Q1. Who created the original plans for the Port Lands area? (P8)
Q2. Where was Toronto's "Great Marsh" and why was it called that? (P7)
Q5. How was the mouth of the Don River altered and when did this happen? (P9)
Toronto’s Precious Port Lands
View Toronto from a Different Perspective
Directly due south of us you can walk or a bike along the waterfront in the area known as the Port Lands and enjoy a particularly interesting perspective on the city. Toronto’s Port Lands continue to emerge from their industrial past into a playground for recreation as well as business, arts and culture. Stop and shop at one of the new food markets, watch and play soccer, launch a sailboat at one of several clubs, dine at a restaurant in a century-old building – it’s all now available within minutes to us. Although many reminders of the past, such as old warehouses and historic ships remain, Toronto is gradually gaining back some of the vibrancy of its waterfront – and will keep doing so as work on development of our Port Lands continues.
Reclaiming our Magnificent Shoreline
When early pioneers settled in the Town of York in the late 18th
century (the City of Toronto, today), the waterfront along Lake
Ontario. Apart from it being green, with trees, one of the most
noticeable features was the mouth of the Don River, which opened
up into Lake Ontario in a very large area known as “the Great
Marsh”, around Ashbridge’s Bay. Early maps from this time show
that the shoreline (which at that time) extended much farther north
than today. A noticeable feature were several sandbars which were
formed as sand was eroded from the Scarborough Bluffs. By the
early 1800's the longest of these bars extended nearly 9 kilometers
south-west from Woodbine Avenue, through Ashbridges Bay and
the marshes of the lower Don River, forming a natural harbour
between the lake and the mainland. The sandbar eventually
became separated from the land and became the Toronto Islands.
Long before the settlers arrived, Native People from the area
had regarded the location as a pivotal “Carrying Place”—or
overland portage, because it was a junction point of land and
water routes. There were trails running northward from the
shoreline, along the river routes, and connecting to other rivers
such as the Rouge, and north to places like Lake Simcoe.
As the Town of York grew, the harbour clustered around the
east (the area we know as Parliament and Front). It was used
for transportation and recreation. Numerous wharves were
seen scattered along the harbour. The first of these, Cooper's
Wharf, is described by some as the “Union Station and Pearson
Airport” of its day. Everyone and everything arriving at York
had to go through Cooper’s Wharf. It had on it a General Store
and a Shipbuilding slip. All that remains of this historic place
today is a long road by that name between Loblaws and the
LCBO at Lake Shore Boulevard.
Reclaiming Land from
the Lake and Marshes
By the time York became Toronto, Toronto’s waterfront area was
dotted with small factories and a variety of local industries and
commercial activities. Various piers lined the Toronto shoreline
so boats could easily dock and unload their cargo. Within a
decade, the harbour held over 30 wharves and piers. Many of
the factories, like the Gooderham and Worts Distillery, and the
Polson Iron Works, built their own wharf or dock.
As early as 1818, residents and Toronto’s city officials were
already worried that Toronto’s once pristine waterfront and
beach would be lost because of all the activity along the shoreline.
This resulted in a Royal Patent that created a walkway or public
“Esplanade” from Peter Street to Parliament so families could
still stroll at their leisure and enjoy the fresh lake air.
Sir Henry Pellatt, Beaches Landowner
There is another Beaches/Casa Loma connection. The owner of Chateau des Quatre
Vents, Mr. Murray, originally bought the land for the house from Sir Henry Pellatt, the
same romanticist and industrialist who commissioned Casa Loma. Besides purchasing
the land on which he built Casa Loma, Sir Henry had a large piece of land on top of
the cliff for his own summer estate. Part of that land he sold to William Murray. Sir
Henry did build his own summer home on the rest of the property, but unfortunately
this home burned to the ground in a fire in the early 1920s; this is about the same
time when Sir Henry went bankrupt. Part of this land is where the R.C. Harris public
utilities and water works is located.
But commercial and industrial activity continued to grow,
particularly with the arrival of the railways in 1850. The
city, particularly the railways, needed stable land along the
shore to build tracks. They looked to the marshy lands to the
south east of downtown – the mouth of the Don and the area
around Ashbridge’s Bay. They realized that if the land could be
reclaimed, that is, filled in with dirt and debris, there would be
more space for tracks and buildings.
The waterfront we now know, including our Port Lands, was
thus created through lake-filling activities undertaken by the
railways, major industries and the Harbour Commission.
Various kinds of dirt and debris taken from the construction
in the expanding city were used. Timber cribbing was placed
around the perimeter of the area to be filled and the fill used
included sewage, municipal waste, material from construction
sites and material dredged from the harbour bottom.
The first “filling in” of the waterfront happened in 1850’s
when a-100 foot landfill strip was created. The new land
accommodated the Grand Trunk Railway. The Grand Trunk
was originally to build its line across Queen Street and it took
an act of Legislation in 1857 to transfer the land to the railroad
giving it the right of way along the harbour.
As more railways and industrial activities grew in Toronto,
more and more of the marshier parts of the harbour—our Port
Lands especially to the east—were filled in.
