Amazing video. I'm wondering about the history of the buildings located from the corner of Adelaide and Dundas, up to the old Paper Box Company. Where the Wisdom Tea Shop etc. would be located now. Thanks in advance
Sorry about the delay there. It's not all that far from my apartment, so I figured I'd give it a crack... - 608 Dundas Street was a bank for most of its history. There used to be a relatively plain three-storey Second Empire structure on the site which housed the Merchant's Bank of Canada. Bank of Montreal moved in it 1923. Not sure when the current building replaced the old one, but at a glance it looks 1950ish. - 610, 612, & 614 Dundas were all built between 1895 and 1905. They're on the site of the former Anderson orchard which used to stretch all the way to the intersection. Murray Anderson's residence once stood where the Somerville Paper Box Factory now stands, and much of the block was his property. He sold off bits of it in chunks. If you notice the elaborate bay window on the east side of 614 Dundas - its' an anachronism of a sort. When built, the window overlooked Anderson's remaining gardens. They can't have been happy when 616 Dundas went up. - 616 Dundas was built in 1928 for Cairncross Drugs. It was designed by John Mackenzie Moore, one of London's leading architects at the time, although its a relatively modest building itself. There are some nice details on the upper floor. - The buildings the OTHER side of the Somerville Building were built in the 1870s by Murray Anderson as a speculative investment and are among the oldest surviving commercial buildings in East London. The architect of the block was Samuel Peters, the city's first resident architect.
