THE HEART OF THE CITY
VICTORIA HALL &
THE MacKAY BUILDING
| MacKay
Building 66 King Street East
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Victoria Hall 68 King Street East  CURRENT STATUS (1999)Present Owner: Grail Investments Ltd., Willowdale Present Use: Vacant Heritage Status: Designated under the Ontario Heritage Act as a building of architectural and historical significance and included on LACAC’s list of Landmark Buildings in the Downtown Core Locally Significant Date: High Victorian
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Victoria Hall, located at 68
King Street East, was designed and built in 1887-88 by architect William Stewart for
Alexander Bruce, a local barrister employed for many years by the Canada Life Assurance Company. This building belongs to a
row of seven pre-modern structures.
Victoria Hall is the only known example in the downtown of an applied galvanized iron metal façade, which dates back to the 1880s. This building is one of three documented buildings in the country, erected prior to 1890, with a full metal façade. The other two buildings are: The Petrie Building in Guelph, built in 1882, and the Empire Hotel in Winnipeg, built in 1882-3.
Of these, Victoria Hall is the only one to
that was handcrafted. All the components were made by traditional tinsmithing techniques
(cutting, bending, and hammering . . .). It is suspected that the façade of Victoria Hall
was fabricated and erected by a local firm (either the Galvanized Iron Works of Thomas
Irwin and Sons or the roofing and sheet metal working firm of John. E. Riddell).
The building is one of the last of the High Victorian commercial buildings that were, at one time, prominent on the Gore. From a distance, the upper façade of Victoria Hall appears to have been built of stone, however upon a closer look, the sheet-metal construction is clearly apparent. It is a four-storey building made of brick, and the upper three storeys are covered with decorative sheet metal. The three-bay Italianate composition features flat-arched windows with rounded corners separated by elongated columns on the lower two-storeys, all framed by rusticated pilasters. The upper-most floor contains semi-circular arched windows with decorated voussoirs and large keystones. All is topped with bracketed cornice caps. Originally, the building had an ornamental parapet across the front that read: "1887 Victoria Hall".
In 1952, Foster Fashions moved into the
Victoria Hall building and a decade later took over the adjacent MacKay building. Both
structures fell under one name and from that time forward, came to be known as the Foster
Building.
The adjacent adjoining MacKay building is a narrow four-storey
structure, erected in 1914-20, and designed by Toronto architects Bond and Smith. The
original owner was A.B. MacKay, a prominent figure in the Great Lakes shipping business.
The first tenant in the building was McLelland’s clothing store. His name is
inscribed in the parapet decoration. This building also has a noteworthy façade
construction. It is made of glazed terra cotta and ranks among the finest surviving
examples in Hamilton of the decorative use of glazed terra cotta. This building maintains
the traditional character of the Gore streetscape.
REFERENCES:
Fires In Hamilton Scrapbook, Vol. 3. Special Collections, HPL.
Historical Houses Scrapbook, Vol. 5, Special Collections, HPL.
LACAC research files, Planning Department, City Hall.
Politics and Government Scrapbook, Vol. 16. Special Collections, HPL.
