One King West, Toronto

wylk · 2012-03-10T05:37:00+00:00

A Toronto hotel, One King West, includes a former bank (Dominion Bank, 1914). One floor below the main level there is a large vault with a 4-foot-thick door: It is peculiar because the bolts can be seen but the boltwork is hidden (additionally there are only 20 bolts instead of the more common 24). The only other one I’ve seen like this is in the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland (which has 16 bolts) and is made by York. So, tentatively, the Toronto vault is probably a York? I haven’t run across any patents for this style of boltwork. Can anyone help?

VaultDoors

This is presumably the Treasury’s vault door pressure hand-wheel captured during a Bandit Barrier/Patrol Space tour:

VaultDoors

wylk wrote
[ATTACH=CONFIG]10345[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]10346[/ATTACH]

The above are clearly from the same photograph. Unfortunately the wide view is only 235×295 pixels while the closeup is 960×393. If only the wide view were available at the same resolution!

I found the uncropped image at 764px960 px:

[unknown]

VaultDoors

wylk wrote
Somewhere else I had heard there were two stories but there are very few images of the interior. I get the impression all of the boxes have been removed (pro: they do take up a lot of space, con: subtracts from the vault-like ambience) but I haven’t seen anything to suggest which direction the second floor is (up or down from the entrance) or where the stairs are. Or, is this just advertising and “Two storey” simply refers to the overall vault outer dimensions being equivalent to to two stories?

From these 1KW videos, it appears all the boxes have been removed from the (upper) Safe Deposit Vault and the only ones remaining are in the Coupon Room. I have not been able to find any pics of the (lower) Treasury Vault.

[unknown]

VaultDoors

MaxVaultage wrote
here’s something I dug out while looking for a different paper- it’s an advert I’d printed off 8 or 9 years ago when 1KW was still in use-
[ATTACH=CONFIG]10575[/ATTACH]

The brochure above shows the door without the time lock actuator and flag box so they may have been added when the movements were upgraded from 72-hour to 120-hour (between 1920-1970), when the second movement was removed (date unknown) or during the bank/hotel redesign which was completed in 2005. Here are some other pics of the vault door without the time lock actuator and flag box:

[unknown]

VaultDoors

VaultDoors wrote
The brochure above shows the door without the time lock actuator and flag box so they may have been added when the movements were upgraded from 72-hour to 120-hour (between 1920-1970), when the second movement was removed (date unknown) or during the bank/hotel redesign which was completed in 2005. Here are some other pics of the vault door without the time lock actuator and flag box:

This pic from the late 1950s/early 1960s shows all four movements with the time lock actuator and remote flag so these components must have been added sometime after the early 60s and before the hotel remodel in 1999-2005:

Also, the time lock actuator appears to have a channel/slot near the bottom of the bar - from the time lock case to the window frame. Outside the window frame the bottom channel stops and the top channel appears:

[unknown]

VaultDoors

VaultDoors wrote
Can anyone help identify the devices mounted on the One King West vault door frame in these old pics? One is positioned between the hand wheel and remote combination lock at the top of the frame and the other is installed about 5′ to the right of it. My guess is they were part of an alarm system.

Or perhaps part of the ventilation system mentioned on the One King West History page.

[unknown]

VaultDoors

VaultDoors wrote
This pic from the late 1950s/early 1960s shows all four movements with the time lock actuator and remote flag so these components must have been added sometime after the early 60s and before the hotel remodel in 1999-2005

Correction: This pic from the late 1950s/early 1960s is the earliest I could find of the time lock actuator and remote flag so these components were added between 1914 - early 1960s. The second movement was removed sometime after the early 1960s.

[unknown]

VaultDoors

The Combination Viewer appears to be missing in this pic:

Perhaps it was removed for maintenance or to replace the glass? The pic is posted here: http://www.bizbash.com/displays-lobby-outside-vault-featured-bottles-calvin-kleins-new/gallery/44829#sthash.5L8VBqAE.dpbs

VaultDoors

VaultDoors wrote
Here’s a clip of the New York Federal Reserve vault door in action:

[video][/video]

Here’s the New York Federal Reserve booklet titled ‘The Key To The Gold Vault’: http://www.freedomfeens.com/ASSETS2/goldvault.pdf

[unknown]

VaultDoors

An early pic of the One King West vault door shows pressure bar handles - between the pressure hand-wheel and the combo viewer:

This later pic shows the pressure bar handles removed:

Perhaps they were removed to prevent them from being stolen as the vault door is accessible to the public.

