History
Clarence Square
The park across from the SoHo Hotel Toronto, is reminiscent of squares created in London, England, during the 1820s. The square is one of the oldest remaining park spaces in the downtown core of Toronto showing on map from the mid 1800s.
Toronto’s Elite
Two of the grandest houses ever constructed in Toronto were situated on Clarence Square. On the north side was the home of Hugh John Macdonald, son of Sir John A. Macdonald, the nation’s first prime minister.
On the south side of the square was the residence of John Gordon, president of the Toronto Grey and Bruce Railway, who built a magnificent mansion in the detailed Italianate style.
The Great Fire of 1904
This infamous fire started around Bay and Wellington and devastated a large part of Toronto’s commercial and industrial centre. Over 125 businesses were burnt out, most of them manufacturers and importers of fabrics and clothing, paper goods, books, drugs, chemicals, hardware, and machinery. This was the aftermath looking west down Wellington Street.
Industrialization
After the Great Fire, the 1900s soon saw the area shift with a massive influx of factories. The large mansions that originally dominated the area would be demolished and replaced by manufacturing factories serviced by the nearby rail yards.
SoHo Metropolitan
The architect firm that designed this modern multipurpose structure is Page and Steele architects. The building completed construction in April 2003. The building was divided from a condominium in which the first four floors would belong to the Toronto’s first modern luxury boutique hotel in the downtown core. By 2019, the hotel undertook its first renovations and rebranded as SoHo Hotel Toronto.
