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Mechanics’ Hall was a concert hall on the ground floor of Toronto’s Mechanics’ Institute at the corner of Church and Adelaide streets. It was designed in 1854 by architects F. W. Cumberland and W. G. Storm and completed in 1861. Used for concerts, theatrical productions, public meetings and lectures, the hall had raised, semi-circular seating and a capacity of 500. The Musical Union gave regular concerts there in the early 1860s, and the Toronto Philharmonic Society performed there for the first time in 1874 under F. H. Torrington. The hall was converted into storage space after the building was sold to the city in 1883 and became Toronto's first public library on 6 March 1884 — the city’s 50th anniversary. The library moved to a new location in 1909 and the Mechanics’ Institute building was demolished in 1930.
A version of this entry originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada.
