Demolition begins on iconic Beach Motel

The final vestige of Toronto’s post-war era, neon-lit lakeshore motel strip is being demolished as the city makes way for another condominium.

Wrecking crews arrived at the Beach Motel on Lake Shore Boulevard West Thursday to take down the iconic building and its distinctive mustard-yellow sign.

The motel has been shuttered since last year, and it was learned that developer Empire Communities would be erecting a condominium on the five-acre property.

Alongside similar businesses with geometric and sometimes garish furniture, the Beach Motel played host to scores of tourists during the height of its success in the 1950s and 1960s.

“It's a sad day seeing something that was part of our memories come down," said Ward 6 Councillor Mark Grimes said in a prepared statement. “As someone who has grown up in this community, and raised my own family here, the motels were familiar sites.”

The motel and its kin -- the Seahorse, the Rainbow and the Sunnyside, to name a few -- formed south Etobicoke’s famed motel strip on Highway 2. The road, which is now known was Lake Shore Boulevard, was a main thoroughfare in and out of Toronto.

The waterfront motel strip began to see business decline in the late 1960s, with the then-new Gardiner Expressway leading traffic away from the strip.