Standing at the mouth of the Humber River in the 1950s, you would have been faced with a very different scene on the lakeshore – the Palace Pier. Conceived as “Canada’s Million Dollar Pier” in the late 1920s, the original development was to include a ballroom, a “Palace of Fun”, a band pavilion, and a theatre – all on a pier extending over half a kilometre into the lake. The project was delayed by financial difficulties and the Great Depression, and after the cornerstone was laid in 1931 the building would sit vacant for a decade. The final iteration was a main ballroom on a 100m long pier. First opening as a roller rink called the Strathcona Palace Pier in June 1941, it was would later be known as the Queensway Ballroom, the Humber Pier Ballroom, then the Palace Pier from the mid-1940s onwards. For two decades, the space hosted dances, orchestras, fundraisers, competitions, and rallies with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Lionel Hampton among the performers. In the early hours ...