Dan416
Senior Member
Realistically, if they had the money, "heritage" would not be much of an issue here.
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adma
Superstar
Well, if you, yourself, are the kind of person who'd gladly rip down an original Don Mills house for modern-day middlebrow schlock with "better insulation", it speaks for itself.
Or at least they're "high functioning morons" to you. But perhaps Joe Blow heritage philistines like you are meant to be driven lulu and maybe to self-electrocution. Sorry.
Does your kind of "anyone" go to London to see this?
(Then again, I can picture that turning up on London Transport posters; but, hey. Then again, if stuff like that leads one to scout out or scream in glee at other, even "minor" surviving examples of 1930s London Underground aesthetic, those that don't make it to the tourist posters and lit, all the better--it brings out the transit geek or 30s modern design geek in all of us.)
Besides, why does this all have to be filtered through hack Tourism TO poster ooh-aah formulae? Look: in *every* sensible city out there, even of the NY/London/Paris variety, there are heritage landmarks which are, er, "lost to visitors" and of no particular consequence to locals--at least, the local versions of Don Millsians who'd rip down on behalf of McMansions. So? Screw 'em.
The highest form of tourism, in fact, is that which empowers us to see the heritage, the art, the qualities in that which isn't necessarily obviously "heritage" and "artistic". And personally, it sounds to me like you'd make one heck of a mediocre tourist--and beet-red angry and disgruntled, if you were with me.
Yeah, but you might as well argue they couldn't possibly understand the beauty of this art, as well
as opposed to this art.
Besides, that supposed Bush picture doesn't work on any particularly coherent pro *or* anti-Bush level--as a representation of "art", or "heritage" (except for rail heritage, i.e. the rolling stock up front), or the sheds themselves. So, it's a nuisance image--and the "art" argument is a nuisance argument, to boot.
Well, simply by being presented in the report, that's "case enough". It isn't a matter of arguing it to be on a level with St Pancras. It's a matter of arguing it to be a critical element in the remaining original Union Station ensemble. Besides, if not to the point of your kind yahoo philistine Bateman-loving McMansion-living "vibration at the sheer excitement", I don't see what'd prevent people from being at the very least intrigued and fascinated, were attention drawn to a cleaned-up shed or portion thereof. Again, it's not just for rail geeks, it's for the rail geek in all of us. Ooh-aah melodrama? Big deal. If I were in Bilbao, I might well ultimately find Gehry and all that starchitecture clapped-out boring and seek out the grubby/banal old untouristed nooks and crannies and wastelands instead.
And yet, despite all of this, it's still worthy of being taken (whether in advance of retention, or of removal) seriously as a heritage element. Seriously. So it was built as "practical" rather than self-consciously "poetic". So what? Same with various other landmarks around town (Canada Malting, for instance); and yet there remains a serious heritage argument on their behalf, too, even when they're in even more obvious neglect and disrepair than the Bush sheds. Likewise, how many are actively arguing for removing the rail bridge at King & Sudbury just because some rocks fell and led to traffic and streetcar diversions on Thursday and into Friday?
Get this straight, Whoaccio: you're not in heritage power. And the way things are set up, your parameters aren't likely to be unless somebody like Doug Holyday became mayor...
adma
Superstar
And, to add a few things, maybe veering away from topic yet in a way that can feed back on-topic...
First, re the TourismTO angle: I know, from practice, that anywhere, when I have to rely too hard on the local TourismTO equivalent to "know" or "appreciate" a place, it leaves me feeling strangely undernourished. Oh, sure, I can ooh-aah at the CN Tower or the City Halls or ROM/AGO; but they become empty-pupiled and inert and devoid of a fully fleshed-out context when encountered the local-tourist-bureau way. I'd rather sympathetically localize, to get in touch with the genius loci, the fascinating how-this-came-to-be, in a way that official local tourist bureaus can only form a means, rather than an end. And I'm sure I'm not alone--in practice, tourism can be a very anticlimactic experience for many, without their fully realizing it. Like, TourismTO might not do justice to a grubby train shelter, but by that account what *can* it do justice to, in the end? (Though by pushing Doors Open Toronto, maybe TourismTO *does* wind up back-handedly advancing a cause for appreciating the Bush sheds, anyway.)
