Remembering the grand opening of Union Station

It’s the place Torontonians go when they need to get places. And it’s been around since Aug. 6, 1927.

An image of a postcard from 1927 showing Union Station in Toronto, Ontario — A postcard featuring “new” Union Station, circa 1927. (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Whether you live downtown or elsewhere in the Greater Toronto Area, if you take transit to get around then Union Station is a regular part of your life. And that’s been true for decades.

Nine and a half of them, in fact.

The current version of Union Station officially opened on Aug. 6, 1927. A grand-opening ceremony was held for the now-iconic building that had taken a whopping 13 years to finish, partly due to shortage of materials and labour stemming from the First World War.

Must have been some party, eh?

Sure seems like. Here are a few quick tidbits about the grand opening:

The event was attended by two future kings — Edward, Prince of Wales, and his younger brother, Albert, then the Duke of York. Each would become King of the United Kingdom in January and December 1936, respectively.
As part of the ceremony, Prince Edward cut the official ribbon, received a golden key to the station, and bought the first ticket in its history.
Canadian representatives at the grand opening included Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, Ontario Premier G. Howard Ferguson, and Ontario Lieutenant Governor William Donald Ross.
The ceremony was held out front of the classic Beaux Arts construction in the shadow of its 22 columns. While the building’s interior has gone (and continues to go) through major updates, the exterior looks much the same today as it did then.

Was this Toronto’s first Union Station?

Oh, no — not by a long shot. Toronto’s first Union Station opened in 1858 to the west of the current station — south of Front St. between York and Simcoe.

A William Armstrong painting of Toronto’s first Union Station, from 1859.

However, it quickly proved inadequate to meet the demands of the growing city and its three railway tenants, and was replaced with a second, much larger version on the same spot in 1873.

The second Station became the largest in Canada, and featured some unique architectural flourishes, including three towers on the south side and three arches over each track in the train shed. But even it needed upgrades as the city continued to grow.

A major expansion that included a grand Front St. entrance came in 1892, but ultimately no amount of renovations could stave off the planning and construction of a completely new station.

Following the the opening of its successor in 1927, the second version closed its doors. It was fully dismantled by 1931, leaving just the iconic station Torontonians know and frequent today.

This is an updated version of a story initially published in 2022.

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