Is this fragile pillar on downtown building really a sacred Scottish stone in hiding?
A bit of Toronto history at Queen and Spadina is being worn down one swipe or poke at a time
It’s a pillar of Toronto, literally, that has been worn to near ruin by the hands of time — and more than a century of touchy-feely downtowners.
And at least one fan swears it’s the Scottish Stone of Destiny hidden in plain sight here in the New World.
But the stately limestone column that has held up a Victorian building at the corner of Queen and Spadina for more than 125 years has become so frail in the middle — flurries and fingers have worn a hole clear through — that it now must suffer the indignity of being shored up by construction jacks and a skirt of plywood boarding.
“Everyone was perplexed about why the middle stone was so worn when the top and bottom ones weren’t, even the engineers we brought in to figure out how to make it more safe. And then I noticed how many people play with it,” griped building manager James Cromwell.
“They stand there and start feeling it and brushing it with their hands.”
This would explain why the erosion is only in the middle; it’s in easy reach of curious hands.
The three-storey brick building at 441 Queen St. W. has been a landmark on the southeast corner since 1888.
Cromwell said the building’s owners, the Pearl Group, plan to restore the post to its former glory, yet despite its protective brace, people were still snapping photos Thursday and reaching to touch the crumbling surface.
“They go like this,” said Cromwell during Thursday’s lunchtime rush past the Hero Burger inside, and he rubbed his fingers across the surface, instantly releasing a fine layer of stone dust. “I say to people, ‘Hey, what are you doing? We’re not teenagers here! Stop it!’ ”
Something about this hefty pillar has made it a Toronto touchstone, agrees local historian Doug Taylor, “like the foot on the old Timothy Eaton statue, which got shiny over time because everyone rubbed the toe. But in this case, the pillar is wearing right through.”
Who knows if it caught the eye of the first patrons of the building when it opened in 1888 as Devaney Brother Dry Goods, serving the largely British colonials of early Toronto.
Designed by architects Langley and Burke, it had an Odd Fellows Hall upstairs; passersby might have been brushing the pillar even then, as members came to meetings of the fraternal service group.
“It’s an architectural gem, a magnificent building with an Italianate cupola on top and a lot of classical details, but it’s on a corner that gets the worst weather be- cause the winds of winter come from the northwest,” said Taylor.
Mother Nature changed its shape, and so did passersby.
Maybe labour activists of the 1930s passed their palms along the pillar as they arrived for meetings at the union offices upstairs.
There were so many Communist Party officials in the neighbourhood at the time that it prompted a police raid in 1931 when Communist membership was against the law.
“I say to people, ‘Hey, what are you doing? We’re not teenagers here! Stop it!’ ” JAMES CROMWELL BUILDING MANAGER
Emma Goldman lived in the neighbourhood, noted Taylor. The famous American anarchist lived in exile near Spadina and Dundas.
By the 1980s, the building was due for refreshing, which it got from new owners Makos Furs. Taylor thinks that’s when a steel girder was added for support up the side.
John Erb, who became captivated by the pillar when he was in town for Occupy Toronto, believes it’s part of the real Stone of Destiny (he says the one in Scotland is a fake) and was placed there by the Freemasons. He says he has taken a sample of the stone and is going to have it tested.
“If you turn your head sideways you can see it’s concave, as if someone has sat on it,” he said.
“But even if it has nothing to do with the Stone of Destiny, it’s a very odd object that has sat for more than 100 years in one of the busiest intersections of Canada.”