How The Sheraton Centre In Toronto Was Built

Note: This article is the second piece in a two-part series. The first can be found here.

In the 1960s, Toronto had a big question to address: “What would replace the commercial section across The New City Hall?” What followed was action to remove the Queen Street shops between Bay and York Streets and replace them with a complementary project worthy of the new civic centre.

The Expropriation Question

As Toronto entered the 1960s, progress on the Queen Street question seemed slow. In October 1960, there were reports that demolition would begin in the autumn of 1961 or spring of 1962 on the “seedy” south side. The Planning Board was preparing an invitation to attract private developers to redo the site. However, in May 1962, this draft invitation was presented to city council for approval. City Council now had the estimate down to $6,250,000 to buy the properties, but the The Globe and Mail anticipated difficult negotiations with property owners, particularly with the Municipal Hotel and Casino Theatre, who where the largest land owners on the block. The city approved a motion to start expropriating properties, but it was unclear whether this was a path to be taken.

For the Municipal Hotel, owner Arthur Mintz was not going along with city plans to redevelop his property. He had his own project: a three million dollar, 14-storey office tower to replace the hotel. Mintz’ hotel was key in building an office tower at Queen and Bay, but the owner was not going to sell at even a reasonable price to a developer, instead opting to go at it alone. A by-law was passed indicating that whatever new development went through on Queen, the ends of the strip would have towers while the middle would be lower so not to “spoil the view” of the new city hall. The holdup? Owners of these central lots were unwilling to sell. The Daily Star’s editorial section and others advocated for expropriation.

Redevelopment

On August 12, 1964, Toronto City Council voted 17-4 to expropriate most of the block bounded by Queen, Richmond, Bay, and York Streets. Mayor Phillip Givens, a pro-development politician, was a large proponent of the expropriation option and the redevelopment of Queen Street as a whole. It was the first time in Toronto history in which the city opted to expropriate land to sell to private interests rather than execute a public project. Development Commissioner Walter Manthorpe warned that renewal was still another 10 years away with steps needing to be taken to take seek Ontario Municipal Board approval for the expropriation, take possession of the properties, demolish them, sell to developers, and come up with a redevelopment plan for the province’s approval. Proposals started to come in which would the potential form the site and Queen Street in general would take, including an interesting plan which would see a tunnel under Queen and the surface turned into a pedestrian mall between Yonge and University.

Much like the civic centre on the north side of Queen, the city decided to hold a design competition for the block leftover by the soon-to-be expropriated and demolished shops. The eastern end of the block would not be part of the project. In November 1964, Mintz sold the Municipal Hotel to a private developer, Reuben Dennis. The other properties included the Victory Building on Richmond St., the Temple and Dominion Bank Buildings on Bay St., and the Hamilton Trust property on Queen Street, the latter of which suffered a fire in 1963 and which Dennis also bought.

On September 13, 1965, the new City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square was revealed to Torontonians. The winning space-aged design by Finnish architect Viljo Revell consisted of two curved towers of differing heights, a central ‘oyster’ housing the council chamber, and a large open space with a wading pool, arches, public art, and a podium.

79-83 Queen Street West, showing Harry’s Men’s Shop and Vanguard Bookstore in the Frankel Building, and Lawrence Credit Jewellers on the west side of the Broadway Theatre, 1965.
Source: City of Toronto Archives

Across the street, there were some empty storefronts and vacant lots. For the shops that remained, there were ‘expropriation sale’ signs. By the next year, most of the block was razed to the ground and replaced by a level surface of sod and sidewalk.

In 1968, a mini-saga began in who would receive the rights to redevelop the property, which council was to rent out to the winning developer for 99 years. In April 1968, City Council approved a proposal which would see Third Generation Realty Limited build a $50-million hotel-convention centre on the three-and-a-half acre property. However, the Finance Commissioner determined Third Generation did not have the financial proof to back its proposal. In July, Council voted again, this time approving a $34-million scheme by Inn on the Park-Four Seasons, the other bidder in the April vote. During the event, an alderman was even accused of accepting a bribe, which he denied. In 1969, construction began on the 43-storey, 1,400-room hotel, which would become the Four Seasons-Sheraton Hotel. John B. Parkin Associates, who worked on City Hall, designed the complex.

