This intersection did not exist until 1929 when Bathurst Street (which previously ended at Front Street) was extended to intersect with Lakeshore Blvd. W., itself a product of waterfront landfill and improvement schemes in the 1920s. It did not take long for several showcase buildings and structures to be erected near or at the intersection, attracted by its cachet: Maple Leaf Stadium (1926); The Princes’ Gates (1927); Crosse & Blackwell’s Building [hexagonal structure] (1927); Loblaws Warehouse (1928); Tip Top Tailors factory (1929) and Rogers-Majestic’s radio factory [NW corner] (1929). This photo can be dated to 1954/55 from the progress being made in constructing Molson’s Fleet Street Brewery, seen in scaffolding. Part of the land for it was purchased from E.P. Taylor’s Canadian Breweries, necessarily by an intermediary because Taylor would never have sold knowingly to a competitor.
Click the image to view a full size version. For more on this photo, see
this piece in Spacing by Adam Bunch.
Lakeshore Blvd. West at Bathurst Street, 1954/55
The same corner, perhaps a few years earlier, viewed from the west:
Image courtesy City of Toronto Archives, William James family fonds, Fonds 1244, Item 7297
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