BIRTH OF BOND STREET

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 128, 28 February 1928, Page 8

BIRTH OF BOND STREET

OLD PHOENIX FOUNDRY COMING DOWN NEW STREET BEING DEFINED New Bond Street is rapidly taking form, and anyone who cares to walk along Old Customhouse Street can see for himself the vast improvement that is being effected in this part of the very heart of the city. Within the last week the southern half of Baldwin’s grain and Hour stores has been demolished, and the line of the new widened street is now defined by a makeshift iron fence. The same action has been taken in respect to Chote’s block, which was formerly occupied by a large store (originally a brewery) and an earthenware pipe yard. Further along towards Willis Street another old landmark is fast disappearing. This is the old Phoenix Foundry, for so long owned and conducted by the late Air. David Robertson. This large building lias already lost its roof, and the walls will be taken down in the course of the next lew days, thus clearing a verv large space of most valuable land within a biscuit toss of the most congested part of the city. Hie building referred to is not the original foundry structure, as that was first established away back in 1856, but the large building now in process of demolition was built by the late Mr. David Robertson in the year 1870, which makes it 58 years old. The rear of business premises in both Manners and Willis Streets abut on to this block. When this building is rased, the only two buildings still concerned in the widening scheme will be the rear end of tiie Strand Theatre, and Kimmos building on the corner of Willis Street and Old Customhouse Street.