| Old City Hall | |
|---|---|
 Toronto's Old City Hall |
|
| Building | |
| Architectural style | Romanesque Revival |
| Location | Toronto |
| Address | 60 Queen St West |
| Current tenants | Ontario Court of Justice |
| Construction | |
| Started | 1889 |
| Completed | 1899 |
| Design team | |
| Architect | E.J. Lennox |
Coordinates: 43°39′9″N 79°22′54″W / 43.6525°N 79.38167°W
Toronto's Old City Hall was home to its city council from 1899 to 1966 and remains one of the city's most prominent structures. It is at the corner of Queen and Bay Streets, east of the new City Hall in the centre of downtown Toronto. It has a distinctive clock tower which heads the length of Bay Street from Front St. to Queen.
Contents |
Construction
Work on the Romanesque Revival building designed by E.J. Lennox began in 1889. Lennox "signed" his name in scrollwork around the first floor exterior. When it opened on September 18, 1899 it was the largest building in Toronto, and the largest municipal building in North America.
Features
The tower stands 104m tall (340 ft). The clock is the third largest in the world, with its face measuring 6 metres in diameter.[1] The top four corners of the tower feature gargoyles.
New City Hall
Toronto City Council moved to the new city hall in 1965, and soon after plans were made to start construction of the Toronto Eaton Centre. The original plans called for old City Hall to be knocked down and replaced by a number of skyscrapers, leaving only the cenotaph (or in one plan, the clock tower) in the front. Public outcry forced authorities to abandon these plans. Currently the building is leased by the provincial government and is used as a court house for the Ontario Court of Justice.
York County offices were located in this building from 1900 to 1953.
An annex to this building, Manning Chambers, was demolished to make way for the current Toronto City Hall.
In popular culture
The building is sometimes used to film movies and television shows, such as This is Wonderland, Flashpoint, Street Legal, Covert Affairs, and Dirty Pictures. The building features prominently in the novel Old City Hall, by Robert Rotenberg.
Statues and monuments
At the foot of the front steps on Queen Street is the Cenotaph, erected to honour the dead from The First World War, The Second World War, the Korean War, and Canadian peacekeeping operations during Remembrance Day ceremonies every November 11.
See also
- Toronto City Hall - current city hall
- St. Lawrence Market - home of first city hall
References
- ^ Van Der Voort, Jane (8 March 2008). "Spring forward". Toronto Star. http://www.thestar.com/living/article/309320. Retrieved 5 May 2009."With a dial six metres in diameter, the clock is the third largest in the world."
External links
| Preceded by St. Lawrence Market |
Toronto City Hall 1899–1964 |
Succeeded by Toronto City Hall |
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This page was last modified on 18 January 2010 at 15:30.
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