VaultDoors

timelocks wrote
I was wondering, assuming someone is accidentally locked in the vault. How does one open it from the inside? I can see how one can disable the time lock by pushing the actuator connected the lock, but then how are the bolts retracted? I see no mechanism to do this from the inside.

Here’s a better close-up of the time lock actuating device:

It is spring loaded and has a collar similar to its opposite end where it penetrates the time lock housing:

This time lock requires 70+ Lbs of pull/throw so perhaps this device is used to engage the actuator (long bar) as they line up when the door is closed.

[unknown]

Adrian Weber

The Vault Door anatomy document you did is magnificent thanks! 🙁happy):

VaultDoors

VaultDoors wrote
Can anyone help identify the devices mounted on the One King West vault door frame in these old pics?

Update - The ‘devices’ are not part of the vault door frame, they are attached to the grill work. Notice the device on the right moves to the left when the grill door is closed. They may be part of a track system for the grill door to slide open and closed.

[unknown]

VaultDoors

VaultDoors wrote
From these 1KW videos, it appears all the boxes have been removed from the (upper) Safe Deposit Vault and the only ones remaining are in the Coupon Room. I have not been able to find any pics of the (lower) Treasury Vault.

Update - The Dominion Bank Building, Toronto article published in Construction magazine, 1914 has the most complete history of the One King West Hotel and Vaults discovered to date. The article details the construction of the building, vaults, and vault doors and confirms the vault doors and vault walls were electrically protected. The walls are described as being fire proof, drill proof, shock proof, water proof, and acid proof, and the doors are described as being ‘steam tight’.

Here is the One King West rectangular Treasury Vault located in the sub-basement which has a combo viewer or ‘illuminated dial-case’:

Here is a pic of the Safe Deposit Vault located in the basement with lowered vault door and entrance platforms, glass panel, and all time lock movements sans the long actuator bar and flag:

Here is a pic of the interior of the Safe Deposit Vault which had over 1,000 safe deposit boxes:

[unknown]

VaultDoors

Doug MacQueen wrote
It has been years since I looked down the comb peekhole and just can’t remember much about it. But regarding alarms and electrical contacts, just about anything is possible here. Holmes worked with Hollar on electrical locking devices earlier in his career and electric bank alarms go back as early as the Civil War days. And in the early 1900’s, it was not unheard of to utilize booby traps, thermal contacts against burning attacks and such. There was a hidden gun turret in one of the statues outside the building that was recently removed. Doug

A machine gun emplacement under an exterior statue is shown in this article from Popular Mechanics, March 1931. I’m not sure which Fed Reserve the article depicts since the NY Fed does not have exterior statues and the Cleveland Fed has exterior statues but I don’t think it has a revolving vault. Perhaps this is just an example of various elements employed at Federal Reserves during this period.

VaultDoors

[unknown]

Tom Gordon

The machine gun in the picture had no defensive protection nor suitability for shooting in the direction drawn.
It does seem somewhat fanciful to have moving statues and the artist clearly didnt quite know what he was meant to be drawing, so I think it must have just been a very fun idea.

VaultDoors

Tom Gordon wrote
The machine gun in the picture had no defensive protection nor suitability for shooting in the direction drawn.
It does seem somewhat fanciful to have moving statues and the artist clearly didnt quite know what he was meant to be drawing, so I think it must have just been a very fun idea.

Here are three unofficial sites describing the statues defense features, albeit anecdotal evidence:

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=6998.0

http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/310#.UwWT0fldWSo

http://rustwire.com/2009/11/02/the-masonry-and-ironwork-of-cleveland/

[unknown]

VaultDoors

VaultDoors wrote
Here are three unofficial sites describing the statues defense features, albeit anecdotal evidence:

Here is another unofficial account of the statue defenses posted by wylk in another thread: https://web.archive.org/web/20080313134302/http://www.bxmagazine.com/article.asp?ID=265

[unknown]

Tom Gordon

VaultDoors wrote
Here is another unofficial account of the statue defenses posted by wylk in another thread: https://web.archive.org/web/20080313134302/http://www.bxmagazine.com/article.asp?ID=265

Yup, it makes a lot more practical sense that gun turrets would be in the base of the statues and pointing towards an approaching raging mob, (or Sat night revellers as they call them in Cork) which is very different to the picture above.

[unknown]

Adrian Weber

Very interesting pictures Vault Doory! 🙁nerd):

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