Welcome to the Sheraton-Four Seasons Hotel

In 1972, the Sheraton-Four Seasons Hotel opened (the ‘Four Seasons’ would be dropped in 1976 as the hotel pulled out of the venture), the culmination of a 15-year saga to renew the Queen Street West strip across Toronto’s new municipal hub. Carrying the memorable street address ‘123 Queen West’, it was the second largest hotel in Toronto at the time of opening behind only the iconic Royal York Hotel (it was surpassed by the Chelsea Delta which opened only a few years later).

Conforming with the by-law from a decade earlier, the main hotel tower is situated off to the side of the city hall and square towards York Street, offering an unobstructed vista. The eastern side of the block saw the erection of a two-storey TD bank branch and the Queen-Bay Centre, consisting of the 25-storey Thomson Building and the Munich Re Centre, opening in 1972 and 1973 respectively. The latter building opened on the site of the demolished Temple Building, whose fragments are found at the Guild Inn Park.

In 2022, at fifty years old, the Sheraton Centre is a unique modernist, Brutalist construction. Its central area forms an atrium of waterfall gardens designed by J. Austin Floyd, the famed landscape architect who also left his footprint at the famed yet now lost Inn on the Park hotel at Leslie Street and Eglinton Avenue.

On the Queen Street mega-hotel, architect Michael McLelland wrote how “metropolitan structures like the Sheraton Centre are an integral part of the downtown morphology”. Its views of the complex across the street, which was the catalyst of its construction, are unparalleled in Toronto.

The Sheraton Centre and Toronto City Hall are fine examples of Toronto as a city made and re-made. They mark the ‘creative destruction’ of the post-war years. The south side of Queen Street between Bay and York was an interesting mix of establishments, many with varying stories and origins. The condemning of the strip as a ‘commercial slum’ and its subsequent replacement offers a complicated takeaway. On the one hand, the physical erasure has understandably hidden those histories from collective consciousness; on the other, the emergence of the Sheraton Centre has offered Toronto a marvel in itself. For better or worse, Toronto was growing up after World War II — in area, age, building heights, and architectural styles. The construction of the Sheraton Centre was in itself a microcosm of this period of transformation — and the representative of the expendability of centrally-located, culturally- and socially-colourful sectors like this one.

Works Consulted

[@ebloor]. “Twitter Message.” Twitter, 16 Aug. 2022. https://twitter.com/e_bloor/status/1559665299170816000?s=20&t=GT0tG6pTd3ZA5qCfAWQD4Q

[@raydonlive]. “Twitter Message.” Twitter, 16 Aug. 2022. https://twitter.com/raydonlive/status/1559626188485758979?s=20&t=GT0tG6pTd3ZA5qCfAWQD4Q

“10 Years to Renew Queen – Manthorpe.” The Toronto Daily Star, 14 Aug. 1964, p. 21.

“119 Church St.” Development Applications, http://app.toronto.ca/AIC/index.do?folderRsn=EuizkruJ6mXTxYPzkuYP2A%3D%3D.

“8-Story Building Queen St. Plan.” The Globe and Mail, 10 Sept. 1958, p. 5.

Baker, Alden. “Queen Street Project: Municipal Board Head Won’t Reopen Hearings.” The Globe and Mail, 24 Feb. 1968, p. B2.

Barr, Edward H. “Toronto’s Vanishing Chinatown.” The Globe and Mail, 9 Nov. 1957, pp. A21–A23.

“Bay-Queen Agreement Held Near.” The Globe and Mail, 22 Feb. 1966, p. 5.

Best, Michael. “Givens Sees His Shadow on His Queen Street Dream.” The Toronto Daily Star, 10 Feb. 1965, p. 28.

Best, Michael. “Special Report: Our New City Hall Will Face a Slum.” The Toronto Daily Star, 29 Dec. 1962, p. 1.

Best, Michael. “U.S Cities Clear Slums While We Flounder.” The Toronto Daily Star, 29 Jan. 1963, p. 7.

