Toronto - Central Business District

A vast number of commercial, financial and professional institutions and services together with several government agencies are concentrated in Toronto's Central Business District (CBD), easily recognized by its towering skyscrapers. Every weekday a multitude of bankers, stockbrokers, insurance and property agents, lawyers and business people join with an army of civil servants to squeeze themselves into this relatively small downtown area. Their reinforced concrete office blocks, encased - some attractively, some rather less so - in glass and eloxal, bear fine sounding names such as the Sun Life Center (28 stores), Commerce Court (57 stores), the Toronto Dominion Center (designed by Mies van der Rohe and others) and First Canadian Plaza (consisting of the 72-storey Bank of Montréal, the 36-storey Stock Exchange and the massive Sheraton Hotel). Also prominent is the 70-storey Nova Scotia Bank. The majority of these modern high-rise developments have shopping levels with supermarkets selling food and household goods, fashion boutiques, banks, medical practitioners, hairdressers, hi-fi and camera shops and a variety of similar facilities including, of course, cafés, bistros and restaurants.

The main street of the Central Business District is Bay Street. Many of the most important skyscrapers in Toronto line Bay Street.