The building sits atop a high escarpment with a commanding view to the south, and before the construction of the downtown banking towers in the late 1960s, the top floor observation deck was, at almost 800 feet (244 metres) above sea level, the highest point in Toronto; on a clear day visitors could see the rising spray from Niagara Falls, across Lake Ontario.

With its thick walls, relatively small windows, a built-in cafeteria, a location separated from major targets, and large offices that could be converted to wards, the IOB was designed to be used, in the event of nuclear attack, as an alternative hospital.

The mural is made of vinyl acetate and is mounted to the wall in such a way that vibrations in the building will not be transmitted to the artwork, possibly causing it to crack.

However, Nathan Phillips, Toronto's mayor in 1955, rejected the Mathers and Haldenby design for city hall and opened the commission to an international competition that was eventually won by Finnish architect Viljo Revell.

Until she died in 1964, her property jutted into the Imperial Oil parking lot, an icon of a citizen's refusal to give in to a corporation.

The last traces of Isabel Massie's house, roughly across the street from 38 Foxbar Road, were dug up in 2012 when the subsequent owner excavated for an underground parking garage.

As announced in a press conference on September 29, 2004, Imperial Oil re-located to Calgary, Alberta (some corporate operations moved to the Esso Building at 90 Wynford Drive in the Don Mills district).

Soil testing before the property was listed for sale found that sand about 40 feet below the eastern part of the parking lot was contaminated with heating oil that had leaked from an underground storage tank.