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	Church & Wellesley: Photos
	Apartment life, pre-1950s / Appx 480 words / 4 images / 115 K total

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The Manhattan, 1909
68 - 70 Charles Street East

Apartment life
before the '50s

One of the city's earliest structures built as an apartment house, the 3-storey Manhattan gracefully incorporated an earlier house around the corner on Church Street. Nearly 90 years later, it's still an elegant if slightly faded address.

The Maitlands, 1911
36 (shown here) and 42 Maitland Street

What seems two buildings (almost identical except at the cornice, one of which looks to have been removed) are actually one, joined as a U at the back. Both facades say "The Maitlands" over the door, in gold leaf on glass -- unfortunately in shadow here under the portico.

Now facing the tall towers of the Village Green on the south side of the street, The Maitlands nearly fell to their development. Some mid- '50s plans would have wiped out not just these buildings but the street they sit on as well.

Apartments here are big and rambling, many of their windows in bays along the sides of both wings. Across the back: spacious wooden porches shared by tenants on the top three floors.

Redfern Court, possibly 1920s
64 Wellesley Street East
Behind: 41 Dundonald Street, late '60s

I have no date for this building. The style suggests it's earlier than 77 Wellesley East, dated 1926, and later than the Ernescliffe Apartments on Wellesley at Sherbourne, from 1914. All are big: along with 412 - 414 Jarvis (now derelict), they were probably the area's biggest residential buildings of the day.

Redfern Court is unusual (but not unique: it has a near twin of 6 floors at 110 Wellesley East) for packing all of its 60 units into one big box. It extends nearly back to The Alexandra (18 storeys, begun in 1968) on Dundonald. See other views of The Alexandra in pages on Houses and Church & Wellesley's four corners.

The Brownley, 1932
40 - 42 Isabella Street

Art Deco was the final dress style of local apartment blocks before the Depression foreclosed further development. Star Mansions at 61 - 63 Charles Street East is another good example, similar to The Brownley as well in being a single, not twinned, structure.

Contemporary to both (though just outside the tract) is a rare pre-1950s apartment tower, at 300 Jarvis Street, opened in 1930 as the Frontenac Arms. Its 10 storeys of bold Deco were meant to offer the epitome of stylish downtown living.

But the Depression intervened: within a decade the Frontenac was a hotel and still is, now the Clarion Essex Park. In the early '70s it was called The Carriage House, its downstairs lounge one of the city's glitzier gay spots of the time.

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Time & Place: Toronto, 1971 / More on Church & Wellesley