“Blueprint for Action.” The Globe and Mail, 10 Sept. 1958, p. 6.

Bradburn, Jamie. “From Eaton’s to Sears to Nordstrom.” Torontoist, 15 Jan. 2014, https://torontoist.com/2014/01/from-eatons-to-sears-to-nordstrom/.

Canadian Foreign Exchange Office. “Canadian Foreign Exchange Office.” The Globe, 18 Dec. 1920, p. 11.

Chan, Arlene. The Chinese in Toronto from 1878: From Outside to inside the Circle. Read How You Want, 2017.

“Charley Has A Bell: Wily Chinaman Prepares for Visits From Police.” The Toronto Daily Star, 19 Sept. 1904, p. 12.

“City Council’s Cue.” The Globe and Mail, 17 May 1958, p. 6.

“City’s Stake in Queen Street South.” The Toronto Daily Star, 16 July 1964, p. 6.

Enright, Michael. “Bewildering Episodes behind the Scenes of a Queen Street Hotel.” The Globe and Mail, 20 Apr. 1968, p. 7.

Filey, Mike. “The Way We Were: Sharing Photographic Memories of Henry’s.” Toronto Sun, https://theprovince.com/opinion/columnists/the-way-we-were-sharing-photographic-memories-of-henrys-as-camera-shop-closes-some-stores/wcm/410f17b8-c545-4a67-95a0-78ae1b5cf769.

Four Seasons Sheraton Hotel. “Something New in Toronto.” The Toronto Star, 28 Nov. 1972, p. 10.

“FOUR SEASONS HOTEL AT 12-STORY LEVEL.” The Globe and Mail, 13 Mar. 1971, p. B1.

“Gay History in Toronto.” UrbanToronto, UrbanToronto, 9 July 2014, https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/gay-history-in-toronto.19918/.

Haggart, Ron. “How the Rubin Boys Lost Their Head Start.” The Toronto Daily Star, 13 Aug. 1964.

Hanrahan, William. “Grass in, Burlesque Out on Queen Street.” The Globe and Mail, 21 July 1965, p. 27.

“Hotel on Queen Street Approved as Piccininni Denies Bribe Offered.” The Globe and Mail, 6 July 1968, p. 1.

“Interview with X Tape 1, Side 1.” Alotarchives.org, https://www.alotarchives.org/locations-mentioned/denver.

“Inventor Is Promoted.” The Toronto Daily Star, 24 July 1917, p. 13.

“The Leading Issues.” The Globe and Mail, 13 Nov. 1954, p. 6.

LeBlanc, Dave. “A Brutal Trek through Toronto’s Brutalist Architecture.” The Globe and Mail, The Globe and Mail, 21 Apr. 2018, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/toronto/article-a-brutal-trek-through-torontos-brutalist-architecture/.

Let Us Bring Your Friends From The Old Country. “Gurofsky’s Shipping Office.” The Toronto Daily Star, 1 Apr. 1920, p. 12.

Lipinsky, Jack. Imposing Their Will: An Organizational History of Jewish Toronto, 1933-1948. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011.

Lorinc, John. “The Slum We Buried in the Heart of Toronto.” The Globe and Mail, 23 May 2015, p. M1.

Lorinc, John, et al. The Ward: The Life and Loss of Toronto’s First Immigrant Neighbourhood. Coach House Books, 2015.

“The Man on Queen Street.” The Globe and Mail, 8 Jan. 1965, p. 7.

“Mayor Givens at the Helm.” The Toronto Daily Star, 26 Nov. 1963.

McHugh, Patricia, et al. Toronto Architecture: A City Guide. McClelland & Stewart, 2017.

McClelland, Michael, and Graeme Stewart. Concrete Toronto: A Guidebook to Concrete Architecture from the Fifties to the Seventies. Coach House, 2008.

Micallef, Shawn. “Toronto’s Mid-Century Sheraton Centre Is Modernism Worth Preserving.” Thestar.com, Toronto Star, 24 Jan. 2020, https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/01/24/torontos-mid-century-sheraton-centre-is-modernism-worth-preserving.html.

