Bay Street
Bay Street is a street in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the centre of Toronto's financial district and is often used by metonymy to refer to Canada's financial industry just as Wall Street is used in the United States and The City is in the United Kingdom. The name of the street originated in 1797 from the fact that it connected (then) Lot Street (now Queen Street West) to a bay in Toronto harbour.
The intersection of Bay and King Street is often seen as the epicentre of Canadian banking and finance. Four of Canada's five major banks have office towers at the intersection, the Bank of Montreal at First Canadian Place, Scotiabank at Scotia Plaza, CIBC at Commerce Court, and Toronto-Dominion Bank at the Toronto Dominion Centre. Historically, this was known as the "MINT Corner" (Montreal, Imperial, Nova Scotia, Toronto-Dominion) but since 1962 the Imperial Bank has been part of CIBC and the Bank of Nova Scotia has rebranded itself so this nickname is no longer widely used.
Another prominent intersection is Bay & Bloor, which is often considered Canada's most elite and expensive shopping district.
Bay Street stretches from Queens Quay (Toronto Harbour) in the south to Davenport Road in the north. The original section of Bay Street ran only as far north as Queen Street West. Sections north of Queen Street were renamed Bay Street as several other streets were consolidated and several gaps filled in to create a new thoroughfare in the 1920s. The largest of these streets, Terauley Street, ran from Queen Street West to Grenville Street.
Condominium development on Bay north of the financial district boomed during the 1990s attracting many who work there to live downtown, thereby avoiding the daily commute.
Bay Street is home to numerous corporate headquarters, high-powered legal firms, insurance companies and stockbrokers. In turn, the presence of so many decision-makers has brought in advertising agencies and marketing companies. The banks have built large office towers, much of whose space is leased to these companies. The bank towers, and much else in Toronto's core, are connected by a system of underground walkways, known as PATH, which is lined with retail establishments making the area one of the most important shopping districts in Toronto. The vast majority of these stores are only open during weekdays when the financial district is populated. During the weekend, the walkways remain open but the area is deserted and the stores are closed.
It is estimated that 100,000 commuters enter and leave the financial district each working day. Transport links are centred on Union Station at the south end of the financial district, which is the hub of the GO Transit system that provides rail and bus links to Toronto's suburbs. The intersection of Bay and Bloor is the location of the Toronto Transit Commission's Bay subway station. Bay Street is served by the 6 BAY bus, one of the relatively few downtown bus routes. The street was originally served by streetcar, however the opening of the north-south Yonge Subway in 1954 caused a number of parallel streetcar routes to be replaced by buses, including Bay.
See also
Major streets in Toronto which intersect with Bay Street (south to north):
- Queen's Quay
- Lakeshore Boulevard
- Front Street
- King Street
- Wellington Street
- Adelaide Street
- Queen Street
- Dundas Street
- Gerrard Street
- College Street
- Bloor Street
- Richmond Street
References
- Wise, Leonard and Gould, Allan, Toronto Street Names (Toronto: Firefly Books, 2000)
External links
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