Toronto | Galleria On The Park | 143.86m | 42s | Almadev | Hariri Pontarini | Page 31

Northern Light · Jan 19, 2023

In light of the fun w/historical photos over in the Davenport Diamond Separation thread.......

I've been trying to find pics of this site before it was Galleria Mall.

I can find aerials w/o issue; but I was aiming for street level.

Turns out this site had many industrial incarnations, I believe its last, pre-mall, was as a Dodge/Chrysler factory.

I was curious if any part of the mall was repurposed from said buildings, as la Shopper's World Danforth, or if the site was clean-slated for the mall.

smably · Jan 19, 2023

Northern Light said:
In light of the fun w/historical photos over in the Davenport Diamond Separation thread.......

I've been trying to find pics of this site before it was Galleria Mall.

I can find aerials w/o issue; but I was aiming for street level.

Turns out this site had many industrial incarnations, I believe its last, pre-mall, was as a Dodge/Chrysler factory.

I was curious if any part of the mall was repurposed from said buildings, as la Shopper's World Danforth, or if the site was clean-slated for the mall.

TIL that it was a Dodge/Chrysler factory. I know I've seen it marked as the Dominion Radiator Factory on Goad's maps. I think I did a deep dive through various archives a while back trying to find photos of the site (as a radiator factory) and came up empty-handed.

Northern Light · Jan 19, 2023

smably said:
TIL that it was a Dodge/Chrysler factory. I know I've seen it marked as the Dominion Radiator Factory on Goad's maps. I think I did a deep dive through various archives a while back trying to find photos of the site (as a radiator factory) and came up empty-handed.

From Wikipedia:

Northern Light · Jan 19, 2023

Ooooh, found an old Abstract with some interesting stuff in it:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi-kvipqdT8AhVemGoFHa0MBWUQFnoECDsQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmacsphere.mcmaster.ca%2Fbitstream%2F11375%2F11770%2F1%2Ffulltext.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2WGxbopCsxTBst_sywnlDN

From the above:

No pretty pictures, but still interesting.

Northern Light · Jan 19, 2023

The aerial of the site as a car factory:

from: https://reimaginegalleria.com/project/history/

isaidso · Jan 20, 2023

Dodge Brother in 1925 and then Chrysler in 1928. Historically, Toronto was predominantly a blue collar industrial city. Our white collar professional reality is a rather recent development.

smably · Jan 20, 2023

Fun fact from the HIA for Hullmark's Radiator project:

In 1907-1908, Dominion vacated the Site [on Dufferin south of Queen] in favour of a new, larger complex designed by E.J Lennox, located at Dufferin and Dupont Streets

And it seems the factory suffered a major fire in 1925:

I wonder whether the fire hastened its transition from a radiator factory to a car factory?

Sadly, still couldn't find any photos.

junctionist · Jan 20, 2023

This gem of a building at Dupont and Christie was originally a Ford plant. It originally had a test track for cars on the roof, according to this source.

contributor · Feb 13, 2023

Dare I say, Galleria 3 is gorgeous. Tastes are different but instinctively when something looks good it is hard to deny, regardless of taste. I wish there was a bar set for quality of design and esthetics in this city, It must affect people's mental well being (they should do a study on this). Can the quality of design and esthetics be regulated?

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interchange42 · Feb 13, 2023

contributor said:
Dare I say, Galleria 3 is gorgeous. Tastes are different but instinctively when something looks good it is hard to deny, regardless of taste. I wish there was a bar set for quality of design and esthetics in this city, It must affect people's mental well being (they should do a study on this). Can the quality of design and esthetics be regulated? .

The only aspects of the exterior that the City can regulate effectively is the performance of the materials re: resistance to fire, thermal properties, etc, qualities that can be measured essentially. The City cannot mandate aesthetics beyond that... as demonstrated by much of what goes up!

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