“Military Hospitals Report Submitted.” The Globe, 27 Oct. 1916, p. 8.

“New City Hall Judges Urge Redevelopment of Downtown Area.” The Globe and Mail, 15 May 1958, p. 29.

“New Russia Calls Sons.” The Toronto Daily Star, 2 June 1917, p. 5.

“Now in Their 70th Year, Featuring ‘Quality Value and Service’.” The Toronto Star, 27 Sept. 1979, p. B3.

“Pawnshop Is Held Up and Ottawa Clerk Is Seized by Police.” The Globe, 31 May 1928, p. 22.

“Police Spring Surprise: Fifty Chinamen at 113 Queen Street West Last Night.” The Toronto Daily Star, 9 Sept. 1904, p. 1.

“Political Parties At City Hall.” The Toronto Daily Star, 3 Dec. 1963, p. 6.

“A Program For Toronto.” The Globe and Mail, 25 Nov. 1958, p. 7.

“Progress Report: Queen Street Redevelopment.” The Globe and Mail, 10 Oct. 1960, p. 7.

Promiscuous Affections: 1971, http://www.rbebout.com/bar/1971.htm.

“Queen St. Hotel to Be Started next Week.” The Globe and Mail, 24 Apr. 1969, p. 5.

“Queen Street Expropriation Approved 17-4.” The Globe and Mail, 13 Aug. 1964, p. 5.

“Queen Street Plan: Will Build to Design Of 1963, Dennis Says.” The Globe and Mail, 9 Sept. 1965, p. 5.

“Queen Street Project: Municipal Board Head Won’t Reopen Hearings.” The Globe and Mail, 30 May 1967, p. 5.

“Ready to Pay $25,000 to Move Hotel.” The Globe, 13 Feb. 1914, p. 7.

“Report on the Conditions of Hotels in Toronto Sent to Liquor Board.” The Globe and Mail, 4 Feb. 1946, p. 3.

Ross, Andrew [@hoghee]. “Tweet Message.” Twitter, 16 Aug 2022 https://twitter.com/hoghee/status/1559639434554789888?s=20&t=GT0tG6pTd3ZA5qCfAWQD4Q.

Ross, Daniel. “Sex on Yonge: Examining the Decade When Yonge Street Was the City’s Sin Strip.” Spacing Toronto, 9 Mar. 2017, http://spacing.ca/toronto/2017/03/09/sex-yonge-examining-decade-yonge-street-citys-sin-strip/.

Ross, Daniel. The Heart of Toronto: Corporate Power, Civic Activism, and the Remaking of Downtown Yonge Street. UBC Press, 2022.

Sandilands, Catriona. Complicating Queer Space in Toronto: How the Development of Toronto’s LGBTQ2I Spaces Fits within Homonormative and Homonationalist Scripts. https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10315/34706/MESMP02750.pdf?sequence=2.

Scheinberg, Ellen. Email to Bob Georgiou, 12 Aug 2022.

Sears, Val. “The Commercial Slum Across From City Hall.” The Toronto Daily Star, 1 May 1964, p. 7.

Senter, James. “Metropolitan Toronto: A Look at the Future of the City Hall Area.” The Globe and Mail, 18 May 1962, p. 7.

Sismondo, Christine Alexandra. “Toronto the Gay: The Formation of a Queer Counterpublic in Public Drinking Spaces, 1947-1981.” YorkSpace Home, 28 May 2018, https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/handle/10315/34509.

“South Side Story.” The Toronto Daily Star, 31 Oct. 1958.

“The South Side Story: A Tragedy.” The Toronto Daily Star, 2 May 1964, p. 6.

Taylor, Doug. “Toronto’s Broadway Theatre (Globe, Roxy) on Queen St. West.” Historic Toronto, 10 Jan. 2014, https://tayloronhistory.com/2014/01/09/torontos-old-movie-theatresthe-broadway-theatre-on-queen-st/.

Taylor, Doug. “Toronto’s Old Movie Theatres-The Infamous Casino on Queen St.” Historic Toronto, 6 Nov. 2013, https://tayloronhistory.com/2013/11/06/torontos-old-movie-theatresthe-infamous-casino-on-queen-st/.

