Two Toronto questions that are bugging me...

[Darkstar416]

Wasn't sure where to put this, so mods feel free to move if this isn't the right location. Two questions I wanted to ask and see if anyone knew the answers to. I've come across both over the last week.

1. There's a small office tower on Finch Ave in northern Etobicoke that is being demolished! It's about 8-10 floors and has stood there for as long as I can remember. It probably from the early-mid 1970s. I think it was called Humber Tower. Anybody know the reason for the demolition? It's rare to see commercial towers in this city come down.

2. There's a restaurant on the Danforth called The Bus Terminal Family Restaurant. I think it's somewhere around Carlaw (but can't quite remember) and is on the north side. The shape of the buildings makes it look like it really was a 'bus terminal' at one point. If so, what busses ran into here? And why did it close? It just seems like an odd location.

 

[spmarshall]

1. Humber Tower is being demolished? Thanks for the heads up. I have no idea what they'd replace it with - its an industrial area.

2. Yes. Danforth Bus Lines operated from Coxwell and Danforth. It ran buses to Scarborough and East York/North Yourk before the TTC bought it and other lines out after the formation of Metro. Danforth Bus Lines might have survived a bit longer with intercity routes, though.

 

[adma]

1. There's a small office tower on Finch Ave in northern Etobicoke that is being demolished! It's about 8-10 floors and has stood there for as long as I can remember. It probably from the early-mid 1970s. I think it was called Humber Tower. Anybody know the reason for the demolition? It's rare to see commercial towers in this city come down.

That's the concrete one in front of the Kellogg plant? That was a weird one--a standard coffered-concrete 70s highrise plunked in front of and directly connected to a factory, like a throwback to the prewar days...

2. There's a restaurant on the Danforth called The Bus Terminal Family Restaurant. I think it's somewhere around Carlaw (but can't quite remember) and is on the north side. The shape of the buildings makes it look like it really was a 'bus terminal' at one point. If so, what busses ran into here? And why did it close? It just seems like an odd location.

I don't know whether there's anything on Transit Toronto (or if someone like spmarshall can clarify), but it was one of the pre-Metro suburban bus lines that terminated here--I don't know when it ceased operating as such, either with Metro or the B-D line opening...

 

[spmarshall]

Yeah, Humber Tower was attacked to Kellogg's. I think Humber College had space in there at one time.

Pine Hills was one of the TTC routes first run by DBL, then taken over by the TTC in 1954, terminating at Luttrell Loop instead of the DBL terminal.

The 21 Brimley, 113 Danforth and 43 Kennedy are successor routes.

transit.toronto.on.ca/bus/routes/pine_hills_1950.shtml

 

[Archivistower]

The bus terminal was featured in the RAIC Journal, June 1950. Architects given as Parrott, Tambling & Witmer. I have no idea when it stopped being a station, but if that part of the Danforth ever really changes, the building and it's space could be a real asset.

Link

 

[mark simpson]

There's a small office tower on Finch Ave in northern Etobicoke that is being demolished! It's about 8-10 floors and has stood there for as long as I can remember. It probably from the early-mid 1970s. I think it was called Humber Tower. Anybody know the reason for the demolition? It's rare to see commercial towers in this city come down.

acutal demolition or an extensive refurbishment?

 

[adma]

Actual demolition. I took the effort to drive by tonight. Presently, all that's above the lower storey are a few steel beams and such. (And the concrete window coffers are stacked alongside, for some reason.) All in all, the generic "9/11esque" spectacle (as attributed elsewhere in UT to the Bay/Adelaide work).

I wasn't sure whether the Kellogg's plant was part of the demolition; but it's still there. Given the kind of building and date, I wonder if asbestos or sick-building issues played a part--though it was a pretty follyish location for such a tower in the first place. (There's at least a couple other coffered-concrete mid-highrises in Etobicoke of similar form: at Evans and West Mall, and Islington and Aberfoyle. Back in the days when Breuer-brutalism denoted office-building architectural "class".)

I've mentioned my boulevard-of-broken-dreams affinity for oldies radio in another thread (relating to tired old hotels). There was something oddly poetic about the Four Seasons' "Who Loves You" playing as I approached this demolition site...