Bay Street is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Toronto. It is the centre of Toronto's Financial District and is often used by metonymy to refer to Canada's financial industry since succeeding Montreal's St. James Street in that role in the 1970s.
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. At these two points, there is a curve in Bay Street.
"Bay Street banker," as in the phrase "cold as a Bay Street banker's heart," was a term of opprobrium especially among Prairie farmers who feared that financial interests were hurting them. Within the legal profession, the term Bay Street is also used colloquially to refer to the large, full-service business law firms of Toronto.
Read more about Bay Street: History, Points of Interest
Famous quotes containing the words bay and/or street:
“Baltimore lay very near the immense protein factory of Chesapeake Bay, and out of the bay it ate divinely. I well recall the time when prime hard crabs of the channel species, blue in color, at least eight inches in length along the shell, and with snow-white meat almost as firm as soap, were hawked in Hollins Street of Summer mornings at ten cents a dozen.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“If you don’t have a policeman to stop traffic and let you walk across the street like you are somebody, how are you going to know you are somebody?”
—John C. White (b. 1924)