past pieces of toronto: eaton's college street
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 May 27, 2012. Front cover of special number of The Eaton News showing Eaton’s College Street. City of Toronto Archives, Series 682, Subseries 1, File 34. Once upon a time, a major retailing family decided that College and Carlton Streets would replace Queen Street as the city’s main east-west artery. They intended to erect one of the world’s largest retail/office complexes at the southwest corner of Yonge and College. Though reality intervened, the end result, the Eaton’s College Street store , was hardly a letdown. Eaton’s began assembling land at Yonge and College prior to World War I. When construction began in 1928, Eaton’s envisioned a seven-storey base housing a store topped by an office tower rising 670 feet into the sky. While all of Eaton’s merchandise and of...