History

By Aileen Cassells

As with most buildings in the Kensington area, the buildings that make up the loft development have been used for a wide variety of purposes and have grown and changed since they were first built.

Originally, the lots which now make up 21 Nassau Street and 160 Baldwin Street contained mainly residential housing. However, in 1880, a carriage painter was located at 21 Nassau Street and in the 1940s an automobile service centre operated on the south east corner of 160 Baldwin Street.

In 1836, the entire south side of Nassau Street which was then called Cambridge Street was made up of individual houses. In 1922, the homes in the lots from 1 to 21 were torn down. After the property was vacant for a few months, the Toronto Board of Education bought the lots. It was at this time that the property became known as 21 Nassau.

The Toronto Board of Education had bought the property in 1923-1924 to build a public school. Construction began on the building in 1924. The building was named the William Houston Public School after William Houston who was a member of the Board of Education, a political writer for The Globe and Mail, and a witness to the fatal shooting of George Brown.

The school was opened on September 2, 1925. The school had about 12 classrooms and held about 650 children. Even back then declining enrolment was a problem and the school closed less than 10 years after it opened.

After being unoccupied for two years, Harbord Collegiate used the building as an annex from 1935-1936 and then in 1936, the Family Welfare Department took over the building for a period of six years. In the 1940s, the Canadian government began to use the school for military purposes as a signals’ school and for troop accommodation and during the Second World War, the air force held training for new recruits in the building from 1942 to 1946.

After the war, the Ontario College of Art took over the building for a period of five years from 1946 to 1950.

In 1948, the Ryerson Institute of Technology which was then known as the Toronto Rehabilitation Training Institute was looking for more space for its construction trades training program and for its automotive mechanics training program. The property was purchased by the federal government and leased to the provincial government in 1952 for the use of the Provincial Institute of Trades.

During 1953 and 1954 the second and third buildings were constructed. Construction work was done partly by the students and teachers of the school.

George Brown College grew out of the Provincial Institute of Trades and the Provincial Institute of Trades and Occupations. George Brown College was established by the provincial government on November 22, 1967 to serve the City of Toronto as part of the new province-wide system of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology.

William Davis, the Conservative Minister of Education at the time, recommended that the college be named after George Brown. George Brown (1818-1880) was a 19th century Liberal party leader, father of Confederation and founder of The Globe newspaper which was the forerunner of The Globe and Mail. George Brown died in 1880 after having been shot in the leg by a disgruntle employee. His wound had not appeared serious but he died about six weeks after being shot.

In 1968, George Brown College made the Kensington buildings one of their five campuses in Toronto. In 1970 the title for the property officially transferred from the provincial government to George Brown College. While the Kensington campus was in operation, more than 1,000 full-time and 600 part-time students used the buildings.

Due to the growing enrolment at the College during the 1960s and 1970s, many of the programs offered by the College were operated out of the building. Child care, English as a Second Language, Fashion, Hospitality, Automotive Repair were all offered in the Kensington buildings. At one time, a Retail Meat Cutting course was run out of the basement of the 160 Baldwin Street building which sold meat to many of the institutions in the central Toronto area. The buildings also housed a full restaurant and a child care centre as well.

Most of the College programs had moved out of the Kensington campus by the end of 1994. The College performed a variety of work to prepare the buildings for sale and in 1998-2000 the buildings and property were developed by Context Development as the Kensington Market Lofts development.