The history of the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood is the history of Toronto. Not only are its boundaries home to the original eighteenth-century colonial settlement of the Town of York.
But those same streets would later become the centre of Victorian life in nineteenth-century Toronto. Two hundred years ago we saw the first commercial wharves built at the foot of Church Street and at the same time just up the street witnessed the first church being erect-ed.
We were home to York's first markets and town hall that later would serve as Toronto's first city hall.
We were invaded by the Americans during the War of 1812 (which Canada won) and shook our fists as the "Yanks" set fire to our parliament buildings at Parliament and King, where recent archeological digs show there is much worth preserving on the site.
We were there when the railroad came through in the 1850s and saw the building of the great warehouses that were to be filled with all the goods a vibrant city would need. We became home to thousands of Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Potato famine and all of us stood in terror when the old town of York went up in flames in 1849. A new city would be built from those ashes, a city that would rise in imperial dignity to be the envy of the world.
That city—the very model for the rest of the British Empire-after sinking into a twentieth-century industrialized wasteland would once again rise from the ashes to become the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood, our home.
These stories are about the buildings, businesses, hotels, banks and theatres, and most importantly the people who at one time occupied the streets we now call home. Ironically many of the twentieth-century businesses I write about are now history themselves like the demise of the Cineplex movie theatre or the fact that the new A&P Front Street Market already has an even newer first name: Dominion. So fast is progress.
To those who come to live here after we have departed: May you learn not only of our things but also of us.
Bruce Bell
Performing Arts Lodge
St. Lawrence Neighbourhood
Toronto
November 17, 2001