The Eaton's House Furnishing Building in 1919, later known at the Eaton's Annex.

The Eaton's Santa Claus Parade, 1925, with views of City Hall (left) and the Main Store (right) in the foreground, the Eaton's Annex (behind City Hall) in the middleground, and Eaton's factory buildings in the background.

The Eaton's Annex was an outlet of the Eaton's department store, and was located in Toronto, Canada. Prior to Eaton's first foray into suburban expansion (with the 1961 opening of a store in the Don Mills Centre), the Annex was among the chain's three Toronto locations, along with the Main Store and Eaton's College Street. Eatons was once Canadas largest department store retailer. ... Template:Hide = Motto: Template:Unhide = Diversity Our Strength City of Toronto, Ontario, Canadas Location. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Don Mills Centre is a shopping centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ... College Park College Park is a shopping mall, residential and office complex located on the southwest corner of Yonge Street and College Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ...

Located on Albert Street, directly behind the Eaton's Main Store and Toronto's (now former) City Hall, the Annex was a 10-storey building containing both retail and office space. By 1900, Eaton's owned almost all of the lands within the city blocks bordered by Yonge Street, Queen Street West, Bay Street and Dundas Street, and the Annex was but one of several Eaton's buildings on the site. The Main Store and the Annex, however, were the only two buildings open to the public. In 1900, the two buildings were connected by an underground passageway open to both employees and shoppers. It was the first underground pathway in Toronto open to the public, and is often credited as a historic precursor to Toronto's current downtown PATH network. Old City Hall A watercolour of the proposed city hall made just prior to its construction. ... 1900 (MCM) is a common year starting on Monday. ... Yonge Street (pronounced young), located in Ontario, Canada, is a major arterial street in Toronto and a provincial highway. ... Queen Street West refers to both a major east-west downtown street and a series of neighbourhoods or commercial districts within the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ... Bay Street is a street in downtown Toronto, Ontario Canada. ... Dundas Street showing the 506 Carlton Streetcar (the 505 Dundas Street streetcar also runs along Dundas), with Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in background. ... 1900 (MCM) is a common year starting on Monday. ... PATH is a 27 kilometre long network of pedestrian tunnels beneath the office towers of downtown Toronto, Canada. ...

When it was first constructed in the 1890s, the Annex contained Eaton's housewares and furniture departments. When these departments were moved to the new College Street store in 1930, the focus of the Annex's retail offerings was shifted to lower-cost offerings. While the Main Store catered to middle class budgets, and the College Street store's offerings were more upscale, the Annex store was directed to Toronto's working classes. It offered many of the same departments and types of goods as Eaton's other two Toronto stores, but in cheaper varieties, and with less extensive in-store displays and customer service. As such, the Annex represented one of the first instances in Canada where a traditional, full-line department store operated a separate discount outlet or chain. The 1890s were sometimes referred to as the Mauve Decade, because William Henry Perkins aniline dye allowed the widespread use of that colour in fashion, and also as the Gay Nineties, under the then-current usage of the word gay which referred simply to merriment and frivolity, with no... 1930 (MCMXXX) is a common year starting on Wednesday. ...

The Eaton's Annex was destroyed by fire in the early 1970s. Had there been no fire, however, the Annex may have been demolished shortly thereafter (as was the Main Store) to make way for the Toronto Eaton Centre. Today, a portion of the Bell Trinity Centre office complex occupies the former Annex site. The same underground passage that formerly linked the Annex and the Main Store now connects the Eaton Centre to the Bell Trinity Centre, and is part of the PATH network. The 1970s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1970 and 1979. ... Interior of the Toronto Eaton Centre, looking north. ...

References

• Belisle, Donica. Consuming Producers: Retail Workers and Commodity Culture at Eaton's in Mid-Twentieth-Century Toronto, Masters Thesis, Department of History, Queen's University, 2001.
• Nasmith, George G., Timothy Eaton, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1923.
• Phenix, Patricia, Eatonians: The Story of the Family Behind the Family, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 2003.
• Santink, Joy L., Timothy Eaton and the Rise of His Department Store, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.
• Scribe, The, Golden Jubilee 1869-1919: A Book to Commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the T. Eaton Co. Limited, Toronto: The T. Eaton Co. Limited, 1919.