| Year |
Details |
|
| 1898 |
Bracondale Public Library is organized at a “very well attended meeting at Turner’s Hall held on Thursday last” (Toronto Globe, Saturday, 21 May 1898). Turner’s Hall was a community meeting space on the upper floor of Bracondale Post Office, located in part of a two-storey frame building at the southwest corner of Christie Street and Davenport Road. The post office is the first location of the fledgling library. |
| 1899 |
Bracondale Public Library Board makes it first report to provincial officials at the end of April. It had received $122.86, spent $117. 28 and its assets were valued at $99.38; the library had 103 members who had borrowed the 147 books in the collection 486 times. |
| 1901 |
Bracondale Public Library relocates to one or two rooms next the enamelling shop in J. E. Edwards & Sons Leather Goods factory, located on Christie Street at the southeast corner of Albert Street (Benson Avenue). |
| 1904 |
Bracondale Public Library’s furniture, records and most of its 1,500 volumes are destroyed by a fire at the factory on 13 February. At a special meeting held on 17 February, the Library Board accepts an offer of space in the Wychwood Fire Hall, located on the north side of Alcina Avenue west of Bathurst Street. The library relocates to the lower part of the fire hall in March. |
| 1905 |
Bracondale Public Library Board accepts an offer on 23 February from the trustees of School Section No. 25, York Township for free quarters in the new Hillcrest School, which opens on the east side of Bathurst Street, between Hillcrest (Hilton) and Nina avenues in May. |
| 1906 |
The library’s space is taken over for a classroom, and its 1,400 volumes are moved to six shelves at the back of the room. The library is allocated a classroom once again when Hillcrest School is enlarged in 1907. |
| 1909 |
Hillcrest School is taken over by the Toronto Board of Education after the Wychwood and Bracondale districts are annexed to the City of Toronto on 1 February 1909. The following month, an official from the Bracondale Public Library Board writes to Toronto Public Library’s chief librarian requesting that the local library be made a branch of the city library system. |
| 1911 |
The Bracondale Public Library Board is recognized “as having proprietary rights in the room dedicated for the purpose of a public library prior to annexation” (Toronto Pubic Library, Annual Report 1911, 12). The assets of the Bracondale Public Library Board, including $56.10 cash on hand and 1,777 books, are transferred to the Toronto Public Library Board in October. Toronto Public Library staff begins "repairing, rebinding, accessioning, numbering, classifying and cataloguing them." (Toronto Public Library Board, Libraries and Finance Committee, Minutes, 7 November 1911, 26.) |
| 1912 |
Toronto Public Library opens Wychwood Branch in the old Bracondale Public Library room at Hillcrest Public School on 2 February 1912. It is the first branch that Toronto Public Library operates in a school. About 1,100 of the 1,600 volumes in the new branch came from the old Bracondale Public Library. |
| 1915 |
Carnegie Corporation of New York grants $50,000 to the Toronto Public Library Board on 6 February to build three branches in “far-outlying portions” of the city. Toronto's Carnegie Libraries - Wychwood. The City of Toronto provides a site for Wychwood Branch comprised of a city-owned property extending 100 feet on the east side of Bathurst Street by 125 feet on the north side of Melgund Road and valued at $13,125. Eden Smith & Sons’ design for Wychwood Branch is accepted by the Toronto Public Library Board on 12 March, “subject to the approval of the plans by the Carnegie Trust”. It is replicated at Beaches and High Park branches. |
| 1916 |
Officially opened on 15 April. That autumn, the site is planted with 276 varieties of shrubs and perennials arranged botanically following a design planned by Toronto landscape architects William Edward Harries and Alfred V. Hall. |
| 1925 |
The St. Clair Horticultural Society presents Wychwood Branch with a silver cup "for the best-kept public grounds in the district." (Toronto Public Library, Annual Report 1925, 29 (PDF)). |
| 1945 |
Toronto Public Library Board agrees on 13 March to lease a piece of its property, four yards by eight yards on the east side of Wychwood Branch, to the city to be used to erect a clubroom for the use of the Wells Hill Bowling Club. The conditions include “that any building to be erected shall be constructed of brick and that should this piece of land at any future time be required for library extension it shall be freely surrendered to the Library Board.” |
| 1951 |
On 9 May, the Toronto Public Library Board agrees “That the request of the Wells Hill Bowling Club to be permitted to move their storehouse so that it will encroach on library property approximately 8 ft. x 3 ft. be granted on condition that the officers of the Club state in writing that they will remove this storehouse from library property at the Library Board's request should the Board ever need the land, and that it be understood that the Library Board cannot entertain any further request for encroachments.” |
| 1976 |
Listed on Toronto Historical Board's Inventory of Heritage Properties, adopted by City Council, 18 August. |
| 1978 |
Renovated, Phillip H. Carter, Architect, who wins an award of excellence from the "Canadian Architect Yearbook" for his design. |
| 1979 |
Opening ceremonies celebrating the completed renovations are held on Saturday, April 7. |
| 1992 |
Closed for barrier-free access improvements on 17 February. Reopened on 15 March. |
| 1995 |
Retrofitted, Robin Tharin Architects. Closed on 18 November. |
| 1996 |
Reopened on 25 March. |
| 2007 |
New hours, 8 January. Hours open per week increased from 58 to 62. |
| 2014 |
Community consultations begin for a renovation and enlargement of Wychwood Branch planned by Shoalts and Zaback Architects. |
| 2018 |
Closed 30 June for approximately two years for a major renovation. The project calls for a demolition of the 1978 addition; a renovation of the 1916 library and a new addition of 10,691 square feet. Architects: SZA, Shoalts and Zaback Architects Ltd. |
| 2022 |
Reopened on October 3. |
|
Wychwood Branch on the Digital Archive |