“Too Soon To Cheer For Queen St.” The Toronto Daily Star, 27 June 1963.

“Urge Design Competition For Queen Street Project.” The Globe and Mail, 29 May 1965, p. 5.

“What’s Ahead? Voters Tell City Get on with Queen Development.” The Toronto Daily Star, 8 Dec. 1964.

Scenes From Tam O’Shanter

Consider this a sequel. Or, maybe a prequel. Whatever the case, if Wishing Well Acres is the Sullivan in Tam O’Shanter-Sullivan, here’s the Tam O’Shanter part.

We begin at Agincourt Mall. The shopping centre dates back to 1966, likely making it the third enclosed mall in Scarborough after 1954’s Eglinton Square and Golden Mile (Cedarbrae Mall predates Agincourt by four years but didn’t get its ceiling until 1972). The mall’s anchors are Wal-Mart and No Frills, but I can recall a time – in 1994, specifically – when they were Woolco and Loblaws, respectively. Walmart bought Woolco that year. No Frills came in the 2000s.

As much as malls like Agincourt are seen as shabby and sad (Agincourt Mall as of 2016 has a number of empty tenants), I’ve found that they are still appreciated locales. A lot of nostalgia fills their walls. The comments in this BlogTO article about Agincourt Mall by Robyn Urback prove that. Everyone has a story, or a store they enjoyed frequently, or an odd memory about something that isn’t there anymore. Mine is the RadioShack that was there in 1990s and 00s, reminding me of lost Canadian retailers. There is a Source in the mall now, but not in the same space as its predecessor.

Agincourt Mall was built on the Kennedy farm, with the farmhouse once located just north of the mall and south of the West Highland Creek. A walk down the street named for the family leads to a trail that lines the creek.

The path is sandwiched between an apartment and townhouse complex on one side and the creek and Tam O’Shanter Golf Club on the other. A look down at the shallow waterway produces a shiny sheet of ice over the surface and the occasional group of ducks in the non-frozen bits. But there’s also something that doesn’t quite belong.

Several pillars jut out on either side of the creek – two on one side and two opposite them. I count three sets of these abutments along the way. Their meaning isn’t hard to figure out: 3 sets of abutments, 3 phantom bridges. There is one question, though: what’s the story?

The answer: In the 1930s to the 1970s, this was the site of the Tam O’Shanter Golf and Country Club, the precursor to Tam O’Shanter Golf Course.

In addition to golf, the Tam O’Shanter Country Club complex had swimming, ice hockey, and curling. In 1971, the club erupted in flames, destroying some of the complex. In researching the fire, I’ve read many stories about people seeing the flames from afar. Like Agincourt Mall, the country club meant something to many people.

In 1973, the Province of Ontario, Metro Toronto, and Scarborough jointly acquired Tam O’Shanter and converted it into a municipal golf course. In the coming years, the complex would be gradually demolished and a new clubhouse would be built around 1980. Today, a couple of apartment towers on Bonis Avenue stand in the club’s former location.

West Highland Creek Bend 1967 — Tam O’Shanter & West Highland Creek, 1967, Source: City of Toronto Archives.

Back to the abandoned abutments, the creek was located just behind the clubhouse and its bridges led to and from the golf course. Shortly after the course’s acquisition, the bridges were removed, presumably because the course layout would be reorganized.

But the creek hasn’t always run the same course.

West Highland Creek Bend 1956 — Tam O’Shanter & West Highland Creek, 1956, Source: City of Toronto Archives.

The West Highland at one time swung north up into the golf course before dropping back down and resuming in a northwest direction. Around 1967, the creek was straightened and bridges were installed. The orphan bend remained as a sort of oxbox for some time, but since has been mostly filled in. One can still see the imprint of the bend today, though, notably through the pond and the ‘etched’ curved outline north of it.

West Highland Creek Bend 2015 — Tam O’Shanter & West Highland Creek, 2015. Source: Toronto Historic Maps.

