Last Thursday, we visited the corner of Riverside and Ouellette in 1920…
I recently came across this photo from 1913, showing the same corner and the Bank of Commerce that was on site before Albert Kahn’s building featured on Thursday.
I’m not sure when this building was built, but even if it was brand new in 1913, that means there has been a CIBC bank branch on that corner for at least 96 years. This branch is probably the longest serving downtown business, still operating in the same location.
Not quite the same building as today, but wow, amazing that they’ve still maintained a presence. I’ve got a business account in that same branch and have been amazed at the changes over the last 10 years. Every day I walk in there to do deposits I expect to see a notice announcing it’s closure. It’s a fraction of what it used to be, but it’s still there.
Very interesting. Thanks for posting this.
The modern building is kind of Boring Modernism (that CIBC repeated here and there — like Halifax — same building there) but the banking hall, if I recall, is rather nice and sunny and grand.
All fine and dandy for this corner, but what’s the history behind the disposable former CIBC building at the corner of Ouellette and Wyandotte? How old is it? How long where they there for? What was knocked down to make way for it?
I can tell you it was built around 1990-91. I remember when it went up.
…and don’t forget just up the street at Ouellette and University is the former “Imperial Bank of Canada” branch–which presumably closed after 1961 when the Imperial merged with the Canadian Bank of Commerce to form CIBC. Downtown may have also had a Bank of Hamilton branch (not sure…anyone know?)–BofH merged into the Commerce in the mid 20s and gave the bank much of it’s ‘heft’ in Ontario.
While I would agree that 100 Ouellette isn’t the most thrilling building to look at–the banking hall is in fact nice–airy, with some interesting 1970s treatments in decor, design and lighting–contrast that to the craptastic design of the new RBC “main” branch which was constructed a few years back…or the other chronolgically newer banks downtown–National, TD and Scotia. I always thought the glass and marble Royal Trust branch on Ouellette had some style too (now the Boom Boom Room).