St. Lawrence Market is one of the two sites in Toronto (the other is nearby St. James Cathedral) that has been used for the same purpose since the city's earliest days.
Generations of farmers, butchers and vegetable mongers have come down to lay out their wares. Generations of shoppers have come to fill their grocery bags. In a constantly changing city, that kind of continuity is rare and precious.
So when city hall decided to tear down and rebuild the newish market building on the north side of Front Street and replace it with something better, archeologists got a twinkle in their eyes. Here was a chance to explore the buried remnants of Toronto's past, layer upon layer. At least five market structures have stood on the site. What traces would remain of all those years of busy commerce?
Artifacts from the archeological dig, such as these old bottles, are on display at the Market Gallery until March 18.
Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
By luck, the site had never suffered a huge excavation. The ground was covered only by a layer of concrete, the floor of the modern, 1968 market building. After that structure was torn down last fall, crews got digging.
They haven't found any priceless artifacts. They didn't expect to. This was a market, not a pharaoh's tomb. Instead, they found butchered bones, iron meat hooks, painted ceramics, a soda bottle and an 1852 Bank of Upper Canada half-penny token. More important, they found the remains of the various buildings of evolving style and size that stood there, each a marker of the city's growth.
Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe founded what was then the Town of York in 1793. Just 10 years later, Lieutenant-Governor Peter Hunter issued a proclamation declaring the St. Lawrence site as the town market. The first official market day was Nov. 5, 1803. Vendors did business from carts and stalls in the open air. To provide some shelter, a wooden shed was constructed around 1814. A bigger one with stalls for 22 butchers replaced it in 1820.
North St. Lawrence Market (built 1850), c. 1888.
F. W. Micklethwaite/Toronto Public Library
The first brick structure rose on the site in 1831 to cope with the demands of a growing town.
It was a two-storey affair with a big open courtyard at its centre, an arched entryway at the King Street end and an assembly room over top, where city council eventually held its meetings.
After the Great Fire of 1849 swept through the city, it was replaced by the next-generation market building, this one in the shape of a capital letter "I," with the grand new St. Lawrence Hall standing at the King end.
Artifacts from the dig, such as a gas light fitting in foreground and bones with butcher marks, are on display at the Market Gallery until March 18.
Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
When even that proved too small, the city erected a giant market complex with a vaulted roof. One hall, completed in 1904, stood to the north of Front Street and one to the south, joined by a great iron canopy spanning the street. The south market building stands still. A 1971 report recommended tearing it down, but protesting citizen's groups managed to prevent that disaster.
The rundown north building came down in 1968, a victim of the rage for urban renewal that destroyed so much of Toronto's architectural heritage. In its place rose the squat box-like thing, a symbol of 1960s ugliness if there ever was one, that was the home of a weekend farmers' market in recent decades.
The story of the market excavations is told in an exhibition that runs to March 18 at the Market Gallery in the south building, overlooking the archeological dig across the street. The archeologists discovered a series of trenches that early vendors used as sort of rudimentary root cellars to keep their vegetables from rotting. They also uncovered evidence of the (for the day) modern sewer and drainage system installed in the 1831 building.
West Market Street, Toronto, 1888. Shows the east side of the North Market and the 1845 City Hall (with cupola, now the South Market) to the south.
Archives of Ontario
What stands out about this site is how central it was for so long to the economic and civic life of the city. The market was the focal point for the agricultural economy of the region. Carts, trucks, trains, even boats (in the days, before harbour infill, when the market was next to the water) converged on the market.
The city's second city hall stood on the south side of Front until 1899, when the new (now old) city hall opened at Bay and Queen. Archives show that city leaders were preoccupied with maintaining and upgrading the market, an essential piece of urban infrastructure. Then, as now, they struggled with how to pay for it all.
What is even more remarkable is how this place – the stomach of the city – remained under one use for so many years. The new north building will continue the tradition. The handsome glass and steel structure will have courts and offices in the top floors and parking underneath, but the main floor will again serve as a bustling food market, just as it did in 1803. There is something quite comforting about that. With luck, Torontonians will be buying apples and bread at St. Lawrence Market for another 200 years.