting wide sheets of plate glass. Much decorative detail was added: Corinthian capitals on the piers on the windows, and a pierced balustrade with gaslights mounted on tall, slender standards of cast iron. By the 1950s, the Arcade was surrounded by office buildings. In 1955, after sitting empty for two years, it was demolished.
Relative Importance: The Arcade was the first shopping centre in Toronto.
Planning Implications: A permanent display or plaque showing pictures and telling the story of the Arcade should be mounted in the present Arcade.
Reference Sources: C.P. Mulvany, Toronto Past and Present; William Dendy, Lost Toronto; Toronto City Archives.