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. Toronto planned the area as an extension of the town of York in 1796, but its banks came later. Regional banks kept offices here through the nineteenth century, and it only became the base for Canada's five biggest banks in the second half of the twentieth.
went up in 1976 at 298 metres and has been Canada's tallest building since. The 's six towers followed between 1967 and 1991, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in black steel and bronze glass on a granite plaza. Royal Bank Plaza, finished in 1976 and 1979, covers its two towers in glass coloured with real gold.
PATH, an underground network of shops, links the bank towers. About 100,000 people pass through it on an average working day, but the shops close and the walkways empty out on evenings and weekends. The , a 1929 hotel on Front Street, shares its block with Royal Bank Plaza.
Two productions have used the towers to play Manhattan. Mary Harron shot American Psycho's climax at the . Patrick Bateman runs from one of its two identical towers to the other, mistaking it for his own office, before he crosses the plaza to confess. Suits, a legal drama set at a fictional New York firm, filmed in the Richmond-Adelaide Centre and lobbies whenever the story left its offices.
Films shot in Financial District
The Financial District has doubled for New York more than once. Suits, a legal drama set at a fictional New York law firm, filmed in the lobbies of the Richmond-Adelaide Centre and the whenever the story left its offices.
American Psycho, 2000
Director Mary Harron shot the film's climax at the 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.
What Financial District can double for
Financial District can stand in for a Manhattan investment bank's offices in American Psycho, including the exterior, lobby and plaza of two identical black office towers and New York City corporate law firm exteriors and lobbies in the series Suits.
