Learn more about the history of the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres

The history of the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres is a long and fascinating one, spanning over 100 years. This history chronicles the magnificent design, architectural and entertainment highlights of an era, and also reflects the evolution and growth of our heritage and culture.

Photos © Ontario Heritage Trust, unless otherwise indicated.

History of EWG

Built in 1913, the complex was the Canadian flagship of Marcus Loew's legendary theatre chain. Designed by Thomas Lamb as a "stacked" theatre complex, it contained the Winter Garden Theatre, constructed on top of the Elgin Theatre (originally known as Loew's Yonge Street Theatre).

The two theatres were of distinctly different personality. The Elgin was all gold leaf and rich fabrics, a formal theatre of plaster cherubs and ornate opera boxes. The Winter Garden was a botanical fantasy, its walls hand-painted to resemble a garden, its ceiling a mass of real beech boughs and twinkling lanterns. The theatres played host to such greats as George Burns and Gracie Allen, Sophie Tucker, Milton Berle and Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.

With the decline of vaudeville, the Winter Garden closed in 1928. It remained closed for more than half a century, becoming a time capsule of a bygone era. The Elgin, with its grand domed ceiling, continued as a movie house, gradually slipping into disrepair with the passing of each decade.

In 1981, the Ontario Heritage Trust purchased the building. Prior to the Trust's ambitious restoration program, the successful production of Cats ran for nearly two years at the Elgin Theatre — the most successful pre-sales theatrical event in Canada at that time.

In 1984, a $29-million restoration began. The gilt plaster detail work in the Elgin required more than 300,000 wafer-thin sheets of aluminum leaf. The walls of the Winter Garden were cleaned using hundreds of pounds of raw bread dough to avoid damaging the original hand-painted watercolour artwork. More than 6,039 square metres (65,000 square feet) of new space was created, including lobby and lounge areas and an eight-storey backstage pavilion housing modern dressing rooms and two rehearsal halls.

In December 1989, the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres reopened and have once again become one of Canada's finest theatrical stage complexes.

One of the theatres' greatest treasures, discovered during the restoration, is the world's largest collection of vaudeville scenery — hand-painted flats and drops dating from 1913. Several restored pieces, including the magnificent Butterfly and Scarab Scenery flats, are displayed in the theatre.

The Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres were brought back to life with the assistance of government agencies, individual and corporate donors, and volunteers — many of whom continue to assist in its operation. The Ontario Heritage Trust is grateful for their support and is proud of the role they have played in the rebirth of these magnificent theatres.

1913 — December 15: Loew's Yonge Street Theatre opens as the flagship for Loew's chain of Canadian vaudeville theatres. Built by Marcus Loew and designed by architect Thomas Lamb
1914 — February 16: Loew's roof garden theatre, the Winter Garden, opens
1928 — May: Due to the decline of vaudeville's popularity and the advent of talking pictures, the Winter Garden is closed to the public; the lower auditorium remains open and is wired for sound
1930 — October 3: Loew drops vaudeville in favour of an all-movie program in the Yonge Street Theatre
1978 — March 17: The Yonge Street Theatre is renamed the Elgin
1981 — December 1: The Ontario Heritage Trust purchases the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres to restore them for use as a performing arts complex. What is believed to be the world's largest collection of vaudeville scenery is purchased along with the building — pieces from the collection are displayed in the cascading lobbies
1982 — June: The Winter Garden Theatre is declared a National Historic Site; designation of the Elgin follows shortly after
1984 — October: Retrofit of the Elgin Theatre and restoration of the colonnaded lobby takes place
1985 — March 14: The celebrated production of Cats opens in the Elgin Theatre for a two-year run
1987 — May: Full restoration begins
1989 — December 15: After almost three years of restoration, the grand reopening of the historical Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres takes place — exactly 76 years after the original opening of the Loew's Yonge Street Theatre
1990 — Movies return to the Elgin Theatre with the arrival of the Toronto Film Festival (TIFF)
1995 — A new marquee, reminiscent of the 1913 original, is installed with 1,240 light bulbs
2011 — Work is undertaken to restore the terracotta façade and three arched windows overlooking Yonge Street
2013-14 — The Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres celebrate their 100th anniversary
2018 — A new canopy of leaves is installed in the ceiling of the Winter Garden Theatre with approximately 20,000 artificial branches, maintaining the magic of the garden setting
2023 — The theatres' heritage Loew’s sign, painted on the building’s south wall, is restored and becomes fully visible again from the sidewalk below

Insider the Winter Garden Theatre

Photo: Mark Wolfson

Highlights

Restoration architect: Mandel Sprachman
Restoration consultant: David Hannivan
The architectural style of the building provided the important link between the nickelodeon, vaudeville and movie palace eras. The building exemplified the old and new of these changing times and contained features unprecedented in the traditional vaudeville theatres of Toronto.

Special features include:

the exterior box office
a Corinthian columned lobby
the narrow main lobby façade and the lobby corridor to the auditorium
the single balconies supported by enormous steel trusses

Restoration by numbers:

6,039 square metres (65,000 square feet) of new space was added that includes cascading lobbies, an eight-storey backstage addition containing dressing rooms, loading docks, rehearsal halls and other facilities for contemporary theatre use, a crossover bridge creating access to escalators for the new lounges and washrooms on each level
25 layers of paint were removed from the original surface in the Davies Takacs Lobby
In the Elgin, 12 opera boxes and plaster details were recreated where they had been damaged or removed over the years; details over the proscenium and balcony facia were sculpted, cast and replaced
Over 300,000 sheets of wafer-thin aluminum leaf were used in the seven-step process of re-gilding the plaster details in the Elgin; "scagliola," the process of marble veining, was used in the lobby and grand staircase, with over 10,000 square feet of surface being recreated or conserved
Hundreds of pounds of raw bread dough were used to clean 20,000 square feet of hand-painted walls in the Winter Garden

Restored heritage sign for Loew's Theatre at the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres

The Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres' heritage Loew’s sign has been brought back to life on the exterior south wall of the building.

Now fully visible from Victoria Street looking north from Queen Street, the sign was painted to promote the Loew’s theatre’s movie programming. Over time, due to weather exposure and years of being painted over, the sign was barely visible, with faded lettering making it one of Toronto’s “ghost signs.” Today, it has been fully restored and looks better than ever.

The sign restoration was part of a larger conservation project of the theatre’s exterior south wall. Overseen by the Ontario Heritage Trust, this project also included repointing of mortar, removal and cleaning of several layers of paint on the bricks, replacing some bricks and restoring heritage windows and the terra cotta parapet cap at the top of the wall.

Instead of painting over the sign, it has been restored. This restoration has preserved and enhanced the existing ghost lettering. The process included hand-cleaning the wall’s surfaces to prepare it for a new coating. After it was cleaned, a clear, breathable masonry coating of mineral paint was applied. Coloured paint was then used to help bring out the original lettering and make it legible again.

The sign restoration was completed by Lori LeMare Studio Inc.

FAQ

Title

Marcus Loew owned Metro Pictures Corporation, the first M in MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). ¹

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