cdr108
Senior Member
It looks like it's being built right up to the curb.
Toronto Festival Tower and tiff Bell Lightbox | 156.96m | 42s | Daniels | KPMB
casaguy
Senior Member
^You're right. It doesn't look like there's a lot of room for pedestrians. Even the sidewalks that were there before this project could only accommodate the width of 3 people. I wonder if more sidewalk space will be added now that this corner will house a thousand or so more people.
bar1967
Active Member
I walked by there the other day and the hording is a bit deceiving. There is actually a decent sized sidewalk under all of that.
grey
Senior Member
Yeah, and the sidewalk will probably actually be a little wider than it was before. There's going to be a long overhang and the grade level will be set back from the sidewalk:
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Ah, movies! We've come a long way since the Cyclorama ... which stood on the south side of Front Street at the foot of University Avenue from 1887 until it was demolished in 1976.
CityPlaceN1
Senior Member
Looking forward to this building being completed. One of the parking lots that I really wanted to lose.
Mike in TO
Senior Member
You can see that the public sidewalk area will extend beyond the hording to pillars:
Solaris
Senior Member
November 4 2008 update
Southwest View
Southeast View
Southwest View
Southeast View
taal
Senior Member
No progress at all!
grey
Senior Member
There's been a ton of progress inside the outer walls.
We're not seeing new stories added week after week, but that doesn't mean it isn't coming along quickly. The podium is going to be HUGE (bigger than MLSE?).
We're not seeing new stories added week after week, but that doesn't mean it isn't coming along quickly. The podium is going to be HUGE (bigger than MLSE?).
Therion
Senior Member
^^^^ I agree. I walk by the site almost every day, and you can notice the changes daily. More rebar here, another column there... It's going slow because of the massive footprint. Those tall, straight outer walls took over a month to pour. The development is already quite dominant, and it looks like from the renders that the podium is only about halfway done.
jaborandi
Active Member
Perhaps you can share some of your memories of opening night with us.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
From the City:
Cyclorama
Recreation site.
Location: The Cyclorama was built adjoining the Walker House Hotel on the west side; both were on the south side of Front Street just west of York Street. Its street address was 123 Front Street West. The boundaries of the lot were not large, and the building filled most of the lot. A narrow north/south laneway separated the Cyclorama from the Walker House. The large lot south of both the Cyclorama and Walker House was occupied by the old Union Station.
Current Use: University Place.
Historical Description: The Cyclorama was built in 1887 by the Toronto Art Company as a showroom for instructional art of the time. The building opened to the public on 13 September 1887. As its name implies, the Cyclorama was a circular building designed by architects Kennedy and Holland. Inside were panoramic murals on the walls in a continuous band, and these were of a religious nature. In its time, the murals were considered a major attraction. Today, it would be the design of the circular building that would attract attention. With the advent of moving pictures, the Cyclorama became superseded as an attraction. For some years, the building served the Petrie Machinery Company as factory space; then the Elgin Ford Company took over the building as a showroom for automobiles. Its final days were as a parking garage. Although the Cyclorama was listed on the City’s Inventory, it was demolished in 1976 to make way for the construction of University Place.
Significance: Unique in the city’s entertainment and architectural history, and widely discussed by the public and media in its heyday, the Cyclorama can only be commemorated and its history made available to the public.
Reference Sources: Goad’s Atlas (1890, 1900, 1910); City of Toronto Archives, city directories.
Also ...
Dear Ms. French,
I am writing to support your efforts to save the Gettysburg Cyclorama Center that has been slated for demolition by the federal government. By choosing to save this landmark building, the government will demonstrate a commitment to preserving an architectural, historical, and artistically-significant link to the past. Moreover, we will retain an important link to the Age of Cyclorama painting, an art form to which the building can claim heredity.
The medium’s phenomenal popularity throughout the 1880s and early 1890s led to the construction of cyclorama buildings in cities across North America and Europe, including Chicago, Boston, Buffalo, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York, Toronto, St. Anne de Beupre (Quebec), London, and Paris.
The Battle of Gettysburg was displayed in 1889 in Toronto, Canada, one of three cyclorama paintings to be shown in the Toronto Cyclorama Building. My own research has focussed on the importance of this building here in Toronto, and the lessons that we can learn from its sad demise. Like the Gettysburg Cyclorama Center, commercial and development pressures soon overshadowed the building’s importance. Although it had been an integral part of the international circuit of cycloramas, the Toronto Cyclorama Building was eventually sold, becoming a factory, a car dealership, and finally ending its days as a parking garage. In 1972, the building was seized by the City of Toronto and subsequently demolished. It is now lost forever, its tombstone a large, non-descript conference center in Toronto’s downtown.
My research into the Toronto Cyclorama Building has given me insight into the historical gap that was left behind after its demolition. The building is completely unknown to nearly every Toronto citizen and historian with whom I have spoken - even those who were alive when the Cyclorama Building stood at the heart of downtown Toronto. Only one or two history books mention it and almost no photographs of the building exist. It seems that the result of destroying the building itself has affected much more than the real estate; by destroying the building, a crucial link to Toronto’s past was irrevocably broken.
However, there is a positive lesson that we can take from this loss. We have now gained the insight needed to preserve buildings such as the Toronto Cyclorama and the Gettysburg Cyclorama Center, to see beyond the present and to preserve architecture that connects us to our past. The cyclorama buildings and the paintings they housed represent this kind of important historical link. That is why I add my voice to those of the World Monuments Fund and the Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Architects among others, calling on the federal government to put a stop to the demolition of this irreplaceable piece of history.
