Tuesday Treasures

Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.
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December 2019 - Toronto ON

Say goodbye to another eerie-yet-powerful ghost sign, Toronto.

Crews were spotted giving a fresh coat of paint to the east-facing wall of the old Maclean Building at 345 Adelaide Street West on Monday, effectively erasing an historic painted sign that dates all the way back to the early 1900s.



November 2018 - Toronto ON


Hugh Cameron Maclean - younger brother to John Bayne Maclean, publishing magnate and founder of Maclean's Publishing Company (later known as Maclean-Hunter) - began his career as a typesetter at a young age. He ran away from his childhood home in Crieff, Ont. to find excitement in the big cities of Toronto and New York, earning a living by apprenticing at a variety of printing houses. By the time his brother entered the publishing game Hugh was already an experienced printer and John brought him on board as his partner.

However, this partnership did not last. When Hugh's wife died at the turn of the century and disagreements over advertising caused a rift in the brothers' relationship, Hugh sold his share of the company to John and moved west. Over the course of the next eight years the young Maclean moved from printing to publishing and upon his return to Toronto, created Hugh C. Maclean Publications and finally, in 1914, built the Hugh C. Maclean Building at 345 Adelaide St. W.

With a home for his new company in place, Maclean would finally stay put for the first time in his adult life. The Hugh C. Maclean Publishing Company stayed at 345 Adelaide until Hugh's death in 1949; five years later his company built a modern printery at Don Mills.

Click here to see another Maclean-Hunter building at University and Dundas which was planned by John Maclean as his head office.

Random Sculptures

July 2017 - Toronto ON

This will be a post of randomness, sculptures in and around University Avenue.
I am rather loosely walking up University.

Sun Life- Sorel Etrog, 1984

Sun Life, installed at King St. and University Ave., is a tall abstract cluster of angular bronze forms, like a machine let loose of its housing.

It was commissioned by SunLife Assurance Company of Canada when two matching glass-walled office towers that face one another across University Ave. were to be completed in 1984.

Across University is Olympia Hand 1972 also by Etrog, a huge open upright bronze hand facing outward. Knobby finger joints placed on top of other joints, this is another version of his constant theme of integration.

Click here for more Etrog at the University of Toronto.


So, it's a good thing I bought a book on Toronto sculpture as I have walked passed this for years and never even noticed it! This is in the same area as Olympia Hand.

Architectural Sculpture- Robin Clarke, 1970

Located on the north and south sides of the Maclean-Hunter Building.
Maclean-Hunter (M-H) was a Canadian communications company, which had diversified holdings in radio, television, magazines, newspapers and cable television distribution. It was acquired by Rogers Communications.

The company began in 1887, when brothers John Bayne Maclean and Hugh Cameron Maclean launched their first trade publication, Canadian Grocer & General Storekeeper. John subsequently expanded his company into other areas of publishing, launching the general interest magazine Maclean's in 1905, the business newspaper Financial Post in 1907, the lifestyle magazine Canadian Homes and Gardens in 1925,and the women's magazine Chatelaine in 1928.

Horace Talmadge Hunter joined Maclean Publishing in 1903, moving up the management ranks from general manager in 1911 to succeed John Bayne Maclean as president in 1933; in 1945 the company's name was changed to Maclean-Hunter. 

Source

They were the biggest publishing empire in the British Empire. And that meant they could afford to buy an entire block of land in downtown Toronto. On the north-east corner of University & Dundas, they built a whole complex to house their offices and printing presses. In 1930, the latest addition had just opened: the new Maclean Building soared a whole nine storeys into the air, making it the tallest building in the neighbourhood. That's when a photographer climbed up onto the roof and snapped this photo of Toronto's skyline.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Today, the building is still there. It's on the north side of Dundas, just to the east of the intersection. On the corner itself, you'll find a TD on the ground floor of the newer Maclean-Hunter Building; it was built in the early 1960s.

In 1958 Elizabeth Wyn Wood designed two bas-reliefs on the theme of communications for this new building. The reliefs are deeply incised into limestone panels. Wood depicts the sending and receiving of information.

Louis Temporale did the carving.

We met Temporale when I posted the Bank of Canada building also on University.

On the north side a nude female floats in space, a scroll unfurled above and around her like a banner and she has just released a bird.

On the south side a nude male with a similar scroll floats and a bird has landed. Above the man stars and vertical lines are sketched.

Dream Chamber beside Princess Margaret Hospital is another Etrog.