The
Distillery District is an historic and entertainment precinct located east of
Downtown TorontoDowntown Toronto is the central business district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately bounded by Bloor Street to the north, Lake Ontario to the south, the Don River to the east, and Bathurst Street to the west...
,
OntarioOntario is a province located in east-central Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area. Ontario is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba to the west and Quebec to the east, and 5 U.S...
,
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. It contains numerous cafes, restaurants and shops housed within heritage buildings of the former Gooderham and Worts Distillery. The 13-acre (52,000 sq. m) district comprises more than 40 heritage buildings and 10 streets, and is the largest collection of
Victorian eraThe Victorian era of the United Kingdom was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 until her death on the 22nd of January 1901. The reign was a long period of prosperity for the British people, as profits gained from the overseas British Empire, as well as from industrial improvements...
industrial architecture in North America.
The Gooderham and Worts Distillery was founded in 1832, and by the late 1860s was the largest distillery in the world.
The
Distillery District is an historic and entertainment precinct located east of
Downtown TorontoDowntown Toronto is the central business district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately bounded by Bloor Street to the north, Lake Ontario to the south, the Don River to the east, and Bathurst Street to the west...
,
OntarioOntario is a province located in east-central Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area. Ontario is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba to the west and Quebec to the east, and 5 U.S...
,
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. It contains numerous cafes, restaurants and shops housed within heritage buildings of the former Gooderham and Worts Distillery. The 13-acre (52,000 sq. m) district comprises more than 40 heritage buildings and 10 streets, and is the largest collection of
Victorian eraThe Victorian era of the United Kingdom was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 until her death on the 22nd of January 1901. The reign was a long period of prosperity for the British people, as profits gained from the overseas British Empire, as well as from industrial improvements...
industrial architecture in North America.
History
The Gooderham and Worts Distillery was founded in 1832, and by the late 1860s was the largest distillery in the world. Once providing over 2 million gallons of whisky, mostly for export on the world market, the company was bought out in later years by rival
Hiram Walker Co.Hiram Walker was an American grocer and distiller, and the eponym of the famous distillery in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Walker founded the distillery in 1858 in what was then Walkerville, Ontario. Walker was born July 4, 1816 in East Douglas, Massachusetts, and moved to Detroit in the mid-1830s...
, another large Canadian distiller. Its location on the side of the
Canadian National RailwayThe Canadian National Railway is a Canadian Class I railway operated by the Canadian National Railway Company headquartered in Montreal, Quebec....
mainline and located at the mouth of the original route of the
Don RiverThe Don River is one of two rivers bounding the original settled area of Toronto, Ontario along the shore of Lake Ontario, the other being the Humber River to the west. The Don is formed from two rivers, the East and West Branches, that meet about north of Lake Ontario while flowing southward into...
outlet into Lake Ontario which facilitated transport connections to the rest of Canada and indeed the world, and the entire area was once the industrial centre of Toronto and
transshippingTransshipment or Transhipment is the shipment of goods or container to an intermediate destination, and then from there to yet another destination....
hub.
With the de-industrialization of the surrounding area in the late 20th century, and the winding-down of the distillery operations, the district was left increasingly derelict. Surrounding industrial and commercial buildings and structures were often demolished, leaving the former distillery surrounded primarily by empty lots. Nonetheless, the closing of the remaining distillery operations in 1990 created
redevelopmentRedevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses on it such as the redevelopment of an industrial site into a mixed-use development or the redevelopment of a block of townhouses into a large apartment building...
and investment opportunities for a district that contained the largest and best preserved collection of
Victorian-eraThe Victorian era of the United Kingdom was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 until her death on the 22nd of January 1901. The reign was a long period of prosperity for the British people, as profits gained from the overseas British Empire, as well as from industrial improvements...
industrial architecture in
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
.
The economic
recessionIn economics, a recession is a general slowdown in economic activity over a long period of time, or a business cycle contraction. During recessions, many macroeconomic indicators vary in a similar way...
of the early 1990s, however, and the resulting crash in residential
condominiumA condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...
prices and office lease rates in downtown Toronto, delayed efforts to revitalize the district. Nonetheless, two residential condominium buildings were constructed on the periphery of the district during the late 1990s.