One of the biggest projects was filling in the land around
Ashbridge’s Bay or what was known then as the “Great Marsh,” and the ongoing work to alter the shoreline so it was more
suitable for railway tracks.
In 1912, the Port Lands industrial area was expanded again.
The Toronto Harbour Commission’s Waterfront Plan of 1912
was one of the most ambitious redevelopment plans in the city’s
history. The plan called for dredging the harbour to a depth of
24 feet, and using this dredged fill to create land for industrial,
commercial, and recreational uses. The installation of modern
piers and construction of warehouses—all linked with rail lines
and roadways—would now accommodate the larger shipping
vessels expected after the opening of the Welland Ship Canal.
This was also the time when 1,000 acres of new land was created
by closing the Don mouth and diverting it into Keating Channel.
The project, including the reclaiming of land, continued into
the 1950’s. Since the first “filling in” there would be five major
landfill projects in total.
Railways and
Port Lands: an
Interconnected History
The railways continued to have a tremendous influence on
how our Port Lands were developed. With increased rail
construction, Toronto became linked to Montreal, Quebec,
the Atlantic colonies, and the United States through the Erie
Canal. Soon the city became the main railway hub in Canada
West, which meant that Toronto overtook all other cities in
Canada, except Montreal, in business, industry and commerce.
Toronto’s first train station was established by The Grand Trunk
at the corner of Front and Bay in 1855. The railway shared
the facility with the Great Western Railway. The station was
destroyed by the Great Fire of 1904 and replaced with Union
Station in 1927.
Rail lines also criss-crossed our Port Lands. By 1912 railway lines
entered the Port Lands District south of Keating Channel, and
by 1914 the earliest lines, which were temporary and moveable,
transported construction materials around the District.
A rail line once ran down Munition Street, and the Toronto
Street Railway System operated a line on Commissioners Street
to Cherry Street. Villiers Street had a line down the middle
of two paved roads with spur lines built to various industrial
buildings so it was easier to ship and receive goods.
The Dark Age of the Port Lands
The network of rail lines leading in and out of the city as
well as to factories and loading docks resulted in a very
industrial and unattractive Port Lands area for Toronto
for several decades. Ships would arrive with coal and
lumber, which would stay in huge piles until picked
up by rail and taken to places such as the refinery on
Berkeley Street. Smoke and grime billowed out from
the factory smokestacks, making the buildings dark
with soot and the air dirty and unhealthy. The area was
no longer a place of recreation. No one strolled down
the Esplanade; in fact, the historian Pierre Berton,
called the Esplanade of the time “the most toxic street
in Canada.”
In the 1960’s, many of the older buildings and
warehouses along the waterfront and Port Lands were
demolished to make room for new buildings and
roads—it seemed that we had given up on our Port
Lands. The land was contaminated and unattractive to
developers. Most of it was transferred back to the city
in the 1990’s to be cleaned up and redeveloped.
Transforming our Waterfront Again
Today, Toronto’s waterfront is on its way to becoming
one of the great waterfronts of the world and a spectacular
gateway to our city. In November 2001, the three
levels of government established Waterfront Toronto
(then known as the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization
Corporation) to oversee all aspects of the planning
and development of Toronto’s central waterfront. The
multi-million dollar project involves cleaning up and
redeveloping the now mostly publicly-owned land
so that it’s turned into a significant community for
residences, new business and recreation. The newly
revitalized area would contain various kinds of housing
and rental properties, schools, daycares, libraries, parks
and recreation centres. The project is expected to take
25 years to build and will create approximately 40,000
new residences when complete
Part of the plan is to move the mouth of the Don River
once again through the middle of the Lower Don Lands
between the Keating Channel and the Ship Channel.
The changes to the river mouth would provide the flood
protection necessary to enable development. It would
also make the Don River the centerpiece of new mixeduse
neighbourhoods and parks and green spaces. Most
importantly, it would make the Don River a major
feature of Toronto’s waterfront once again.
Filming in the Port Lands
In recent years, the Port Lands have become known mainly for their
film and media activity. Film activity is common because of interesting
locations, several bridges, and the ample studio and storage space. The
Pinewoods Film Studio (formerly Filmport), for example, boasts an 11-
acre facility with 7 sound stages near Commissioners Street and the Don
Roadway. It’s one of the most comprehensive purpose-built film facilities
in the world and has attracted many big name Hollywood movies such as
the James Bond films and Total Recall. Cherry Beach Sound is another
area business that's useful for media producers, offering post-production
audio services alongside their mainstay work, music production.
Hollywood North and Today’s Distillery District
Because of its many historic Victorian buildings, the Distillery District
has become another favourite film location in Canada. Over the years,
more than 1700 films and television shows have used the site, including
“Chicago”, which transformed the oldest building on site, the Stone
Distillery, into Chicago’s Cook Prison for Women. Many people, who
loved the show Road to Avonlea, will also recognize the Distillery
District transformed into the lanes and buildings of an old town in
Prince Edward Island.
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