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Is there a listing of the addresses of the Toronto Chess Club through the years somewhere on-line? It would be very helpful some day when some one sits down to write a history of the chess clubs in the Greater Toronto Area.
Four years ago there was a thread in this Forum about the history of the Scarborough Chess Club. From that I have taken some of the memories for this posting.
When I first came to Toronto as a student, I played in a simultaneous at the Toronto Chess Club. Lionel Joyner took on 21 opponents with two games blindfolded from 8:00 to 10:30 on October 26, 1961.
The two blindfold opponents had their moves called out from a back room while Joyner chain-smoked replying.
My recollection is that the club was on an upper floor (the second?) at 801 Yonge Street. That was on the east side of Yonge Street, just north of Bloor. That site is occupied now by the Toronto Reference Library.
In 1970 Chess Canada had an inside cover advertisement for the Toronto Chess Club at 321 Davenport. T. Carleton was the President and Professor Maurice Lister was the Vice-President.
“The TCC used to have a plaque reading “Established 1880” but really dates from the 1840s. The Central YMCA Chess Club dates from the 1880s as well. The two clubs merged around 1976 and moved to the old courthouse at 57 Adelaide Street East (at Church)”. It is an imposing pile, three storeys high, very solid, with four immense stone columns, two on each side of the entrance. Something to rival the Moscow Central Chess Club on Gogolsky Boulevard perhaps!
“President Jaeger thought that there should be a new name, something like Toronto Central CC. Despite a heavy investment in renovations, the club had to move in 1978 when the main tenant went under, moved to 109 Vaughan Road, north of St. Clair”.
I have a listing for the City Chess Club in 1985 at 519 Church Street.
The correspondents on the thread about the Scarborough Chess Club mentioned one other site for the TCC in downtown Toronto – at the old Consumers’ Gas Building. There is one at 19 Toronto Street, a street running from Adelaide St E to King St E, two blocks east of Yonge. This was the financial district in the 1880s but the correspondents were clearly talking of the club being there one hundred years later! Conrad Black’s Toronto headquarters were at 10 Toronto Street since 1978. Before that it was owned by E.P. Taylor and then J.A. McDougald.
Really, you could make a very good walking tour of Toronto chess and the rich and powerful in that area.
The Toronto Club seems to have died and been resuscitated throughout its career. I would be grateful to anyone who can add to this listing with memories of the Club or make corrections to the dates, addresses or descriptions or update the history, especially before 1960.
Four years ago there was a thread in this Forum about the history of the Scarborough Chess Club. From that I have taken some of the memories for this posting.
When I first came to Toronto as a student, I played in a simultaneous at the Toronto Chess Club. Lionel Joyner took on 21 opponents with two games blindfolded from 8:00 to 10:30 on October 26, 1961.
The two blindfold opponents had their moves called out from a back room while Joyner chain-smoked replying.
My recollection is that the club was on an upper floor (the second?) at 801 Yonge Street. That was on the east side of Yonge Street, just north of Bloor. That site is occupied now by the Toronto Reference Library.
In 1970 Chess Canada had an inside cover advertisement for the Toronto Chess Club at 321 Davenport. T. Carleton was the President and Professor Maurice Lister was the Vice-President.
“The TCC used to have a plaque reading “Established 1880” but really dates from the 1840s. The Central YMCA Chess Club dates from the 1880s as well. The two clubs merged around 1976 and moved to the old courthouse at 57 Adelaide Street East (at Church)”. It is an imposing pile, three storeys high, very solid, with four immense stone columns, two on each side of the entrance. Something to rival the Moscow Central Chess Club on Gogolsky Boulevard perhaps!
“President Jaeger thought that there should be a new name, something like Toronto Central CC. Despite a heavy investment in renovations, the club had to move in 1978 when the main tenant went under, moved to 109 Vaughan Road, north of St. Clair”.
I have a listing for the City Chess Club in 1985 at 519 Church Street.
The correspondents on the thread about the Scarborough Chess Club mentioned one other site for the TCC in downtown Toronto – at the old Consumers’ Gas Building. There is one at 19 Toronto Street, a street running from Adelaide St E to King St E, two blocks east of Yonge. This was the financial district in the 1880s but the correspondents were clearly talking of the club being there one hundred years later! Conrad Black’s Toronto headquarters were at 10 Toronto Street since 1978. Before that it was owned by E.P. Taylor and then J.A. McDougald.
Really, you could make a very good walking tour of Toronto chess and the rich and powerful in that area.
The Toronto Club seems to have died and been resuscitated throughout its career. I would be grateful to anyone who can add to this listing with memories of the Club or make corrections to the dates, addresses or descriptions or update the history, especially before 1960.
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