Eaton's Annex was a 10-storey building containing both retail and office space in

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada. It opened in January 1913 and was located at the northwest corner of Albert Street and James Street, west of

Eaton's The T. Eaton Company Limited, later known as Eaton's, was a Canadian department store chain that was once the largest in the country. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an immigrant from what is now Northern Ireland. Eaton's g ...

Main Store and north of Toronto's (now former)

City Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

History

By 1900, the Eaton's

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...

owned most of the land within the city blocks bordered by

Yonge Street Yonge Street ( ') 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 Great Lakes#Geography, Upper Great Lakes. Ontario's first colonial administrator, ...

, Queen Street,

Bay Street Bay Street is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the centre of Toronto's Financial District, Toronto, Financial District and is often used by metonymy to refer to Economy of Canada, Canada's financial services indust ...

and

Dundas Street Dundas Street () is a major historic arterial road in Ontario, Canada. The road connects the city of Toronto with its western Greater Toronto Area, suburbs and several cities in southwestern Ontario. Three provincial highways—Ontario Highway 2 ...

. The land was eventually occupied by the Eaton's Main Store, the Annex building and various Eaton's warehouses and mail-order buildings. The Main Store and the Annex, however, were the only two buildings open to the public. The two buildings were connected by an underground passageway open to both employees and shoppers. It was the first underground pathway in Toronto open to the public, and it is often credited as a historic precursor to Toronto's current downtown

PATH A path is a route for physical travel – see Trail. Path or PATH may also refer to: Physical paths of different types * Bicycle path * Bridle path, used by people on horseback * Course (navigation), the intended path of a vehicle * Desir ...

network. When the Annex building opened in 1913 as Eaton's House Furnishing Building, it contained Eaton's housewares and furniture departments. When these departments were moved to the new College Street store in 1930, the focus of the Annex's retail offerings was shifted to lower-cost items. While the Main Store catered to middle-class budgets, and the College Street store's offerings were more upscale, the Annex store was directed to Toronto's working classes. It offered many of the same departments and types of goods as Eaton's other two Toronto stores, but in cheaper varieties, and with less extensive in-store displays and customer service. As such, the Annex represented one of the first instances in Canada where a traditional, full-line department store operated a separate discount outlet or chain. The Eaton's Annex and some surrounding warehouses were destroyed by fire on May 9, 1977. The fire was described as "the first of its kind in downtown Toronto since the Great Fire of 1904". Although it destroyed a number of Eaton's buildings and damaged the nearby Church of the Holy Trinity, it did not significantly affect the newly constructed first phase of the

Toronto Eaton Centre CF Toronto Eaton Centre, commonly referred to simply as the Eaton Centre, is a shopping mall and office complex in the Downtown Toronto, downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is owned and managed by Cadillac Fairview (CF). It was named ...

Legacy

Parts of the Annex building survive as Trinity Square. A portion of the

Bell Trinity Square Bell Trinity Square is an office complex occupying part of the former site of the historic Eaton's Annex in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The name is a combination of: the name of original and now former occupant Bell Canada; the location ...

office complex currently occupies the former Annex site. The same underground passage that formerly linked the Annex and the Main Store now connects the Eaton Centre to the Bell Trinity Centre, and it is part of the PATH network. In honour of this store, a ski run at the Caledon Ski Club in

Caledon, Ontario Caledon (; 2021 Canadian census, 2021 population 76,581) is a town (Ontario), town in the Regional Municipality of Peel in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada. The name comes from a shortened form of Caledonia, the Roman name for what is ...

, was named "Eaton's Annex" after the

Eaton family The Eaton family is a Canadian family of Scottish-Irish Methodist origin. Established in Toronto, the family dynasty began in 1869 when Timothy Eaton (1834–1907) founded Eaton's, which became a national chain of department stores. At its heig ...

, who were original members of the private club.

Notes

References

*Belisle, Donica. ''Consuming Producers: Retail Workers and Commodity Culture at Eaton's in Mid-Twentieth-Century Toronto'', Masters Thesis, Department of History, Queen's University, 2001. *Nasmith, George G., ''Timothy Eaton'', Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1923. *Phenix, Patricia, ''Eatonians: The Story of the Family Behind the Family'', Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 2003. *Santink, Joy L., ''Timothy Eaton and the Rise of His Department Store'', Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. *Scribe, The, ''Golden Jubilee 1869–1919: A Book to Commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the T. Eaton Co. Limited'', Toronto: The T. Eaton Co. Limited, 1919.

External links

* * {{coord, 43.6537, N, 79.3821, W, display=title Buildings and structures in Toronto Department store buildings in Canada Eaton's