LOST HOTELS
In Ward 30

 

The New Broadview House Hotel is a four story hotel at Broadview Avenue and Queen Street East in Toronto, Ontario. Built in 1893, the Romanesque style hotel was built for Archibald Dingham and located in the historic neighbourhood of Riverdale

The New Edwin Hotel is a three storey hotel in Toronto. It was built in 1905 to serve railway passengers coming from a now closed station. The once dignified hotel for several decades was a seedy home for rent with daily and weekly rates. All three floors remained a hotel, while a portion of the lower floor was a nightclub.

The recent loss of the building that housed the Empress and then later the Edison Hotel at Yonge and Gould got me wondering about Toronto's other formerly grand but now inevitably lost hotels. While the Royal York, King Edward and Gladstone hotels continue to fulfill their original purpose, there are loads of structures around the city -- like the one at Yonge and Gould was until a few days ago -- that were once part of the hotel landscape that now house an assortment of other businesses. And, not surprisingly, there are plenty of other former hotels that were knocked down as the city expanded.

The original use of some of the remaining buildings is easy to identify in some cases, but more often than not, modifications over time have obscured the fact that they used to be places of accommodation (rather than restaurants or retail outlets). As such, a little trip down memory lane might offer a timely reminder of how lovely some of these buildings were and how important they remain (in the cases where they haven't already been demolished) to the city's heritage.

Some of these structures are in a sorry state, and it'd be fitting tribute to the old Empress to ensure that a similar fate doesn't befall them. For more information and additional images check out Toronto History on Flickr, which has links to Google Street View links that illustrate what these hotels look like today or what has replaced them. Lead image of the Rosedale Hotel (Yonge just south of Scrivner Square, still standing).

The original use of some of the remaining buildings is easy to identify in some cases, but more often than not, modifications over time have obscured the fact that they used to be places of accommodation (rather than restaurants or retail outlets). As such, a little trip down memory lane might offer a timely reminder of how lovely some of these buildings were and how important they remain (in the cases where they haven't already been demolished) to the city's heritage.

Some of these structures are in a sorry state, and it'd be fitting tribute to the old Empress to ensure that a similar fate doesn't befall them. For more information and additional images check out Toronto History on Flickr, which has links to Google Street View links that illustrate what these hotels look like today or what has replaced them. Lead image of the Rosedale Hotel (Yonge just south of Scrivner Square, still standing).

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