Restoration of the manually operated elevator at the Ontario Heritage Centre (2016)

The Birkbeck Building, located in Toronto’s financial district, is owned and operated by the Ontario Heritage Trust. In fact, it is the Trust’s headquarters. This four-storey commercial office building is also often used for film shoots. Designed by George W. Gouinlock as the head office of the Canadian Birkbeck Investment and Savings Company, it was constructed in 1908 — the same year that the Model T Ford was introduced. And while a vintage Ford is rarely seen driving around today, the hand-operated elevator at the Birkbeck Building still offers people a daily lift.

While the elevator cab was replaced in the 1950s, the original mechanical equipment has survived unchanged. But, as you can imagine, the equipment has required ongoing servicing over the years. And it was difficult to find — let alone retain — service staff who were familiar enough with this kind of equipment.

The increasing frequency and duration of breakdowns put the heritage elevator at risk of being replaced entirely by more modern equipment. But, in 2016, the Trust launched a project to restore the original machinery without modernization, to recover the early-20th-century appearance of the elevator cab, and to make the operating machinery more visible to the public.

The project team included three individuals who had spent their careers in the elevator industry — all with a mechanic’s curiosity about how things work. A traditional machine shop was engaged, capable of fabricating components from scratch. By using this approach, we were able to continue using the elevator — with its 1908 cogs, shafts, springs, magnets, relays, cables and weights — while continuing to provide service within the building. This is more than a display piece. This is a working artifact.

In addition to the reconstruction of the cab and the restoration of the machinery, the other objective of this project was to make the machinery more visible to the public. Viewing panels were installed in the basement, where people can watch the mechanics in action as the elevator is running. As the Ontario Heritage Centre is locked during business hours, one of the few opportunities that people have to witness the mechanicals is during an event like Doors Open Toronto, when the site is occasionally open to the public.