Ghosts of advertising signs of yore revealed
Our old photo this week shows us a scene on the south side of St. Paul Street between William and Queen.
The streetscape there is starting to get a facelift. It’s not clear exactly what necessitated the removal of the building that once stood in that open space behind the construction boarding — whether there was a fire or a boiler explosion or some other disaster that rendered it uninhabitable, or whether the building’s systems (electricity, water and the rest) had simply ceased functioning.
Whatever the reason, the old building that for the previous two decades had housed the White Star Café was judged to have reached the end of the road, and in this photo (taken Sept. 27, 1945) there’s a big open space where it used to stand.
When this photo appeared in the newspaper it was remarked that this was the first new construction on St. Paul Street since the end of the Second World War, and that the old restaurant building would “be replaced by a modern building with a billiard parlour in the basement, restaurant on the ground floor and offices on the second storey.” (The first tenant in the new building actually ended up being a men’s clothing store.)
There are a couple of other details to be noticed in the old photo. First of all, in the foreground, in the middle of St. Paul Street, we note a single track of the old N. S. & T. (Niagara, St. Catharines and Toronto) street railway.
That service had first extended along St. Paul Street early in the 20th century, but by this time in 1945 it would be in service for just a few more years — public buses and the private auto had by then taken too much of the clientele away from the old streetcar system.
Interesting also is the huge “ghost sign” that had been revealed on the building next door when the former restaurant building was removed — a huge advertising sign for St. Catharines Clothing Manufacturing Co., popularly known as WhiteHouse clothing.
That firm had occupied that building for only a decade, from the early 1890s until about 1900, a time when apparently there was no building immediately next door and they could paint their big advertising sign right on that large brick wall, to catch the attention of passersby.
When, in the early 20th century, someone decided to build another commercial building right next door, the White-House sign was bricked over, not to be seen again for another 50 years (similar to what happened when another St. Paul Street building was removed about 10 years ago, opposite Helliwells Lane — those “ghost signs” are still visible).
A new building was soon erected in that open space at 60 St. Paul St., and Erroll’s Shoe Repair has occupied it for the past 30 years. Meanwhile, the owners of the buildings on both sides of it have made notable efforts to modernize their own original late-19th-century facades.