11 St. Joseph Street

Photos and text by contributor Wayne Adam - Posted June, 2009

If you look carefully at the wall on the left side of the photo of this building at 11 St. Joseph Street at St. Nicholas Street (southwest corner), you will see this plaque. Here's what it says:

Plaque coordinates: 43.665766 -79.385989

Rawlinson Cartage, one of the oldest express and storage firms in Toronto, had their main shop at 610 Yonge Street and their warehouse on St. Nicholas and St. Joseph Streets. The buildings at 5 St. Joseph (built 1905-1907), 11 St. Joseph (built in two phases between 1895 and 1898), 9 St. Nicholas (1913), and the former stables and storehouse at 15 St. Nicholas were red brick buildings with restrained classical detailing. They formed a distinctive commercial enclave in the area northwest of Yonge and Wellesley Streets. Designed by the successive architectural firms of Dick and Wickson, A. Frank Wickson and Wickson and Gregg, the St. Joseph Street facades were noteworthy for their flat-headed, segmental and arched openings, decorative brickwork, strong cornices, and stone details. They exemplified commercial architecture of the 1890s in Toronto.

Between 2002 and 2004, the site was redeveloped for residential use. The designated facades on St. Joseph and St. Nicholas Streets were carefully dismantled and reassembled in their original location to commemorate the original architecture of the site.

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Posted February 13, 2011
Hi, I'm wondering whether anyone knows more about what 11 St. Joseph Street originally was. There's an inner courtyard in the building that is also apparently a historic site. I'm just curious about this!

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