former Postal Delivery Building, Toronto - Part I

In the early 1990s, the former Postal Delivery Building in Toronto was earmarked for demolition but somewhere along the line the south and east walls were retained and incorporated into the Air Canada Centre, the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs Ice Hockey team, Toronto Raptors Basketball team and Toronto Rock Lacrosse team.

The Postal Delivery Building was commissioned by the Public Works Department in 1938 and the design by Charles Brommall Dolphin was completed between 1939 and 1941.

With the development of the sports centre around the older building, the original footprint has been respected and maintained to some extent. A display on the wall inside the new centre provides a history of the building including some elements that had to be removed when the rest of the building had been demolished.

On display is the metalwork from above the original employees entrance which incorporates a dolphin in reference to the architect.

The former Postal Delivery Building retains a lot of the original decoration including a frieze of beavers and maple leafs (leaves) around the roofline.

There are several rondels featuring either Canadian Geese

or a Moose.

However, the best part of the building is the series of reliefs at street level depicting the history of human communication but I'll leave those to Part II of this post.

former Postal Delivery Building, Toronto - Part II