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Miscellany Toronto Photographs: Then and Now

On a related note, I work in the old Canada Permanent building at Bay and Adelaide. When the main floor banking hall was restored, it was decided to leave the old vault in place because of the difficulty that would be required to remove it, particularly the door. The room was converted into a boardroom and the vault door is still in place today. I'm curious what's happened with other former bank restorations, and whether similar paths were taken.
 
Many years ago I was able to go inside the TD bank vault at 1 King West. Now it's a meeting room.

http://www.onekingwest.com/hotel/history/#vault

meeting-vault-01.jpg
 
We should all thank Harry Stinson;

it's called foresight.

Regards,
J T
 
Foresight or just cheaper not to deal with it?

It's clear that Harry Stinson didn't have foresight considering the history of his failed developments. However, his projects were always unique and creative. From the very slender 1 King West added to the historic bank building to High Park Lofts with its inner atrium with balconies and geothermal heating, Stinson's projects showed a penchant for novel features.
 
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"It's clear that Harry Stinson didn't have foresight considering the history of his failed developments." QUOTE junctionist.


I have known Harry Stinson since '73/4; too long ago to quite remember.

Re the T D Bank building on King Street: If it hadn't been for Harry, it would have been long gone, as in demolished.

Harry is not the normal type of guy, no matter what he tries his hand at or does, ever. He has vision, stamina, and BALLS for a project.

You mention his "failed developments", and now I will tell you "why". (re "The Candy Factory", loft conversion.)

After having opened the door for him, it was I who had to close that same door. (Harry, don't shoot me, I am only the messenger.)

It was pure out and out greed , bad business, + stupidity, as well as being illegal, on the behalf of two of the three owning partners

of the property. Harry vacated, retained counsel, and was THE VICTOR. ( Much to the loss of the third "I don't want to do this to Harry", partner.)

So here we have one of the three owning partners out money, with the other two, also out money, along with Harry, although recouping his

monetery loss, HIS, HE GAVE "The Candy Factory", it's name, and this became one of his "failures", through no fault of his own.

As the above finally turned out, the three partners owning the property became two, after having bought out the third, and commenced

construction. They LOST so much cash on the project that they decided not to condo what was to later become The Chocolate Factory Lofts.

(The original three partners had previous to all of this, sold their n/s Queen property to Artscape.)

Harry "won", but the above did his reputation harm.


Regards,
J T

"And now you know, the rest of the story."
 
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Personally, I just loved to watch Harry Stinson on TV doing his sales routines - wrinkled suits and all.
He was a real showman.
I put him in the same category as 'The Cashman' and Jim & Tammy Baker - all fascinating to watch!
 
Re the T D Bank building on King Street: If it hadn't been for Harry, it would have been long gone, as in demolished.

Considering its landmark value, its scale, and the fact that TD only bailed on behalf of Harry around Y2K, I doubt that demolition would have been in the cards here. 1970ish, maybe. But not 2000ish.
 
The last tyme that I saw/spoke with Harry was the week before of his departure from 5 King West.

We spoke of "things"; I wished him good luck.

Regards,
J T
 
Bay and Adelaide

I'm going to try to work up a couple of Then and Nows in the next few days (charging up the little Sony camera as I speak). One spot I'm going to cover is the southeast corner of Bay & Adelaide, where the Trump is currently going up. I have a nice Toronto archival photo of the corner during the 30s, (https://gencat4.eloquent-systems.com/webcat/systems/toronto.arch/resource/fo1231/f1231_it1569.jpg) but I'm very curious as to whether there are any later images anyone knows about. The reason I ask is because today's news about the acquisition of Zellers by Target (and the similar acquisition of old Woolco properties by Walmart in the 90s) stirred up a couple of questions about Woolworth's. I'm familiar, of course, with the store at Bay and Queen...but I recall, very dimly from my first trip to Toronto in, I believe, 1984 that there was a Woolworth's on Bay, and I just ran into a reference that stated it was in the building replaced by the parking lot where now the Trump is rising. So....does anyone know of any photos of this building,or any history of it? I seem to recall it was a midrise office tower; I don't think it was the same building as in the archival photo, but you never know....

On a similar vein--the building at the northeast corner...I'm kicking myself for not taking photos as it came down for the Bay Adelaide Centre, because it was fascinating to watch them un-build it. This was not the building whose facade was saved--I'm talking about its neighbour to the south, which looked to me like it was perhaps built in the 50s and wasn't all that attractive. If there are photos of this area during the Stump era, it might be in them. Any pointers as to where to check?
 
Re Woolworth at Bay + Adelaide: seek out John Martins-Manteiga + Gene Threndyle, "Clearcut", 1997.
 

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