Market Street is one of the earliest main roads in Old Toronto. Beginning in 1803, Market Street connected the harbour of Lake Ontario to the town centre. A fire in 1849 destroyed much of the original St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood, and the urban fabric changed significantly in the 1850s, as the advent of rail led to the quick growth of economic trade and development.
Market Street was part of the City’s original public market and this section south of Front Street was the cultural centre of the Old Town of York.
Market Street, west side, looking north to south of King St. E., 1911. Image: Toronto Public Library
Ignore the firemen, the alarm was going off in this block. Market St. is closed to vehicles in the summer.
Market Street, west side, looking north to south of King St. E.,
2024. Image: Junk Boat Travels (J McGuinness)
Thanks to an extensive revitalization project, which won a 2014 Heritage Toronto Award of Excellence, Market Street has been revived through the restoration of three, mid-to-late nineteenth-century heritage buildings.
Over the course of a decade, under the leadership of Paul Oberman, Woodcliffe Landmark Properties acquired these three buildings and embarked on an ambitious plan to reinvent the street. In addition to restoring the heritage buildings and adding retail spaces, public realm and street improvements were implemented and set new standards. The heritage buildings received new mechanical and electrical systems, and, in many cases, new flooring. Woodcliffe also installed new storm and sanitary sewers, water and gas lines.
As it looked in 2007.
The building at 87 Front Street, built in 1858 in the heart of the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood, was designed in the Georgian Revival style for the Edward Leadley Company, which traded in wool, hides, skins and tallow.
Woodcliffe also rebuilt and waterproofed the stone foundation of 87 Front Street.
Around the corner at 10-12 Market Street, the Armory Hotel was built in 1880 for William Cayley, a lawyer, financier and provincial politician. The two-storey building features elaborate detailing inspired by Italianate design.
So named for the Toronto Armory across the street, where the market now stands, quickly became a hangout for soldiers coming in after a hard day doing drills.
In 1893 the City of Toronto put out a directory listing the leading businesses of the day and wrote the following the Armory Hotel:
Toronto has a number of comfortable and well managed hostelries, and among them the popular, old established Armory Hotel under the control of Mr. J. J. Coulter, who has since made considerable improvements about the premises with newly fitted and re-furnished rooms throughout in a modern style, and is well prepared to receive and entertain guests for the price of $1.00 per day.
The average price for a room in a lesser hotel back then was about 50¢ a day and a dime could get you a shared room with about 20 other men. But if you were really desperate, for a nickel you could rent a bed in a flop-house for six hours.
The more upscale Armoury Hotel had 30 guest rooms including a smoking parlour, three sitting rooms, a large dinning room and a well-stocked bar serving the choicest foreign and domestic wines plus a wide variety of liquors, ales, beer and cigars.
Local legend has it the hotel was also one of the first in the city to hand you a menu at dinner as before you ate what was put in front of you.
As the city grew, and the Market area which was once the bustling centre of town started to decline, the stylish Armoury Hotel become just another dive in a neighbourhood by then filled with flop houses renting to a transient clientele.
In 1948 a fire swept through the old hotel, then being used as a warehouse for the Wilkens Fruit Co., injuring nine people. It made the front page of the Toronto Star. During the 1950s and ‘60s the building was used as an auto-parts warehouse before being converted into the Old Fish Market Restaurant in the mid 1970s.
To stabilize the second storey brick façade of the Armory Hotel, it was completed rebuilt, including replication of wood windows and a brick parapet, and the recreation of a missing wood cornice. Outer bricks were rotated so the fresh inner face of the brick was shown, and replacement bricks were ordered from the UK, as no company in Canada made ones that matched the style and colour. As part of the complex’s redevelopment, an internal corridor was built along the rear of the buildings with access to a loading zone and garbage storage area, preventing the use of Market Street as a loading area.
Architect A.R. Denison designed the John Hallam Warehouse at 8 Market Street in 1900, just south of the Armory Hotel, featuring Romanesque Revival elements, completed with red brick cladding and brick and stone detailing. It was a tall building for its time at six storeys and serves as an office building. Its French-inspired Mansard roof is added later.
In addition to the restoration of the historic properties, the north-west corner of Market Street and The Esplanade has been redeveloped from an auto repair shop to a modern building also designed by Taylor Smyth Architects. The new 5,000 square foot structure is occupied by a restaurant, book-ending the LCBO at the restored historic property on the corner of Market and Front Streets. The main floor of the LCBO on Front Street also extends through the length of the second floors of the historic buildings on Market Street, leading to a loading dock on The Esplanade that is connected to a service corridor.
Paul Oberman's Walk includes a variety of dining options from Bindia Indian Bistro to Olive and Olives. Some of the other vendors along the street are Balzac's Coffee Roasters, the Spanish Tapas restaurant Barsa Taberna (permanently closed (Covid)), and the seafood restaurant Market Street Catch.
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