York the new capital of Upper Canada, 1803. Courtesy of the Toronto Public Library.
The Gooderham "Flatiron" Building, Toronto, 1898.
Dog fountain, Berczy Park, September 15, 2018. Image by Herman Custodio.
William Berczy
Under British rule, Toronto was named York. With a few exceptions, the dirt roads were mapped in a grid pattern that ignored the ancient portage routes Indigenous nations had created around the natural features of the Great Lakes. William Berczy, one of the early colonial surveyors of this area, is the namesake for Berczy Park today.
Berczy (born Johann Albercht Ulrich Moll) was a German-born architect, painter, and surveyor who helped a group of German immigrants, mainly farmers and craftsmen, to settle in Upper Canada. He worked alongside Upper Canada’s first governor, John Graves Simcoe.
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Muddy York
Front Street is so named because it literally fronted Lake Ontario’s shoreline, but the roads of the time were dirt paths roughly cleared of trees, which when wet helped Toronto to earn another nickname – Muddy York.People reportedly strapped planks of wood to their feet to cross the treacherous paths.
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Gooderham Building
Although the New York Flatiron building is more famous, Toronto’s Gooderham Building (1892) predates it by a decade, and was the second of its kind on this site. Commissioned by the Gooderham family for their company offices, the Flatiron building overlooked many of the industries and businesses they owned or held shares in.
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Worts Distillery
The Gooderham family had shares in the King Edward Hotel, the railways, and most notably, Gooderham and Worts Distillery (now the Distillery District). George Gooderham died the wealthiest man in Ontario, and the taxes collected from estate were even used to pull the province out of its deficit.
