You may have noticed a quaint old clapboard building recently appear on Broadview Avenue at the intersection of Langley Ave. Built circa 1906, it is the former clubhouse for St. Matthew’s Lawn Bowling Club. Designed by the city of Toronto’s architect, Robert McCallum, it was moved and repositioned to its new location from Gerrard street, where it sat beside the old Don Jail. Lifted off of its foundation, it was pulled up the hill, through the park, by a giant truck. What a sight it was to see!
The charming building apparently will be restored and renovated although we still don’t know what its future use will be. To my knowledge, it will be determined by city council with input from residents at town hall meetings to be held this year. After 101 years the lawn bowling club disbanded in May 2007.
The clubhouse was moved to accommodate the massive revamp of the Bridgepoint Hospital at the site of the Don Jail, circa 1860. Originally erected as Toronto’s “House of Refuge”, the public library tells us that it was established as a place for “vagrants, the dissolute and for idiots” to receive shelter and medical treatment. In the 1870s it was used as an isolation hospital for the smallpox epidemic, and during the 1880s and 1890s a part of the building was used to house the homeless elderly. The eastern annex addition will be torn down and the original Don building will be restored. Bridgepoint’s website says “The exterior of the jail will be preserved and linked to the new hospital by a modern glass bridge. On the interior, the main focal point of the building, the rotunda, will be restored to its original architectural beauty. The glass floor, which was built over at some point in history, will be uncovered and the skylight, which was tiled over, will be re-exposed allowing natural light to pour into the rotunda.” The entrance and dramatic rotunda will serve as public gallery space for community uses, hospital events, public health-related announcements and lectures.
Environmentally, the new hospital will be certified under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Green Building Rating System. Among some of the highlights will be an overall 30% reduction of energy consumption and water usage, with roof water runoff to be used in landscape irrigation. The construction process promises to divert 75% of the waste by recycling and reusing.
When it opens in 2013, the new Bridgepoint Hospital will be a 10-storey, 680,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility with 472 beds to care for those afflicted by complex chronic diseases. We are pleased that it will include the ‘Christine Sinclair Ambulatory Care Centre’. Chris, a client of ours, had ALS. A former Riverdale resident, she was a leader in her field as a Chartered Accountant, an accomplished athlete and a director of Bridgepoint Health for six years.
If you want to get involved or learn more about the facility their website is www.bridgepointhealth.ca.