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Our weekly Throwback Thursday feature generally presents changes to Toronto's cityscapes under a more positive lens, though this week's edition shows that not every change to our built form is necessarily a good one. This week, we turn the clocks back to November 2006 for a southeast view across Gould Street, just east of Yonge. At that time, a steel skeleton was taking shape for the parking component at north end of 10 Dundas East, a project which was covered from the south in a recent Throwback. In the foreground, the 1888-built Empress Hotel occupied the southeast corner of Yonge and Gould Streets.
Returning to the same vantage point in May, 2017 reveals a jarring change. 10 Dundas East now wraps around the vacant site of the former Empress Hotel, which was lost to arson in January, 2011. The loss of the former three-storey hotel's human scale and the addition of largely featureless grey walls have radically altered the view here, though the 2015 opening of the Ryerson Student Learning Centre (out of frame in the image below) has helped to re-introduce foot traffic and architectural interest to the Yonge and Gould intersection.
We will return next week with another look at the changing face of Toronto!
