past pieces of toronto: the four seasons motor hotel
From November 2011 through July 2012 I wrote the "Past Pieces of Toronto" column for OpenFile, which explored elements of the city which no longer exist. The following was originally posted on March 24, 2012, with some additions made on March 7, 2013. When Isadore “Issy” Sharp decided to build his first Four Seasons hotel at Jarvis and Carlton Streets, everyone thought he had lost his mind. Once a street lined with the homes of wealthy Torontonians, by the end of the 1950s it had a reputation as a hangout for derelicts, drug dealers and prostitutes. “How could you think of building a motel or hotel on Jarvis?” he was told. “People will think it’s a flophouse!” Sharp ignored those comments. Once opened, nobody mistook the hotel at 415 Jarvis Street for a flophouse. As the Globe and Mail noted years later, the Four Seasons Motel Hotel was “an elegant, relaxed place for a drink or a night’s stay.” Sharp, who worked at his father’s construction firm, had gathere...