Toronto Guide
Toronto
Union Station
Address: Front Street W and Bay Street
The Skywalk is a sheltered walkway that leads from the Rogers Centre to Union Station, a distinguished Beaux Arts structure designed in 1907 and finally completed in 1927. The station's exterior is imposing, with its long serenade of Neoclassical columns, but the interior is the real highlight, the vast main hall boasting a coffered and tiled ceiling of graceful design. Like other North American railway stations of the period, Union Station has the flavour of a medieval cathedral, with muffled sounds echoing through its stone cloisters, and daylight filtering through its high arched windows. The station's grandiose quality was quite deliberate. In the days when the steam train was the most popular form of transport, architects were keen to glorify the train station, and, in this case, to conjure up images of Canada's vastness – a frieze bearing the names of all the Canadian cities reachable by rail at the time of construction runs around the hall.