Technology Talks
by modern living editor Jason Capodimonte
A few years ago I wrote here about Frank Sprague, the inventor of the modern city. Specifically, he was the inventor or perfecter of technology that made the modern city possible. He invented a way to allow streetcars to run on intersecting lines (making city streetcar systems possible), perfected the electric elevator (making skyscrapers possible), and invented the multiple-unit train controller (making the modern electric subway train possible).
Over the last year I have become interested in the history of the main street in my part of town. This is St. Clair Avenue West, which runs west from Yonge Street to Scarlett Road in Toronto, about three miles north of Lake Ontario. It is a concession road, which means it was planned by the British as a main road. However, in 1911, it was a dirt track (for a view looking west from Spadina Avenue click here).
Settlement clustered atround railway and streetcar lines. In the west a village had grown around two railway stations. In the east an upscale residential neighbourhood, Deer Park, had developed around the intersection with Yonge Street and its streetcar line, while a similar neighbourhood, College Heights, was developing four blocks to the east at the intersection with Avenue Road, the northern terminus of the Avenue Road streetcar line.
However, College Heights ended less than a mile west of Yonge, at Russell Hill Road. There were scattered houses along the rest of the road, but for the most part it ran through farmland.
In 1911 the City of Toronto annexed the City of West Toronto and acquired control of the entire length of St. Clair West. Toronto decided to develop St. Clair West, so it widened the street, paved it, and put a street car line down it, bridging a ravine so people could travel the full length of the street. The streetcar line opened in 1913, with development already under way in anticipation of its opening. By 1930 the street was fully developed (for a view from the same spot as the last picture, click here). Development between Yonge and Bathurst Street, a mile and a quarter west, remained largely residential, but beyond Bathurst low-rise commercial development prevailed.
Development slowed during the Depression, of course, and after the Second World War nothing much happened until another of Frank's inventions appeared on the scene. A subway station was built at Yonge and St. Clair. This almost immediately created an urban development node, a zone of commercial development at much higher density than adjoining neighbourhhods. Tall commercial buildings sprang up at Yonge Street and for four blocks west on St. Clair West. The development followed the streetcar line (the line on Yonge had been replaced by the subway, so there were fewer local stops on Yonge). The four-storey Duplate building, built in 1950-1951 to the scale of the neighbourhood, acquired a 12-storey annex built in 1956-1957 to the new scale of the neighbourhood. The Imperial Oil building, a higher-density commercal building, opened in 1957, and more buildings of 20 or so storeys followed. The commercialization of the four blocks west of Yonge seems to have led to an increase in medium and high-density residential development in the next ten blocks. However, neighbourhoods farther west were unaffected.
Since 1954 no new transportation technologies have appeared on St. Clair West. A second subway station was built at Bathurst Street, but that seems to have been attracted by the residential development resulting from the buidling of the first station at Yonge. Other technologies have lessened the advantages of being as close to downtown as St. Clair West is. Thanks to improvements in technology, Calgary is no longer remote, so Imperial Oil pulled up stakes a few years ago, leaving an empty building. Other commercial buildings in the urban node have been replaced by new condominium buildings, and the 12-storey annex of the Duplate building has been converted to condos.
The western end of the street has been redeveloped, past the end of the streetcar line, with big-box stores – for drivers, in other words. New residential development there is still low-density, though. So St. Clair West rode the technological wave for a while, but now the wave has passed it. Plans for encouraging higher-density developent are being implemented, but unless someone builds an airport at Yonge Street, we will never again see explosive development like that following 1911 and 1954. You can have all the public planning consultation you want; technology tells the tale. Thanks for the ride, Frank.
Technology Talks © John FitzGerald, 2008
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