Broadway Methodist Tabernacle was a prominent

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

church in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, Canada, that existed from 1872 to 1924. The congregation was originally housed in a wood chapel at the intersection of

Spadina Avenue Spadina Avenue (, less commonly ) is one of the most prominent streets in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Running through the western section of downtown, the road has a very different character in different neighbourhoods. Spadina Avenue runs south ...

and Dundas Street, which at that time was known as St. Patrick Street. It was originally named the Spadina Avenue Methodist Church. Rapid growth in the congregation saw it seek a new home, and in 1876 a larger lot was purchased at the northeast corner of Spadina and College Street. The wooden church was transported on rollers north to the new location. The old site eventually became the location of the Standard Theatre. In 1879 work began on a new brick church that would be able to seat 900. The church was also renamed Broadway Methodist Church, as at that time the wide stretch of Spadina from College to Bloor was often known as ''Broadway''. That church also became too small, and in 1887 it was almost completely demolished and replaced by a third structure. This building was designed by E. J. Lennox, the most prominent architect then practicing in Toronto. At the request of the congregation he copied the basic floor plan and design of his earlier Bond Street Congregational Church, but at a larger scale. Rather than employing the

neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style, as he had with Bond Street, Lennox designed the church in the

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

style. The building thus had many similarities in style of the City Hall that Lennox was working on simultaneously. The new Tabernacle opened in 1899; near to the large working-class population of west Toronto and the textile mills of Spadina, it became an important social centre. This was especially true under the leadership of

Salem Bland Salem Goldworth Bland (1859–1950) was a Canadian Methodist theologian, Georgist, and one of Canada's most important Social Gospel thinkers. Biography He was born on 25 August 1859 in Lachute, Quebec, the son of Emma Bland and Henry Flesher ...

, one of the leading Social Gospel advocates in Canada, and who led the church from 1919 to 1923. However, the nature of the neighbourhood was changing. New immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, most notably a large Jewish population, were moving into the working-class area and the Methodist English were moving north to other neighbourhoods. The merger of churches that created the

United Church of Canada The United Church of Canada (french: link=no, Église unie du Canada) is a mainline Protestant denomination that is the largest Protestant Christian denomination in Canada and the second largest Canadian Christian denomination after the Catholi ...

in 1924 led to the eventual closing of the Tabernacle. The building was demolished by 1930, and replaced by the four storey office building that stands on the site today.

References

* * {{coord, 43.6583, N, 79.3997, W, region:CA-ON_type:landmark, display=title Churches in Toronto Demolished buildings and structures in Toronto Romanesque Revival church buildings in Canada E. J. Lennox buildings Destroyed churches in Canada Former churches in Canada