Bay Street (Toronto)

Bay Street
Bay Street looking towards Old City Hall, its terminating vista south of Queen Street.
Major junctions
North end:	Davenport Road
South end:	Lake Ontario
Location
Major cities:	Toronto
Nearby arterial roads ← University Avenue, Avenue Road Bay Street Yonge Street →

Bay Street is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the centre of Toronto's Financial District and is often used by metonymy to refer to Canada's financial services industry since succeeding Montreal's St. James Street in that role in the 1970s.

Bay Street begins at Queens Quay (Toronto Harbour) in the south and ends at Davenport Road in the north. The original section of Bay Street ran only as far north as Queen Street West. Sections north of Queen Street were renamed Bay Street as several other streets were consolidated and several gaps filled in to create a new thoroughfare in the 1920s. The largest of these streets, Terauley Street, ran from Queen Street West to Grenville Street. At these two points, there is a curve in Bay Street.

"Bay Street" is frequently used as a metonym to refer to Toronto's Financial District and the Canadian financial sector as a whole, similar to Wall Street in the United States. "Bay Street banker", as in the phrase "cold as a Bay Street banker's heart", was a term of opprobrium especially among Prairie farmers who feared that Toronto-based financial interests were hurting them. Within the legal profession, the term Bay Street is also used colloquially to refer to the large, full-service business law firms of Toronto.

The street was originally known as Bear Street because of frequent bear sightings in the early history of Toronto. It was renamed Bay Street in 1797 from the fact that it connected Lot Street (present-day Queen Street West) to a bay at the Toronto Harbour. In the 19th century the intersection of Bay and King Street was home to Toronto's major newspapers: the Mail Building, the old Toronto Star Building, and the William H. Wright Building (old Globe and Mail headquarters) were all located near the intersection.