Sincerely,
Original signed by
Graham F. Watts, MA (English)
Researcher, Toronto Cyclorama
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Cyclorama
Recreation site.
Location: The Cyclorama was built adjoining the Walker House Hotel on the west side; both were on the south side of Front Street just west of York Street. Its street address was 123 Front Street West. The boundaries of the lot were not large, and the building filled most of the lot. A narrow north/south laneway separated the Cyclorama from the Walker House. The large lot south of both the Cyclorama and Walker House was occupied by the old Union Station.
Current Use: University Place.
Historical Description: The Cyclorama was built in 1887 by the Toronto Art Company as a showroom for instructional art of the time. The building opened to the public on 13 September 1887. As its name implies, the Cyclorama was a circular building designed by architects Kennedy and Holland. Inside were panoramic murals on the walls in a continuous band, and these were of a religious nature. In its time, the murals were considered a major attraction. Today, it would be the design of the circular building that would attract attention. With the advent of moving pictures, the Cyclorama became superseded as an attraction. For some years, the building served the Petrie Machinery Company as factory space; then the Elgin Ford Company took over the building as a showroom for automobiles. Its final days were as a parking garage. Although the Cyclorama was listed on the City’s Inventory, it was demolished in 1976 to make way for the construction of University Place.
Significance: Unique in the city’s entertainment and architectural history, and widely discussed by the public and media in its heyday, the Cyclorama can only be commemorated and its history made available to the public.
Reference Sources: Goad’s Atlas (1890, 1900, 1910); City of Toronto Archives, city directories.
Also ...
Dear Ms. French,
I am writing to support your efforts to save the Gettysburg Cyclorama Center that has been slated for demolition by the federal government. By choosing to save this landmark building, the government will demonstrate a commitment to preserving an architectural, historical, and artistically-significant link to the past. Moreover, we will retain an important link to the Age of Cyclorama painting, an art form to which the building can claim heredity.
The medium’s phenomenal popularity throughout the 1880s and early 1890s led to the construction of cyclorama buildings in cities across North America and Europe, including Chicago, Boston, Buffalo, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York, Toronto, St. Anne de Beupre (Quebec), London, and Paris.
The Battle of Gettysburg was displayed in 1889 in Toronto, Canada, one of three cyclorama paintings to be shown in the Toronto Cyclorama Building. My own research has focussed on the importance of this building here in Toronto, and the lessons that we can learn from its sad demise. Like the Gettysburg Cyclorama Center, commercial and development pressures soon overshadowed the building’s importance. Although it had been an integral part of the international circuit of cycloramas, the Toronto Cyclorama Building was eventually sold, becoming a factory, a car dealership, and finally ending its days as a parking garage. In 1972, the building was seized by the City of Toronto and subsequently demolished. It is now lost forever, its tombstone a large, non-descript conference center in Toronto’s downtown.
My research into the Toronto Cyclorama Building has given me insight into the historical gap that was left behind after its demolition. The building is completely unknown to nearly every Toronto citizen and historian with whom I have spoken - even those who were alive when the Cyclorama Building stood at the heart of downtown Toronto. Only one or two history books mention it and almost no photographs of the building exist. It seems that the result of destroying the building itself has affected much more than the real estate; by destroying the building, a crucial link to Toronto’s past was irrevocably broken.
However, there is a positive lesson that we can take from this loss. We have now gained the insight needed to preserve buildings such as the Toronto Cyclorama and the Gettysburg Cyclorama Center, to see beyond the present and to preserve architecture that connects us to our past. The cyclorama buildings and the paintings they housed represent this kind of important historical link. That is why I add my voice to those of the World Monuments Fund and the Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Architects among others, calling on the federal government to put a stop to the demolition of this irreplaceable piece of history.
Sincerely,
Original signed by
Graham F. Watts, MA (English)
Researcher, Toronto Cyclorama
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
jaborandi
Active Member
The Boston Cyclorama was still in use as an exhibition venue the last time I was in Boston in the late 90's. I was told that many were built in the States to accommodate a travelling show commemorating the Civil War. It is now affiliated with the Boston Center for the Arts.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
jabs: I vaguely remember ours, from the early '70s, when Gord Rayner's huge jazzy mural went up at the foot of University Avenue. There's a photo of it in Building with Wood by John I. Rempel ( the chapter on Ontario's polygonal buildings ) from the final years when it was an Avis Rent-A-Car place. It was about six storeys tall.
Octagonal houses were all the rage in the mid-19th century apparently ( well, I don't need to tell you that ... ); there was a three storey one built in Leaside in 1854 that burned down in 1915. Then there were the octagonal deadhouses, unique to Ontario churchyards, where bodies were stored in the winter until the ground thawed in the spring and they could be buried. There was a handsome brick mock-Goth one on the grounds of St. Michael's cemetery that was slated to be demolished in the late '60s. The one in Necropolis was taken down in 1910.
Octagonal houses were all the rage in the mid-19th century apparently ( well, I don't need to tell you that ... ); there was a three storey one built in Leaside in 1854 that burned down in 1915. Then there were the octagonal deadhouses, unique to Ontario churchyards, where bodies were stored in the winter until the ground thawed in the spring and they could be buried. There was a handsome brick mock-Goth one on the grounds of St. Michael's cemetery that was slated to be demolished in the late '60s. The one in Necropolis was taken down in 1910.