Toronto Guide
Toronto
The Distillery District
Website: www.thedistillery.com
Address: Mill Street, near the foot of Parliament Street
The Distillery District comprises Toronto's newest arts and entertainment complex, sited in the former Gooderham and Worts distillery, an extremely appealing industrial "village" on Mill Street, near the foot of Parliament Street. In use as a distillery until 1990, this rambling network of over forty brick buildings once comprised the largest distillery in the British Empire, and now lays claim to be the best-preserved Victorian industrial complex in the whole of North America. The distillery was founded in 1832, when ships could sail into its own jetty, though landfill subsequently becalmed it in the lee of the railway lines and the tail-end of the Gardiner Expressway. Otherwise unruffled for decades, much of the distillery's machinery has survived, as have its walkways and bottle runways. When all the work is completed the complex will hold, amongst much else, over thirty art galleries and artists' studios, furniture designers, a chocolatier, bakeries, shops, a microbrewery and a couple of performance venues. The redevelopment of the distillery has been led by a small group of entrepreneurs, who decided (with refreshing integrity) to exclude all multinational chains.