What address number on Bremner is this?

[Arob]

Need some help,

I'm researching / writing a piece on Dr Rees and the Reese Wharf - which was where all the Irish immigrants landed in the late 1840s - its under this piece of land.

or it was, this is a Google street view taken last summer or before

Recent excavation has taken a lot of history away in many dozens of dump trucks

I'd like to know what # this is on Bremner and what they're building here. Who can help?

 

[DSC]

Yes Dr William Rees is a fascinating man, the entry on him in Canniff's The medical profession in upper Canada, 1783-1850 has the great quote: "Through his energy the first lunatic asylum was established in Toronto, and he was appointed to the superintendence and management thereof upon the principle, I suppose, of setting a madman to watch the madmen". The full article on Rees is at http://www.canadiana.org/view?cihm=00470&seq=0001 See pp 570+ According to Canniff "Opposite the old Parliament buildings, on what was called the Broken Front, Dr Rees constructed a wharf, which was long known as Rees' Wharf. Near it, under the hill, he bult a small but comfortable house ....." If his house was "under the hill" I wonder if it was on Bremner or lower down?

The address is probably 120 Bremner, look at Southcore thread or at http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2011/08/southcore-joins-urbantoronto-database.

 

[Arob]

Many thanks DSC - I spent a long time trying to find a picture of Dr Rees and trying to learn more about the Reese Wharf and not succeeding - i see your medical journal link is the source of much of the stuff I read, and will be my primary source on the life of the man too no doubt. But it details the building of the wharf as a somewhat trivial endeavour, in the last sentence of his bio. Now I would think that building (and controlling?) an entry point during an age of mass emigration from Europe must have been significant, indeed when the Irish settlers came in the late 1840s they were forced to use and enter Toronto through the Reese Wharf, so they could be medically inspected and certified free of communicable diseases.
RE Address
Do you think it could be 81 Bremner as a play on 18 York, its neighbour ?

Also... I see in the artist's picture that there are three towers in total

One has been built already... 18 York
and they are now building the other two... is that right?
If that's the case then there will be two more addresses for this hole in the ground. correct?
any help is appreciated

 

[DSC]

I doubt very strongly that Dr Rees built the wharf (it was built in 1837) so that it could be used as an emigrant receiving area for those who arrived in Toronto by ship - though it may well have been used for this - as far as I know all emigrants to British North America were given a health inspection on arrival in the country, in most cases this was at Grosse Isle in Quebec. I have certainly never seen any mention that Dr Rees himself inspected immigrants and even if his wharf was the designated passenger wharf for some years it was almost certainly used for many kinds of 'cargo'.

There is an 1857 map of Toronto that shows Rees' Wharf at http://www.toronto.ca/archives/images/zoom_s0088_it0013.htm

If you want information on what is being built on Bremner Blvd between York and Simcoe I suggest you look at the Southcore and 18 York threads. One assumes there will be two additional street numbers on Bremner but sometimes when a building has multiple sections and entrances (e.g. offices and residences) it is assigned two numbers to avoid confusion. As the site it is on the north side of Bremner these will presumably be even numbers.

In Anderson's Toronto City Directory for 1868/69 Dr Rees is listed as:

Rees, Wm., M.D., h Simcoe bet Front and Esplanade.

Rees' Wharf, Esplanade at foot of York.

His neighbours on that stretch of Simcoe were railway car cleaners and labourers which supports the view that he was really quite poor at the end of this life and shows why he kept on trying to get compensation from the government.

The 1862 City map at http://www.toronto.ca/archives/map_atlases.htm also shows Rees' Wharf and Simcoe Street The Goads Fire Plan of 1880 (on Toronto Archives site) shows that the area was then pretty much all railways except for the Marlboro' House Hotel and a school - certainly no sign of Dr Rees' home left (he died in 1874).

Rees had a long-running fight to get compensation for an 'occupational injury' - he was hit by one of the lunatics in his charge - and in his 1865 "Memorial" to the Governor he notes the many things he did, including "8.—The erection, at his individual expense, of Public Baths, a Commercial Dock, and Pier in the City of Toronto, 1837." The full statement is at http://www.archive.org/details/cihm_47519

Thanks to your question I have also found a recent article on Rees, you probably know of it already but if not it is: "A solider in the service of his country": Dr. William Rees, Professional Identity, and the Toronto Temporary Asylum, 1819-1874. by Danielle Terbenche. Histoire sociale/Social history, Volume 43, Number 85, Mai-May 2010, pp. 97-129 It is only available online to subscribers.

 

[Arob]

Thank you DSC. You're amazing. I'm still polishing this Dumpdiggers post,

Antique Glass Bottles Found Under Southcore Financial Centre & Delta Hotel Toronto, The Story of Rees' Wharf

I'm still looking for a photo of Dr Rees ! There must be a picture somewhere, anyone? Also please reply here or comment on the blog re: did I make any mistakes? I'm keen to fix anything I get wrong so that my error doesnt ripple through time

My focus is on the antique glass bottles that were liberated from the ground by excavators,

In present condition, if all of these bottles were sold as one lot on eBay tomorrow they would fetch approx two thousand dollars - combined value
with the blue Pilgrims soda and Commercial Ink Co bottles being of note - combined

the one exception is this crusty beer bottle,

this piece is key to the history of Hornby Ontario and there's a story here - its a puzzle how a Hornby beer bottle ended up down here at the base of Toronto, or perhaps testament to the quality and distribution of Brayn Bros Brewery in the early 1870s ?

 

[wwwebster]

I'm still looking for a photo of Dr Rees !

I couldn't find a picture, but apparently the Toronto Public Library has one somewhere that was donated by John Ross Robertson:

http://www.archive.org/stream/landmarksofcanad01torouoft#page/78/mode/2up

"Water color from original portrait. Size 4 x 5. Head and shoulders"

Maybe the Reference Library can help.