College Park (Toronto)
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College Park is a shopping mall, residential and office complex on the southwest corner of Yonge and College streets in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
An Art Deco landmark, the building was initially known as Eaton's College Street. It was operated by Eaton's from 1930 to 1977. After being sold to new owners and adapted for new purposes, it was renamed as College Park.
Architecture
College Park was built for Eaton between 1928 and 1930, and was designed by
Marble was imported from Europe for the interior columns and colonnade. Lady Eaton arranged for two entire rooms to be removed from two manor houses in England and reassembled in the furniture department of the College Street store. The French architect
Classified specifically as a stripped classical art deco style, Eaton's College Street emphasized symmetry in the plan and rhythm in the arrangement of the fenestration, doors, and pilasters. A distinct repetitive pattern can be distinguished with the windows and pilasters, as well as with the arrangement of large entrances.
Three small windows are on the upper levels between each pilaster, and three large shop windows between each entrance. The original Eaton's College Street was designed with large shop windows on the floor level to attract window shoppers and pedestrians. The floor level has a large, distinctive base, another classical art deco characteristic. In addition to the oversized windows of the floor level, the base was made more prominent through the use of the granite and stone carvings framing it. On higher levels, the fenestration became long vertical strips separated by large pilasters, which highlighted the verticality of the structure as opposed to its mass (another distinguishing feature of art deco buildings) (Morawetz 46).
The pilasters of the upper levels have fluting and capitals of ionic composition and support a rather large entablature. Art Deco architecture, well known for its geometric patterns and ornamentation, is demonstrated in the detailed entablature, with a sculpted architrave, dentils on the cornice, and a monel metal trim along the top. Along the frieze are round ornamental metal pieces placed in a rhythmic order between the pilasters. Each entrance is flanked by a slightly protruding cast stone frame decorated with sculpted square shapes, and dentils, and bordered by a spiral, ribbon-shaped cast stone. The monel metal trim on the window frames represents the art deco style of having natural shapes such as flowers or sunbursts, as influenced from the Egyptian and Mayan styles (New York Architecture). As can be observed, the trim is a natural organic shape.
These features are present only on the Yonge and College street frontages. The back of the building, facing the park, while maintaining a rather symmetrical and repetitive fenestration pattern, is sparse on decoration. Entrances have been kept rather nondescript.
History
In 1928, Eaton's announced plans for the largest retail and office complex in the world to be constructed on the site, featuring 5,000,000 square feet (465,000 square metres) of retail space and a 38-storey, 1920s-era skyscraper. Just as the war had intervened a decade earlier, however, the Great Depression curtailed their full plans for the site. The first phase of the project, a department store of 600,000 square feet (56,000 square metres), was the only part of the complex that was built. But, the planned foundation pillars, 10 feet in diameter, were driven 30 feet down into bedrock during the construction of the first phase to accommodate the planned tower.[1] Bones of large pre-historic mammals, either mammoth or mastodon, were uncovered during the digging for the foundation.[2] On October 30, 1930, the new store was opened by Lady Eaton, the matriarch of the Eaton family, and her son John David Eaton, the future president of the company.
Eaton's College Street, as the store was known, focused on the sale of furnishings and housewares, although the latter were very broadly defined. Eaton's boasted that the store was "the largest furniture and house furnishings store in the British Empire".[citation needed] The larger Eaton's Main Store, a few blocks south on Yonge Street, was never closed, as had been intended in the 1920s plan. Eaton's ran a shuttle bus between the two stores for two decades until the Toronto subway opened in 1954.
Post-Eaton's ownership
With the opening of the Toronto Eaton Centre in 1977, the Eaton's Main Store and Eaton's College Street were both closed in favour of the new Eaton's flagship store at Yonge and Dundas streets. The College Street store was spared the fate of the former Main Store, which was demolished to make way for the second phase of the Eaton Centre construction.
The College Street building was sold to new owners, who renamed it as College Park after adapting it for different uses. The lower floors of the store were converted to a shopping mall of small, high-end boutiques and a subway concourse (with the marble and Art Deco stylings of the Eaton's store carefully preserved), and the upper floors were converted to office space.
Although the new owners had originally agreed to preserve the Seventh Floor, they eventually determined that its preservation and restoration was not financially feasible. They applied for a demolition permit to convert the entire floor to office accommodation. After a lengthy court battle with the City of Toronto, the
Over time, College Park was expanded through the addition of a residential apartment building in 1978 and a 30-storey glass and steel office building in 1984 (which housed the offices of the Maclean-Hunter media empire). Although neither addition was architecturally sympathetic to the original building, the heritage and architectural integrity of the former Eaton's store was preserved. The former Maclean-Hunter now houses offices of several government of Ontario ministries. The retail levels have two grocery stores (Metro and Sobey's), Winners store, a food court, Planet Fitness and clicnic.
