Whitney Block, Government building in downtown Toronto, Canada.
The Whitney Block is a government building in downtown Toronto featuring Modern Gothic architectural elements. Stone walls showcase vertical lines and symmetrical patterns across the entire exterior facade.
Built in 1926 to designs by F. R. Heakes as the East Block, the building was renamed the Whitney Block in honour of former premier James P. Whitney. The tower was added in 1932, when the building ranked among Toronto's tallest. A rehabilitation by Brown Daniel Associates ran from January 2018 to August 2023, adding new HVAC systems, modernized offices and windows with Ontario's trillium symbols.
The building is named after James P. Whitney, premier of Ontario from 1905 to 1914; it was first called the East Block. Its facade carries repeated quatrefoils and figures by sculptor Charles Adamson representing justice, tolerance, wisdom and power, alongside mining, forestry, labour, law, education and farming. The tower keeps one of Toronto's few working hand-cranked elevators.
The main facade faces west onto Queen's Park Crescent, across from the Ontario Legislative Building; the street address is 99 Wellesley Street West. The building connects to the legislature by a tunnel under the street, to the Macdonald Block by a bridge, and onward by tunnel to the subway. The tower, no longer office space, holds one of Toronto's few working hand-cranked elevators.
The tower holds one of the last working hand-cranked elevators in Toronto, and the building once had a bowling alley and quarters for live domestic and farm animals. Its floors are marble quarried in Bancroft, and the facade figures by Charles Adamson depict justice, tolerance, wisdom and power alongside mining, forestry, labour, law, education and farming.
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