Along the morning search route was a hotel that was one of the last buildings approved before Toronto's new rules took effect.
It was one of the last buildings White designed, in the swan song of Beaux Arts architecture, before Modernism began to overtake the Renaissance ideal, architectural historians say.
His old line about "last buildings" gave way to a new one: "I've had a pretty good innings on the whole".
The populace is divided on the topic of the past, too, said Parkhomenko, who plans to launch another memorial project this month, placing plaques commemorating the victims of repression on the façades of the last buildings in which they lived.
Local attractions include the George M. Curtis House, a restored Victorian mansion of one of the lumber magnates, and the Van Allen Building (1914), one of the last buildings designed by architect Louis Sullivan and now a museum.
It was among the last buildings standing amid blocks of abandoned, battered facades in what was known as Alphabet City, which, like many other city neighborhoods, was plagued by crime and drugs.
These last buildings were destroyed during World War II.
The last buildings of the gasworks were a local landmark, and were not removed until the construction of the Caversham bypass in the 1970s and 1980s.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. drove the last rivet into the last building of the Rockefeller Center last week.
