Gooderham Building - The Flatiron of Old Town

Photo: David Fulmer, CC BY 2.0 (cropped)

A stop on Toronto Downtown Walk, a free self-guided tour.

This red-brick wedge filled its triangle of land in 1892, a decade before New York finished its more famous Flatiron Building. Distiller George Gooderham commissioned it as the head office of Gooderham and Worts, the family distillery down by the harbour whose whisky helped make Toronto rich. Architect David Roberts Jr. gave it a Romanesque Revival look, and the company kept its offices here until 1952.

You are now on the edge of the city's oldest quarter. When Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe founded the Town of York in 1793, its first ten blocks were laid out just east of here, and Front Street really was the front, facing the lake before landfill pushed the shoreline south. York grew, and in 1834 it was incorporated as the City of Toronto.

Walk around to the flat back of the building, facing Berczy Park, to see Derek Besant's trompe l'oeil mural: a painted wall of windows that seems to peel away like a sheet of paper.

Getting here: Walk two blocks east on Front Street to Berczy Park; the Gooderham Building is the wedge at the park's far end, where Front and Wellington meet at Church Street.

Did you know?: The fountain in Berczy Park has 27 cast-iron dogs spouting water and gazing up at a golden bone. The lone cat, nicknamed Pam McCat after a local councillor, ignores them and watches two small bird statues on a nearby lamp post.

Photo op: Cross to the east side of Church Street and shoot west: the building's narrow prow with the Financial District towers stacked up behind it.

More on Wikipedia: Gooderham Building · Gooderham and Worts · Berczy Park · John Graves Simcoe

Gooderham Building - The Flatiron of Old Town

Stops on this tour