Grand Trunk Railway System
GTR General Offices in downtown Toronto 1867.
(Note: Corner building with people in view is City Bank of Montreal
Southwest corner of Bay and Wellington Streets.)
Toronto in the Camera, Octavius Thompson
Toronto Public Library
City ticket office 6 King Street West, Toronto
Old hand-coloured postcard. Dominion Bond Company
Open style streetcar was 19th century air-conditioning! Note Daily
Star sign above streetcar.
Derek Boles Collection
Queen City Oil building after 1900. Over the years the building changed
it name.
Manufacturers Life Building GTR ticket office remains on the ground
floor. 1920
Canadian National Railways sold January 31, 1958, the Lawlor Building,
(6 King Street West) at the northwest corner of Yonge and King Streets,
to Tusca Investments for $750,000. The building's main floor and storefront
had been occupied by the Grand Trunk Railway as a downtown ticket office
since its construction in 1897. CNR expropriated the 5-story building
in 1923 from its owners, the Imperial Bank of Canada, and planned on
building a 26-story office building on the site, which would have made
it the tallest building in the city. In preparation for this, CNR moved
its offices across Yonge Street to the Royal Bank Building. Political
interference and public criticism of CNR's extravagance curtailed the
skyscraper project
and the existing building was occupied by CNR's
City Ticket Office in early 1928. CNR then closed the ticket office
in
the old Canadian Northern Building
two blocks east at King and Toronto Streets. This building had been
the CNoR headquarters until 1918 and then CNR headquarters until moved
in 1923 to Montreal.
Derek Boles Collection
