(ParkdaleLiberty, October 2003)
by Liz Clayton
The word "billiards" can faintly be made out on the Hanna side of this monolith. Photo by Liz Clayton.
The pool sharks racking them up at the Academy of Spherical Arts in Liberty Village aren’t just playing at the neighbourhood’s most upscale pool hall — they’re continuing the history of a building that once housed the largest billiard table manufacturer in the British Empire.
Built in 1905, the building at what was then 38 Pacific Avenue (the street’s name was changed in 1909 to Hanna), was home to the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company of Canada. The Brunswick company manufactured billiards tables and accessories in the building, boasting tables made with imported slate, rosewood inlays, and walnut rail tops. Billiards accessories, such as “Ivorylene balls” and high quality cues, were manufactured there as well.
The site, which consists of the original building and two later additions, was ideally suited to the scale of Brunswick’s diverse operations: in addition to their billiards business, Brunswick manufactured phonograph records. But the company was — and is — best known for their bowling line. The Hanna Avenue factory also manufactured bowling balls and pins, and undertook the monumental task of milling hardwood for prefabricated bowling lanes — you can still ride the triple-wide freight elevators they required to ship the lanes up and down the former factory’s five storeys. The factory also milled other large items such as bars, for shipment throughout the country via railroad.
Joe Lane, who made deliveries for Brunswick during their later years in Liberty Village, primarily remembers delivering pool tables. Of the company itself he remembers only that “they were cheap bastards.”
Though you can still faintly make out the words “bowling alleys and supplies” on the north side of the building, the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company packed its bags for the suburbs in the late 1950s, leaving the building to be taken over by the DBE Dairy Brewery Equipment Corporation. DBE, which shared the building with various other businesses including the Noma Lites corporation, resided at 38 Hanna until the 1970s, when the address was vacated for decades. Orfus Group Limited purchased the building in the 1980s, during which time the site underwent massive renovation, including sandblasting of the interior paint and the installation of all new windows. The massive boiler house on the property’s south end, which once fueled the intense machinery Brunswick once required, now houses only the building’s main sprinkler system.
Currently home to several businesses — many of whom now use the building’s 99 Atlantic Avenue address — the vestiges of Brunswick’s legacy (and that of the Dairy Brewery Equipment Corporation, for that matter) live on in the Academy of Spherical Arts, a billiards parlor and restaurant, and the only business to occupy the 38 Hanna Street address since 1976.