Queen Street West - Yonge To University

Yonge To University

Since the 19th century, Queen Street West at Yonge Street has been one of Toronto's primary shopping destinations. Originally, the Eaton's and Simpson's department stores faced each other across Queen Street, with the rivalry between the two stores at one time as central to Toronto retailing as the Macy's/Gimbel's competition was to New York City's retail history. The pedestrian crosswalk on Queen Street, just to the west of the intersection with Yonge Street, was for years one of the busiest in Canada, as thousands of shoppers a day comparison shopped between Eaton's and Simpson's.

Today, Eaton's is gone, but the Toronto Eaton Centre still remains at the same location, one of Canada's largest office and shopping complexes. Similarly, Simpson's is also gone, but the historic department store building remains on the south side of Queen Street, occupied by The Bay department store.

Further west, this stretch of Queen Street is dominated by institutional and cultural buildings such as Old City Hall, Toronto City Hall, Osgoode Hall and the Four Seasons Centre.

Read more about this topic:  Queen Street West

Famous quotes containing the words yonge and/or university:

    the yonge sonne
    Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
    And smale foweles maken melodye,
    That slepen al the nyght with open eye—
    So priketh hem nature in hir corages—
    Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
    Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)

    One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.
    Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)