{"id":55925,"date":"2016-09-19T13:00:02","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T17:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=55925"},"modified":"2016-09-17T20:21:10","modified_gmt":"2016-09-18T00:21:10","slug":"space-age-parkway-plaza-torontos-first-heritage-supermarket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2016\/09\/19\/space-age-parkway-plaza-torontos-first-heritage-supermarket\/","title":{"rendered":"The space age Parkway Plaza, Toronto’s first heritage supermarket"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was only a shopping mall, but when the Parkway Plaza\u00a0opened at Ellesmere Road and Victoria Park Avenue in 1958, it signalled the arrival of space age in the Toronto’s eastern suburbs.<\/p>\n

Just five\u00a0years earlier the site\u00a0was in the middle of Maryvale, a swathe\u00a0farms and fields on the borderlands\u00a0of the Toronto urban area named for the nearby country estate of Senator Frank O\u2019Connor.<\/p>\n

A short distance south, over the Canadian Pacific tracks near\u00a0Lawrence Avenue, the first suburban culs-de-sac\u00a0and commercial developments were\u00a0rising from the cornfields.<\/p>\n

Modernity arrived\u00a0quickly in Maryvale. Highway 401 opened just to the north in 1956, and housing subdivisions sprouted from the agricultural landscape with astonishing speed.<\/p>\n

To service these new homes, the\u00a0Cadillac Development Corporation purchased the lots at the southeast corner of Ellesmere and Victoria Park for a shopping centre and hired\u00a0Bregman and Hamann architects to draw up the blueprints.<\/p>\n

Bregman and Hamann–the forerunner to today’s B+H architects–was established\u00a0as a partnership between University of Toronto graduates\u00a0Sidney Bregman and George Hamann in 1953.<\/p>\n

The Parkway Plaza was one of the firm’s first commissions and it\u00a0helped cement\u00a0a lengthy relationship with Cadillac, which merged with the Fairview Corporation in 1974 to form Cadillac Fairview, one of Canada’s largest property companies.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"toronto
Before it was overhauled in the 1970s, Parkway Mall included a parade of street-facing stores, including a Bank of Nova Scotia\u00a0branch, Hunts bakery, Morse jewellers, Hodgin’s hardware, and Carousel records (all visible above.) Image: B+H architects\/Panda Associates.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In many ways, the design of Parkway Plaza was typical of suburban shopping centres across North America. Most of the site was occupied by a surface parking lot (touted as “a world of free parking” in advertisements,) and many of the stores\u00a0were simple, single-storey structures.<\/p>\n

What set the Parkway apart was the design of its anchor unit, leased to Grand Union supermarkets, that\u00a0was essentially\u00a0a gigantic parabolic arched roof with glass walls at either end. Supported by curved wooden beams, the structure was among\u00a0largest of its kind built in Canada in 1958.<\/p>\n

Wooden arches were firmly in style in the 1950s. Douglas M. Hall, the architect of the Don Mills Curling Rink, which opened two years after the Parkway Plaza, used similarly curved wooden beams to create a distinctive sports dome at Don Mills Road and the Donway<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hoping to trade on its\u00a0futuristic design, Parkway Plaza\u00a0arranged\u00a0several goofy space-themed promotional stunts for\u00a0opening day. The “Queen of Outer Space” popularity contest, however, was the one that caught the attention of the Toronto Daily Star.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Nine young female models from across Toronto\u2014one for each planet in the solar system, including Earth\u2014were dressed in black leotards and\u00a0sweaters, red shorts and capes, and “outer space helmets” and paraded around the plaza before a\u00a0crowd.<\/p>\n

“Shoppers are being asked to judge the girls\u00a0on the basis of personality, and beauty of face, and beauty of figure,” wrote the Star<\/em>. The winner, whose name was entered the most times into a plexiglass replica of Sputnik, received a Hollywood screen test and a\u00a0meeting with actress and socialite Zsa Zsa Gabor, the star of the soon-to-be-released movie Queen of Outer Space<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"toronto
Parkway Plaza opened with a celebration based around the pulpy movie, Queen of Outer Space, starring Zsa Zsa Gabor. Image: IMDb<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In that film, an all-male crew of astronauts lands on Venus to\u00a0discover the planet is\u00a0occupied almost entirely by “long-limbed beauties” (a few giant insects\u00a0are thrown in for good measure.) You can pretty much guess how the plot\u00a0unfolds, but this dynamic exchange is worth highlighting:<\/p>\n

