The CBC Broadcasting Centre

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was created by federal statute in 1936, and Toronto became one of its two main production centres alongside Montreal, especially after English-language CBC Television launched from the city on September 8, 1952. For much of the twentieth century, though, CBC Toronto's operations were spread across a patchwork of converted buildings around the city, most notably studios carved out of the former Havergal Ladies' College building on Jarvis Street. By the 1980s the corporation was operating out of well over a dozen separate downtown buildings, an arrangement that was expensive and increasingly impractical.

A single headquarters

The solution was the Canadian Broadcasting Centre at 250 Front Street West, which opened in stages starting in 1992 and consolidated most of CBC's English-language Toronto operations under one roof, organized around a central atrium later named the Barbara Frum Atrium after the respected CBC journalist who died in March 1992. The building also houses the Glenn Gould Studio, a public performance and recording venue named for the Toronto-born pianist, which has hosted concerts and public events since the centre opened.

Sources

• The Canadian Encyclopedia — Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
• Wikipedia — Canadian Broadcasting Centre

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