Walking east on Liberty St. to Hanna Ave.
Northeast Corner
43 Hanna Ave: The Toy Factory Lofts and Balzacs Coffee
This building was originally the HD Paper Company. They stored their paper in the parking lot at Hanna Ave. & Liberty St. It regularly caught on fire. It later became the head office of Irwin Toy, a family run manufacturing company of leisure and sporting goods, especially children’s toys.
The Toy Factory Lofts was renovated in 2004 as a residential condo by Lanterra Developments. Balzac’s Coffee, an independent coffee house, who opened its first cafe in Stratford in 1996, moved into the building in 2006. The company now has 16 locations, including a cafe in the Distillery District. Its products can be found on the shelves of grocery stores nationwide.
Until 2004, Liberty St. ended at Hanna Ave.
It was industrial access beyond this point. In 2004, East Liberty St. was constructed, connecting Liberty Village with Strachan Ave. directly.
Southeast Corner
The Galleria walkway of the Liberty Market and The Brazen Head
Formerly called "37 Hanna Ave." the Liberty Market Building at East Liberty & Hanna Ave. was originally the first industrial co-op.
The building was owned by the federal government and when it went up for sale the tenants of the building bought it. Fred Gardiner (of Gardiner Expressway fame) was an early president of the building co-op. His business in the building was manufacturing SOS pads.
The Colt aircraft carrier gun was built here, starting in 1939 when Canada declared war on Germany after it invaded Poland. The Bren Gun was built in the building next door, at 9 Hanna Ave.
In 2003, "37 Hanna Ave" was purchased by Lifetime Urban Development Group. They invested considerably, renovating this building into commercial office and new retail space.
Much of the retail is located along the Galleria, a covered walkway where trains used to travel along tracks to pick up the guns being manufactured for war use, as well as deliver coal and supplies to other industries.
Looking south down Hanna Ave.
9 Hanna Ave. is now the home of Toronto Police Service Traffic Services and Highway Patrol Units. There are also repair facilities here for Police vehicles, motorcycles and bicycles.
Walk through the Galleria
One interesting and little known tenant of the Liberty Market Building was The Model Railroad Club (in Unit 220 around the back laneway of the building).
It was located in the former firing range where various guns were manufactured and tested. The space had no windows, so while most tenants were not interested in the space, it was ideal for locating a fully functionally miniature train scene.
The Model Railroad Club was founded in 1938. It relocated to Liberty Village when World War ll ended. It's a fictitious railway called the Central Ontario Railway, with 5,000 feet of track and 700 freight cars, 100 passenger cars and 70 locomotives in the layout.
Surrounding the tracks are highly detailed scenes of mountain climbers, waterways, and even a car-crash over an embankment. The club left Liberty Village in 2013 and is now located at 11 Curity Avenue.
