Category: Buildings, Toronto Public Library, Toronto

Panorama of the City of Toronto, 1857 Rossin House Hotel In 1857, the roof of the hotel provided the ideal vantage point from which Armstrong, Beere & Hime photographed their Toronto. The Rossin House, on the southeast corner of King and York streets, was the tallest building in the newer commercial district of Toronto when it opened that year. It was one of the city’s pre-eminent hotels, with an 1866 guide claiming: “What the Fifth Avenue Hotel is to New York, and the Windsor is to Montreal, so the celebrated Rossin House is to Toronto.” The Rossin House was destroyed by a fire in 1862, and was rebuilt in 1863.