Male astronaut:<\/strong> “You mean we’re the only men on the whole planet?”<\/p>\n

Venusian woman:<\/strong> “Yes.”<\/p>\n

Male astronaut:<\/strong> “Wow.”<\/p>\n

In addition to the beauty contest,\u00a0a full-page advertisement in the Star<\/em> promised an appearance by the\u00a046-piece “Skyraiders” Lions marching\u00a0band, “funny” clowns, and a live radio broadcast by\u00a0CHUM and CKEY from the Carousel record store building. The day\u00a0was fuelled by free Pepsi-Cola\u00a0and\u00a0Shopsy’s hot dogs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"toronto
A major overhaul of the Parkway Plaza in the late 1970s wrecked many of the original modern design features. Image: B+H architects\/McCullagh Studio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Grand Union didn’t last long in the curvilinear structure at Ellesmere and Victoria Park. The New Jersey-based company sold to Quebec chain Steinberg’s in 1959\u00a0and vanished from the Canadian retail landscape. Steinberg’s operated the store under its own name and later under the Miracle Food Mart brand until 1989.<\/p>\n

In the late 1970s, Parkway Plaza underwent significant alterations. The circular record store building was demolished and the stores enlarged into space previously\u00a0occupied by the parking lot.<\/p>\n

The revamp turned the shopping centre in on itself. Stores that used to face the outside world were reoriented to have their windows and entrances inside the mall, a move\u00a0that left the complex with a forbidding facade\u00a0of service doors and blank concrete walls.<\/p>\n

The additional\u00a0retail space also overwhelmed the supermarket, diminishing its once-dominant presence at the west end of the 20-acre site. At some point, its\u00a0wooden support beams were covered with concrete.<\/p>\n

Since 2005, when A&P sold the Dominion brand, the supermarket has operated under\u00a0the\u00a0Metro banner.<\/p>\n

In 2009, Parkway Plaza became the first post-war supermarket building to be added to the City of Toronto’s\u00a0Inventory of Heritage Properties, and it\u00a0was designated\u00a0under the Ontario Heritage Act in May, 2015.<\/p>\n

Now shielded\u00a0by provincial law, the plaza is protected from\u00a0further\u00a0unsympathetic alterations.<\/p>\n

The Parkway Plaza and many more incredible Modernist buildings across the city\u00a0will be\u00a0the\u00a0subject of a Heritage Toronto bus tour Saturday, September 24. Led by Dave LeBlanc (Globe and Mail,) Gary Miedema (City of Toronto,) and Chris Bateman (Spacing,) Modern TO will explore the history of Toronto’s post-war urban planning and architecture.\u00a0Sign up<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was only a shopping mall, but when the Parkway Plaza\u00a0opened at Ellesmere Road and Victoria Park Avenue in 1958, it signalled the arrival of space age in the Toronto’s eastern suburbs. Just five\u00a0years earlier the site\u00a0was in the middle of Maryvale, a swathe\u00a0farms and fields on the borderlands\u00a0of the Toronto urban area named forContinue reading “The space age Parkway Plaza, Toronto’s first heritage supermarket”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8234,"featured_media":55932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,21758,4,69,24,18,14,20],"tags":[21781,22224,89,19],"class_list":["post-55925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-architecture","category-community","category-culture","category-curiosities","category-history","category-neighbourhoods","category-spacing","category-urban-design","tag-modernism","tag-parkway-plaza","tag-scarborough","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe space age Parkway Plaza, Toronto's first heritage supermarket - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2016\/09\/19\/space-age-parkway-plaza-torontos-first-heritage-supermarket\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The space age Parkway Plaza, Toronto's first heritage supermarket - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It was only a shopping mall, but when the Parkway Plaza\u00a0opened at Ellesmere Road and Victoria Park Avenue in 1958, it signalled the arrival of space age in the Toronto’s eastern suburbs. 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