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On the Toronto Waterfront

Over time what had started out as a rather simple flour mill and windmill operated by William Gooderham and his son, James, evolved into one of the largest distilleries in North America. Many of the firm’s original buildings are now undergoing restoration for a number of new uses.

Interestingly, the original Worts and Gooderham windmill served another purpose, one that bore no relation to either milling or distilling. It formed the eastern end of an imaginary line drawn on an 1832 map of the harbour by city officials connecting the site of the old distillery windmill with the ruins of the French fort (Fort Rouillé) that stood for less than a decade steps west of the present-day Bandshell in Exhibition Place (and coincidentally steps east of the new wind turbine).

The boundary resulted from concerns that wharves would be extended farther and farther into the bay to take advantage of additional loading and off-loading space. This extra space would translate into additional income for the wharf owner while severely inconveniencing the hundreds of ships arriving and departing the busy Port of Toronto each sailing season. To offset this possibility the Windmill Line would delineate the maximum southerly limit of any wharf constructed from the mainland out into Toronto Bay.

The original 1832 Windmill Line was extended farther south into the bay on several occasions with the final adjustment made in 1893.

As the rules on how far south into the bay Toronto’s waterfront could be extended changed, so, too, did the look of the central waterfront. In the foreground is an area of newly reclaimed land created by dumping hundreds of tons of fill at the foot of Yonge Street.

The same view a decade later. Large portions of the newly reclaimed land have been paved over and new streets such as Fleet and Harbour (each now part of Lake Shore Boulevard), lower Yonge Street, and Queen’s Quay opened. The new skyscraper in town is the recently completed Bank of Commerce Building on the south side of King Street, a block west of Yonge.

Looking north on Yonge Street from Toronto Bay in 2002.

Each change resulted in the filling in of the water lots between wharves and the creation of acres of new land along the water’s edge. In 1925 the historic Windmill Line was superseded by the Toronto Harbour Commission’s new Harbourhead Line, which defines the waterfront configuration of today.

March 9, 2003