Caption: Preface: a photo exemplifying the slow decline of the railway's importance to the downtown cores of Toronto and other big cities. Once the main method to reliably transport both people and goods across Canada and into the US, the shift of manufacturing out of downtown to the suburbs and overseas, the transition from blue-collar to white-collar employment (traditional manufacturing giving way to business/finance/commerce/technology sectors of the economy, often centralized in major North American cities such as Toronto and Montreal), changing modes of transportation including the rise of truck traffic, globalization, containerization, airline travel and the private automobile meant the railways didn't really factor in as prominently in many people's lives as before, or in the operations of many of the "new" downtown businesses (other American cities were less fortunate, as historically the rise and move to the suburbs often left downtowns desolate and crime-ridden. This fate was largely avoided by Toronto and other large Canadian cities).

As such, railways followed where their customers went: sidings to new suburban business parks, new modern automated classification yards outside of the cities where land was cheap and plentiful, new piggyback and container-handling yards located near major highways and junction points, and centralized freight sorting/logistics warehouses. Demolition of many old steam-era railway facilities in and around downtowns followed, many by now either outdated, under-utilized, constrained for space, or replaced by newer facilities. CN and CP both came up with redevelopment plans for their sprawling downtown real estate holdings. The CN Tower, for instance, was just one part of a larger 70's Metro Centre development plan that never came to fruition. Even Toronto's Union Station was considered for demolition and redevelopment at one point.

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Framed in the Whiting 20-ton overhead crane over the nearby team tracks, the old CP Express / Dominion Express Company freight sheds and office building at Simcoe and King Streets are slowly being reduced to rubble, in preparation for redevelopment as a new concert hall site for Massey Hall. Originally built in 1912-13, the sidings in the distance running along the sheds and platforms were once home to long cuts of 40' boxcars taking in and unloading LCL (Less than Carload) shipments, transloaded to/from teams of horse-drawn wagons and later trucks for local dispersal. Steam engines and early diesel switchers would regularly head up the King Street shed lead's incline from Bathurst Street, cross Spadina and head to the sheds to pull and spot cuts of boxcars, as was also the case at CN's own freight sheds located to the south (demolished around 1967-68). We're looking east from Peter Street towards the main site, bounded by King, Simcoe, Wellington and John Streets (upper-most yard in the middle here). The main CP Express offices were in a 7-story building at the SW corner of King & Simcoe (partially visible) that will also be demolished (there were some who voiced opposition to demolition of the office and proposed incorporating it into the new development, and the city did recognize its historic value, but ultimately it was not saved). The orange backhoe on the roof and equipment in other photos suggests local demolition contractor Teperman Wrecking is doing the work, also known for demolishing the old Eaton's Queen Street store.

New modern office towers loom high in the background, pointing to future trends to come for downtown Toronto. The new development coming here is a joint effort between CP's real estate branch Marathon Realty, who wanted multiple office towers with commercial space, the City of Toronto (spearheaded by mayor David Crombie) who wanted to incorporate a certain amount of housing under a new planning board requirement, and the Massey Hall board of governors who wanted a site to build a new Massey Hall concert venue. Initially the project was sparked by a request from Mayor Crombie to CP CEO Ian Sinclair about using the site for a new Massey Hall. Sinclair agreed and got CP's real estate arm Marathon involved. According to a July 1976 article in the Toronto Star, after much negotiation (CP was opposed to incorporating housing in the then-still industrial area) a deal was worked out between the three parties, but some viewed the land lease terms the city agreed to as very favourable for Marathon. Maybe too favourable, as even though the plan was voted on and accepted by city council, there was some debate about it: one member quipped it was "the worst deal since Sir John A. Macdonald sold part of Canada to the railways for two pieces of steel", others considered it a "total sell-out" on the mayor's part to Marathon.

At any rate, the old freight sheds and office building were demolished in the late 70's, the site was cleared, and development on the new Massey Hall began. The name was changed to Roy Thomson Hall because of a donation from the Thomson family during fundraising efforts, and the new concert venue opened for the Toronto public in September of 1982.

Despite the initial agreement, other new development on the site was slow to follow, and most of the property (and adjacent former CN land to the south) remained parking lots for years until more development began in the late 80's. Notable was Metro Hall, a new office building for the pre-amalgamation Metro Toronto governing body, that would be built on the site in 1992. Some of the old CP freight sheds on the right of the photo (west of John Street) and team tracks would be retained into the mid-1980's for paper deliveries (the "Paper Shed"), but they too were eventually demolished after 1987.

One small piece did manage to elude the wrecking ball: the old crossing shanty in the middle of the photo for the John Street grade crossing (John St. intersected part of the sidings and sheds, and was manually protected) would be saved, and today is preserved at the TRHA's Roundhouse Park nearby.

Keith Hansen photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection slide.