Bay Street

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.