College Park Courthouse
From 1979 until 2023, the second floor of College Park, with an entrance at 777 Yonge Street, housed a courthouse dealing with criminal matters from police divisions east of Yonge Street (divisions 51, 53, 54 and 55) and adult female bail court for the city of Toronto. In 2023, the courts moved to a new facility at 10 Armoury Street.[3][4][5]
College Park – Barbara Ann Scott Ice Trail
College Park Barbara Ann Scott Ice Trail | |
---|---|
Location | 420 Yonge Street |
Coordinates | 43°39′35″N 79°23′2″W / 43.65972°N 79.38389°W |
Website | Park |
College Park (the park rather than the building) is a 0.75 hectares (1.9 acres) greenspace located behind the buildings in the block bordered by Yonge, College, Bay and Gerrard streets. It is the second largest park in downtown Toronto after Allan Gardens. It was built in the 1980s over an underground garage. The park was closed for renovations in early 2016 and reopened in 2019. Today, the park contains the Barbara Ann Scott Ice Trail.[6][7][8]
Originally, the park's official name was Barbara Ann Scott Park, named after 1948 Olympic champion figure skater
After renovation, the park was officially re-opened on July 10, 2019, as "College Park". A central feature of the revitalized park is the five-metre-wide skating trail named the Barbara Ann Scott Ice Trail. The original skating rink and pavilion are gone. Today there is a 5-metre wide circular path that becomes the ice trail in winter. Next to the trail is a new warming pavilion with a rubber floor for skates; it also houses washrooms and provides storage for a
References
- ^ Osbaldeston, Mark. Unbuilt Toronto: A History of the City that Might Have Been. p. 160.
- ^ VOL. XLI, PART VI Annual Report of the Ontario Department of Mines 31
- ^ "Toronto Welcomes Spacious and Modern New Courthouse". Correctional News. March 21, 2023. Retrieved January 5, 2024.
- ^ https://www.alawilaw.ca/newpage457870be
- ^ Powell, Betsy (March 12, 2023). "From Jimi Hendrix to the crack tape: The colourful history of Toronto's 'non-functional' local courthouses comes to a close". Toronto Star. Retrieved January 5, 2024.
- ^ a b c d Winsa, Patty (November 21, 2012). "College Park is getting a $3 million makeover". Toronto Star. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
- ^ a b c d Landau, Jack (November 7, 2017). "Barbara Ann Scott Skate Trail Taking Shape at College Park". UrbanToronto. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
- ^ a b c Ngabo, Gilbert (July 10, 2019). "After nine years of construction, College Park reborn as a 'gem' of downtown". Toronto Star. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
- ^ "Aura at College Park". UrbanToronto. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
- ^ Smith, Ainsley (July 11, 2019). "Revitalized College Park is the urban oasis downtown has been missing". Daily Hive. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
Further reading
- Anderson, Carol; Mallinson, Katharine (2004). Lunch With Lady Eaton: Inside the Dining Rooms of a Nation. Toronto: ECW Press. OCLC 54005756.
- Morawetz, Tim. Art Deco Architecture in Toronto: A Guide to the City's Buildings from the Roaring 20s and the Depression. Toronto: Glue Inc., 2009. ISBN 9780981241302
- Osbaldeston, Mark. Unbuilt Toronto: A History of the City That Might Have Been. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2008. ISBN 9781550028355
- Shoemaker, Lewis E. and Gaylord D. Smith. "A Century of Monel Metal: 1906–2006." JOM (The Journal of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society): 58.9 (September 2006).
External links
- Archives of Ontario – Eaton's College Street
- "College Park". Emporis. Archived from the original on March 15, 2016.
- "Eaton's College Street". Emporis. Archived from the original on 2020-10-27.
- Aerial image of the proposed tower
- City of Toronto Staff Report (2001) – Alterations to College Park
- The Carlu
- City of Toronto Archives – The Eaton News
- Canadian Architect – The Top of the Seventh: A Series of Art Moderne Spaces Are Given a New Life
- "Maclean-Hunter Building". SkyscraperPage.
- https://archive.today/20130414100738/http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/1998/1998canlii847/1998canlii847.html