Black and gold bank towers rise over a granite plaza, and the streets between them go quiet on evenings and weekends.
What Financial District looks like
The Financial District runs from Queen Street West to Front Street, between Yonge Street and University Avenue. Black glass and dark steel office towers rise on both sides of Bay Street, narrowing the sidewalk into a shaded canyon between the buildings. King Street West crosses through the middle of the district, with streetcars and pedestrians sharing the intersection at Bay and King.
Royal Bank Plaza sits at Bay and Front, its twin towers sheathed in gold bronze glass with tan granite trim, the glass tinted using real gold. It shares its block with the , whose green copper roof and stone tower rise beside it. Front Street forms the district's southern edge here, a block short of Union Station and its curved glass train shed.
rises in white marble cladding a few blocks north, its 298 metre tower still the tallest in the country. West along Wellington Street, the 's six black steel towers stand on a raised granite plaza paved in Saint Jean granite. Marble, travertine and English oak finish the Banking Pavilion and the tower lobbies behind the glass.
PATH, an underground network of shops, runs beneath the towers and links most of the district's basements. Its corridors stay lit on evenings and weekends, but the shops pull their gates down and the walkways empty out. Roughly 100,000 commuters pass back through the next weekday morning.
Shot in Financial District
The Financial District has stood in for New York more than once. Suits, the USA Network series set at a fictional Manhattan law firm, filmed in the lobbies of the Richmond-Adelaide Centre and the Bay-Adelaide Centre whenever the story left its own offices. The front stairs of the National Club on Bay Street stood in for a New York apartment entrance in the same series.
American Psycho, 2000
The twin towers
Played Pierce & Pierce, Manhattan, New York City, 1987
Director Mary Harron shot the film's climax at the Toronto-Dominion Centre because its two identical towers suited a story about mistaken identity. Patrick Bateman runs into one tower in a panic, thinking it is his own office. He shoots a security guard there. Then he crosses the plaza to the other, identical tower and confesses his crimes to his lawyer. The complex was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and finished in 1991. The same tower's exterior separately stood in for the fictional Jabot Cosmetics headquarters on the daytime soap The Young and the Restless.
Suicide Squad, 2016
Played Midway City
Amanda Waller's escape helicopter is shot down and comes to rest on Bay Street in front of Royal Bank Plaza. Harley Quinn is found afterward sitting on a police car outside First Canadian Place, a block north. Killer Croc's flooded subway scene uses the Bay Street exterior of Bay Station. The 'Golden Tree' bar exterior is Ki, a Japanese restaurant at 181 Bay Street beneath Brookfield Place. The film sets the district as the fictional Midway City rather than a real city.
What Financial District can double for
LaSalle Street in Chicago, Illinois
LaSalle Street's canyon of stone and glass bank towers gives Chicago's own financial core a similar street level scale. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed towers in both cities, so the same minimalist glass and steel vocabulary carries over. Chicago's older limestone bank buildings sit closer to the street than Toronto's plazas, so a wide shot needs to avoid the setback towers that give the district away. Try searching glass and steel bank towers now.
Bankenviertel in Frankfurt, Germany
The Bankenviertel is Frankfurt's own financial district of glass and steel office towers, packed densely enough that the area empties out once the workday ends, the same way Bay Street does. The towers here run taller and stand closer together than Bay Street's do, so keep the frame tight to hold the illusion. Try searching glass towers financial district now.
Canary Wharf's glass towers stand on their own plazas the way Bay Street's do, built for banking rather than for a mixed downtown. The crowds thin out the same way once the offices close for the weekend. Its plazas add landscaping and water features Toronto's do not have, so a wide shot needs a tighter frame to hold the match. Try searching glass towers on a plaza now.
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