There is one remaining bridge, however – a wider, sturdier construction. There is a gate in the fence on the other side, so one can guess that at least it might have been a vehicular corridor. As of 2015, though, both ends have been barricaded to prevent any sort of use.

As the West Highland continues into the golf course and beyond, the trail comes to Ron Watson Park, renamed from Tam O’Shanter Park in 2005 in recognition of the long-time Scarborough resident, trustee, and councillor. Watson was honoured with a star on Scarborough’s Walk of Fame in 2011. The park forms the field of Tam O’Shanter School, featuring a nice playground…and a stone turret.

This viney tower became an instant curiosity to me. It looked old and misplaced. No doors (although, perhaps a sealed opening), a couple of ‘windows’ near the top. What was/is it?

I had to do some digging. Google presented nothing, so I consulted some aerial photos to try and date it. It’s been around since at least 1947, the first year on record for aerials in the Toronto Archives.

Ron Watson Turret 1965 — Charles Watson Farm, 1965. Source: City of Toronto Archives.

Ron Watson Turret 2015 — Ron Watson Park, 2015. Source: Toronto Historic Maps.

Next, looking at the 1878 Map of Scarboro Township, Ron Watson Park was once part of the Samuel Horsey farm on Concession 3 Lot 30. Whether Horsey built the mystery tower is unknown. His house had a parlour, though!

@ScenesFromACity To add to you exploration, Samuel Horsey's parlour. Perhaps you walked 'through' it today! pic.twitter.com/ToRk5Jwum3

— Scarborough Archives (@ScarbArchives) January 7, 2016

Posting my findings and curiosities on Twitter, answers came in from the Scarborough Archives.

@ScarbArchives @ScenesFromACity Ironically siio built on Charles Watson farm but he not related to Ron Watson (Park) pic.twitter.com/7aBK9y0w6j

— Rick (@CorpSectry) January 7, 2016

So, Horsey sold his farm to Watson, who likely built the silo. When Watson’s farm was subdivided, the tower was never torn down with it. My guess is the task proved too difficult. It doesn’t fully answer the ‘when?’ part, but mystery solved!

Leaving the park and silo, the two-in-one Stephen Leacock Collegiate/John Buchan Senior Public School has had a place on Birchmount Road since 1970. It is built in the Brutalist (or, Heroic) style that was indicative of Toronto architecture in the 1950s to 1970s. The schools’ namesakes were a Canadian author and humourist and Scottish author and historian, respectively.

And while I’m profiling, Tam O’Shanter is a Robbie Burns poem. Another Scottish connection. The Anglo-Saxon roots and references of the Tam O’Shanter community is interesting though, considering what it became. Today, it is one of the more diverse areas in the city of Toronto.

Next, a derelict structure stands across the school. I don’t know its full context, but it’s most definitely another rural leftover.

On Bonis Avenue, there’s Agincourt Library and another great turret. Although the building opened in 1991, the library itself dates back to 1918. Within that time it has moved locales a few times, including a stay in Agincourt Mall. The branh carries three copies of A History of Scaborough. Its editor is a Mr. Robert Bonis, who lends his name to the street.

Down at Birchmount and Sheppard, a strip mall has gone through a makeover in the last few years. It’s about to get a new tenant, too: Starbucks. The sight is initial shock for me, if only because it’s strange to see one in this neighbourhood. My mind shoots to the old idea that a Starbucks is tell tale sign of gentrification, but I question whether it applies here. We’ll have to see.

Foregoing a stroll down Sheppard, I backtrack to Bay Mills Boulevard. The curved street offers a sort of ‘backstage’ view of Tam O’Shanter, showing off the apartments, church, school, field, playground that all front Sheppard. The intersection of Bay Mills and Sheppard is the start of the Sheppard Avenue East Avenue Study zone. On one side there’s another strip mall; on the other, a car dealership. They’ll surely be part of the plans.

Warden Avenue is further down the way, but that adventure lies in the mentioned Wish Well exploration. For now, that’s a wrap on this one.

If you have memories of Agincourt Mall, Tam O’Shanter Country Club, Stephen Leacock School, or Tam-O’Shanter-Sullivan in general, I would like to hear about it. Leave a comment below or tweet me!