page_title: The Esplanade (Toronto)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: The Esplanade (Toronto) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Toronto wholesale fruit market, formerly the Grand Trunk Railway Station, at Yonge Street and the Esplanade. Toronto, Canada.
context_page_description: The Esplanade is an east-west street along the central waterfront of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Originally conceived as a city beautification project to clean up the city's waterfront in the 1850s, the street was taken over by the coming of the railways to Toronto in 1850. The railway eventually moved to an elevated viaduct, leaving only the eastern section of the street today. The area, east of Yonge Street, was dominated by industrial uses until the second half of the 20th century. As the harbour declined as a transfer point, the railway and industrial uses left the area. The Esplanade was redeveloped into a residential area, known as the "St. Lawrence Neighbourhood" in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This neighbourhood consists of generally low-rise and mid-rise housing - condominiums, public housing, cooperatives and some town homes between Jarvis and Parliament Streets south of Front Street. In the blocks between Jarvis and Parliament, the southern part of the street were converted to a long strip of park and recreation space for the residents - David Crombie Park. The stretch between Scott Street and Market Street is a popular restaurant area.
context_section_description: In the 1840s, Toronto's waterfront was a combination of wharves and squatter buildings. The area where The Esplanade is today was then part of the harbour, south of the shoreline. The Esplanade, a 100 feet (30 m)-wide road, was proposed, just south of Front Street, with new water lots made from cribbing and filling of the shore to the south. The waterfront was extended to a survey line from the point of the Gooderham windmill west to a point due east of the old Fort Rouillé. The new Esplanade was built in the 1850s at a cost of £150,000. Ostensibly for carriages and carts, the roadway eventually became primarily the route for rail lines in the central core. In exchange for 40 feet (12 m) of the Esplanade, the railways underwrote the infilling of the harbour. The Esplanade and infill project was complete by 1865. The project was the start of the railways taking over the entire Esplanade to the west of Yonge Street, and almost all of the harbour area. Gates were added to hold traffic as trains ran past each intersection.
  The Grand Trunk Railway built its first station at Bay Street and The Esplanade before building the first Union Station at York Street and The Esplanade. The Union Station would be replaced by a new Union Station in 1873 at the same location. The current Union Station was built in the 1910s and 1920s, and the new viaduct took over the Esplanade course permanently. By then, landfill had extended the waterline further south. The Esplanade once ran west from Yonge Street to Spadina Avenue with rest lost to re-development: Metro Toronto Convention Centre from John Street to Lower Simcoe Street; SkyWalk from Lower Simcoe Street to York Street (former CNCP Building and Canadian National Express Building and partially by old Union Station); Union Station built over section from Bay Street to York Street; Union Station Bus Terminal (previous CP Express and Transport Building) covers area from Yonge to Bay and uses old section of road as an internal roadway for buses. A new section of the Esplanade West (west of Bay Street to Spadina) emerged in the 1990s but renamed as Bremner Boulevard in honour of former Toronto Public Works Commissioner Ray Bremner (died 2004). Portion from east of York Street was renamed as Raptors Way in 2019.
  The Great Western Railway built its rail station at the intersection of Yonge Street and The Esplanade. After the viaduct was built and passenger rail operations moved to the Union Station to the west, the building was converted to a freight office, then to the Toronto Wholesale Fruit Market. The location became part of the site for the new O'Keefe Centre for the Performing Arts (now the Sony Centre) in 1960. The Fruit Market and the wholesale market west of the St. Lawrence Market moved out of downtown to the Ontario Food Terminal by the Humber River to the west.
caption: View of Wholesale Fruit Market, former GWR rail station
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