While the site awaited
redevelopmentRedevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses on it such as the redevelopment of an industrial site into a mixed-use development or the redevelopment of a block of townhouses into a large apartment building...
and reinvestment, the district's unique ambiance began to attract numerous film shoots. Since 1990, the site has served as a location for over 800 film and television productions (see
list).
Redevelopment
In 2001, the site was purchased by Cityscape Holdings Inc., which transformed the district into a pedestrian-oriented arts, culture and entertainment neighbourhood. In 2003, the district was reopened to the public to great acclaim. The new owners refused to lease any of the retail and restaurant space to chains or franchises, and accordingly, the majority of the buildings are occupied with unique boutiques, art galleries, restaurants, jewellery stores, cafés, and coffee shops, including a well-known micro brewery, the
Mill Street BreweryMill Street is a Canadian brewery founded in December 2002 in Toronto. Joel Manning is currently the brewmaster. The brewery has won numerous awards in its relatively short existence, including Golden Tap Awards for Best Toronto Microbrewery and Best Toronto Beer...
. The upper floors of a number of buildings have been leased to artists as studio spaces and to offices tenants with a "creative focus". A new theatre, the
Young Centre for the Performing ArtsThe Young Centre for the Performing Arts is a theatre in the Distillery District in downtown Toronto, Canada. It is a brand-new theatre built into 1800s era Victorian industrial buildings...
, has opened on the site and serves as the home of the
Soulpepper Theatre CompanySoulpepper Theatre Company is a Toronto, Ontario-based theatre company dedicated to presenting classic plays.-History:Soulpepper was founded in 1998 by twelve Toronto artists who dreamed of a company that would produce lesser known theatrical classics. Soulpepper has since become an important part...
and the drama productions of nearby
George Brown CollegeGeorge Brown College is a public, fully-accredited college of applied arts and technology with three full campuses in downtown Toronto, Ontario...
. There are plans to develop residential condominiums, offices and more retail space on the vacant lands that surround the district.
There has been some criticism of the district's redevelopment. Some have suggested that the area's
gentrificationGentrification and urban gentrification denote the socio-economic, commercial, and demographic change in an urban area resulting from wealthier people buying housing property in a poor community...
has resulted in yet another upscale shopping district competing for the pocket-books of a wealthy demographic, and that opportunities for more publicly-funded uses have been lost. In contrast, others have noted that the district provides important space to local artists, and are supportive of the fact that the district is not dominated by large retail chains.
Regardless of any criticism, the preservation and active re-use of the historic buildings has been widely praised. The Distillery District is a
National historic siteA national historic site is a designation that an area possesses national historical significance. It may confer protected area status on the site, but not necessarily. Such sites can range in size from small to complex, and may include physical evidence of the subject related to the history being...
, and has been designated for protection under the
Ontario Heritage ActThe Ontario Heritage 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 value or interest....
since 1976. It was listed by
National Geographic magazine as a "top pick" in Canada for travellers. The redevelopment of surrounding vacant lands is expected to accelerate the district's transformation from an abandoned industrial site into one of Toronto's most distinctive neighbourhoods.
Buildings
The former distillery consisted of a series of buildings, centred around a seven-storey windmill and wharf. Although the windmill and wharf have long since been demolished, the inventory of the main structures on the site is as follows:
- the Stonehouse Distillery, designed by David Roberts Sr., near the then shoreline of Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. The lake is bounded on the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the south by Ontario's Niagara Peninsula and by the U.S. state of New York...
;
- a 31-metre (100 ft) chimneystack ;
- the Malt House (built in 1860), now called the Maltings;
- Rackhouse D;
- the Molasses Storage building;
- the Boiler House;
- the Stables;
- the Cannery;
- the Paint Shop;
- the various tankhouses (originally seven of which only three survive today);
- the Denaturing Room;
- Rack Houses M, G, and J;
- the Pump House;
- the Case Goods Warehouse;
- the Wharf (now demolished);
- the Cooperage;
- the Grain Elevator and Warehouse, located at the wharf (and since demolished);
- the Pure Spirits Building (built in 1870); and
- the Grist Mill/Windmill, which was built in 1832 at a height of 21 metres (71 ft). It ceased to be a windmill in 1846, and was rebuilt after damage from a storm in the 1850s and disappeared by 1866. A replica was built in 1954, but it was demolished to make way for the Gardiner Expressway
The Frederick G. Gardiner Expressway, known locally as "the Gardiner", is an expressway connecting downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada with its western suburbs...
.
See also
External links