This content is part of a series created in collaboration with the City of Toronto Museum Services and Heritage Toronto. We thank the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport and the Ministry of Canadian Heritage for their funding.
“Toronto’s Skyscraper Row”
Passengers on a Toronto Railway Company streetcar were somewhat surprised when a large slab of stone passed through the wooden roof of their tram at the corner of King and Yonge Streets. Fortunately, no one was sitting where the stone landed and no one was injured in the incident.
It was August 10, 1911, and at the time, construction was underway on the Canadian Pacific Building, the city’s newest skyscraper. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company, Canada’s largest private landowner, purchased a parcel on the southeast corner of King and Yonge Streets. Toronto’s central business district has continued to slide westward and this corner is now the most prestigious location in the city.
Throughout most of the 19th centurye century, the largest structures in town are invariably church steeples. The development of steel-framed buildings and efficient elevators allowed the emergence of new very tall office buildings – skyscrapers – at the turn of the 20th century.e century. Four of these skyscrapers were built near the following intersections: the 15-story Traders Bank building at 61-67 Yonge Street in 1905, the Canadian Pacific Railway at 1 King Street East in 1913, the Toronto Bank -Dominion, at 1 King Street West in 1914 and the largest of all, the Royal Bank building, at 2 King Street East, with its 20 floors. These four buildings still stand today, although they are somewhat dwarfed by the taller skyscrapers that surround them. The Toronto-Dominion Bank building was incorporated into a condo tower.
