Trader's Bank Building
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Trader's Bank Building is a 15-
storey A storey (British English) or story (American English) is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the word are ''storeys'' (UK) and ''stories'' (US). T ...
,
early skyscraper The earliest stage of skyscraper design encompasses buildings built between 1884 and 1945, predominantly in the American cities of New York City, New York and Chicago. Cities in the United States were traditionally made up of low-rise buildings, ...
(the first in Toronto ), completed in 1906 at 67
Yonge Street Yonge Street (; pronounced "young") is a major arterial route in the Canadian province of Ontario connecting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Upper Great Lakes. Once the southernmost leg of provincial Hi ...
in
Toronto, Ontario 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 ancho ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. The building was designed by
Carrère and Hastings Carrère and Hastings, the firm of John Merven Carrère ( ; November 9, 1858 – March 1, 1911) and Thomas Hastings (architect), Thomas Hastings (March 11, 1860 – October 22, 1929), was one of the outstanding American Beaux-Arts architecture, Be ...
, with construction beginning in 1905. It was the tallest building in the British Commonwealth until the
Royal Liver Building The Royal Liver Building is a Grade I listed building in Liverpool, England. It is located at the Pier Head and along with the neighbouring Cunard Building and Port of Liverpool Building is one of Liverpool's '' Three Graces'', which line the ...
was completed in 1911. It remains one of Canada's few surviving skyscrapers of the early 20th Century.


History

The building was assembled using two million bricks and 1700 tons of steel beams riveted using compressed air (with "millions" of rivets needed); once the foundations were finished, it was erected at a rate of about a floor a week. The building was designed to be fireproof, thanks to the steel frame. In the event of a fire, fire doors would shut the elevators and staircases, with two large fire escapes in the rear. Steam heat on a vacuum system would warm the interior. Electric lights throughout and telephone cables on each floor were touted as features. When described in a period newspaper, it was to have a flag pole 200 feet above street level and four high-speed elevators going up 187 feet. It was projected to hold 1500 people. The exterior was to be made of stone, brick and terra cotta (sourced from Perth-Amboy and used on the lower three floors) with limestone casings. The floors are made of Canadian Portland cement. The only use of wood was in the windows, doors and frames. The roof was to have a promenade, with the owner unsure if the public would be admitted. The bank would occupy the first two storeys. The construction of the building was marked by several accidents and one fatality. An engineer was scalded by a faulty steam injector in November 1905. The building was innovative in its leasing arrangements. It was the first major Toronto building to introduce the New York system of leasing by the square foot. The building was completed by early December 1906, and the bank shortly moved into its new headquarters. The Traders Bank was based in Toronto, with strong roots in rural Ontario; it would later become part of the
Royal Bank of Canada Royal Bank of Canada (RBC; french: Banque royale du Canada) is a Canadian multinational financial services company and the largest bank in Canada by market capitalization. The bank serves over 17 million clients and has more than 89,000& ...
, with RBC acquiring the Traders Bank in 1912. The building's height was fairly controversial at the time. A number of the city's public intellectuals and many of its architects expressed dismay at the prospect of skyscrapers. It would overload the property values and shade the streets, trapping the disease-causing "miasmas" that still lurked in the public imagination. '' The Globe'' newspaper complained: "in the next ten or fifteen years .... The chief retail thoroughfares will then look like a Colorado canyon." Other editorials on the skyscraper theme compared Toronto to New York:
but if the skyscraper habit grows, as there is every indication it will … the lower end of Yonge Street and the central portion of King street will become dim sunless canyons such as one sees in the financial centre of New York.
The tall building did change the customary wind patterns at Yonge & Colborne. There were signs of urban canyon effect winds by the spring of 1909. The City Architect in November 1907 promised it would not start a trend: There would be strict enforcement of the height limit, which was still taller than the building itself. As it turned out, the city council was usually persuaded to waive the height limits downtown, and the Traders' Bank was very shortly overtaken by even taller buildings.


Heritage Protection

The property is designated under Part IV of the ''
Ontario Heritage Act The ''Ontario Heritage Act'', (the ''Act'') first enacted on March 5, 1975, allows municipalities and the provincial government to designate individual properties and districts in the Province of Ontario, Canada, as being of cultural heritage ...
'' since 1976. The City notes it was first known as the Traders Bank Building, later Montreal Trust. It was built in 1905-06 and designed by Carrere & Hastings in association with F.S. Baker. Part of the property to be later known as 6-8 Colborne Street was removed from the designated property in 1999, not being of architectural merit. The designation notes: " The Montreal Trust Building, originally the Traders Bank Building, Nos. 61-67 Yonge Street at 4 Colborne Street (NE), 1905 by Carriere & Hastings; F. S. Baker, Associate is designated on architectural grounds as a notable example of French-inspired Beaux Arts classicism by a very important firm of New York architects. The building was, when finished, the tallest building in the British Empire (the first skyscraper in Toronto) and it still plays an important part in the streetscape of Yonge Street."


See also

* Architecture of Toronto *
List of tallest buildings in Canada This is a list of the tallest buildings in Canada. As of December 2017 there are a total of 133 completed and under construction buildings in Canada with an official height of or more. Greater Toronto has 86 (Toronto 83 (including the eight ta ...
*
List of tallest buildings in the British Empire and the Commonwealth The title of tallest building in the British Empire (later in the Commonwealth) has been contested since the late nineteenth century. In this era the nations of the British Empire possessed a large measure of cultural unity and naturally looked t ...
*
List of tallest buildings in Toronto Many of the tallest buildings in Toronto are also the tallest in all of Canada. The tallest structure in Toronto is the CN Tower, which rises . The CN Tower was the tallest free-standing structure on land from 1975 until 2007. However, it is no ...


References


External links


"Toronto's Edwardian Skyscraper Row"
in JSSAC 40 - 2015 {{Buildings in Canada timeline Buildings and structures in Toronto Historic bank buildings in Canada Office buildings completed in 1905 Carrère and Hastings buildings Neoclassical architecture in Canada 1905 establishments in Ontario