Second, re suburbanites. I mean, forget the Bush sheds. More often than not, they're profoundly dense and abjectly incurious about understanding any heritagesque-or-not stuff even within their own domain. Let's say, residents of the newest Milton subdivisions who are all but completely oblivious, even months after moving in, to the existence of the old Town of Milton. Or, for that matter, to the story or pre-history of their own immediate place, their subdivision, etc. There's little or no sense of their having bonded to any particular real-time genius loci, at all--it isn't so much that these subdivisions are entropic, as certain Kunstlerite anti-suburban critics might claim; rather, it's that their residents choose to live in them entropically. And likewise, when they move into older subdivisions like Don Mills in a teardown spirit. It ain't where they live, it's the way that they live there--all too often in a total, utter vacuum. (Heck, in a funny way I'd argue that a lot of the woes about Jane/Finch or Malvern emanate from the families of the hoodlums and whomever existing there in an ahistorical vacuum. Thus, what could be "neighbourhood" winds up being "pathology", instead,)
Interestingly enough, I find that when I stay with friends or relatives in the suburbs or "nondescript zones", my insatiable curiosity very frequently, within short notice, leaves me "knowing" (and wanting to know more of) the place better than even the locals do. And to those I'm staying with, it shows. But it's without malice; and it leaves their eyes wide open as well. Very seldom are they disgruntled or resentful; maybe there's more to where they live than even they realize.
Indeed, by that measure, I'd argue that the healthiest, richest, most sophisticated form of "touristic" outreach starts at a domestic, localized basis. That is, it isn't about overly focussing upon the potboiler City Halls and CN Towers; but rather, about presenting a symbiotic city where even the Don Millses and Rexdales and Malverns have their story and inherent cherishable qualities. It isn't that those who come for the potboilers need bother with the more peripheral stuff; rather that they could, if they wanted to--and Toronto, *all* of Toronto, the 416 and even beyond, presents itself as the kind of place where they could. A *much* more interesting Toronto--and remember: not all of our visitors are staying in the downtown core "among the landmarks". A lot of them might be staying out of the centre for family or practical reasons--or might even ultimately choose to live there. If a visitor's staying in a Scarborough neighbourhood, then why shouldn't they be offered incentive to learn about said Scarborough neighbourhood, and others nearby?
Rule of thumb: a place without a story or a cherishable fabric is garbage--or at least, readymade incentive to be treated like garbage.
So...
And that's where it's showing that you are--and presumably the family and cultural milieu you come from is--part of the problem that desperately needs to be fixed.
You're (sarcastic sic) calibre of overall heritage sensitivity still earns an F grade and expulsion, i.e. if it's deemed that the Bush shed's got to go, it'll be in spite of you, not because of you, short of some kind of Common Sense Revolution in heritage policy. (And given that you seemed elsewhere to advocate a PM Harper-appointed mayoralty over the present council, maybe I shouldn't be too surprised.)
First, re the TourismTO angle: I know, from practice, that anywhere, when I have to rely too hard on the local TourismTO equivalent to "know" or "appreciate" a place, it leaves me feeling strangely undernourished. Oh, sure, I can ooh-aah at the CN Tower or the City Halls or ROM/AGO; but they become empty-pupiled and inert and devoid of a fully fleshed-out context when encountered the local-tourist-bureau way. I'd rather sympathetically localize, to get in touch with the genius loci, the fascinating how-this-came-to-be, in a way that official local tourist bureaus can only form a means, rather than an end. And I'm sure I'm not alone--in practice, tourism can be a very anticlimactic experience for many, without their fully realizing it. Like, TourismTO might not do justice to a grubby train shelter, but by that account what *can* it do justice to, in the end? (Though by pushing Doors Open Toronto, maybe TourismTO *does* wind up back-handedly advancing a cause for appreciating the Bush sheds, anyway.)
Second, re suburbanites. I mean, forget the Bush sheds. More often than not, they're profoundly dense and abjectly incurious about understanding any heritagesque-or-not stuff even within their own domain. Let's say, residents of the newest Milton subdivisions who are all but completely oblivious, even months after moving in, to the existence of the old Town of Milton. Or, for that matter, to the story or pre-history of their own immediate place, their subdivision, etc. There's little or no sense of their having bonded to any particular real-time genius loci, at all--it isn't so much that these subdivisions are entropic, as certain Kunstlerite anti-suburban critics might claim; rather, it's that their residents choose to live in them entropically. And likewise, when they move into older subdivisions like Don Mills in a teardown spirit. It ain't where they live, it's the way that they live there--all too often in a total, utter vacuum. (Heck, in a funny way I'd argue that a lot of the woes about Jane/Finch or Malvern emanate from the families of the hoodlums and whomever existing there in an ahistorical vacuum. Thus, what could be "neighbourhood" winds up being "pathology", instead,)
Interestingly enough, I find that when I stay with friends or relatives in the suburbs or "nondescript zones", my insatiable curiosity very frequently, within short notice, leaves me "knowing" (and wanting to know more of) the place better than even the locals do. And to those I'm staying with, it shows. But it's without malice; and it leaves their eyes wide open as well. Very seldom are they disgruntled or resentful; maybe there's more to where they live than even they realize.
Indeed, by that measure, I'd argue that the healthiest, richest, most sophisticated form of "touristic" outreach starts at a domestic, localized basis. That is, it isn't about overly focussing upon the potboiler City Halls and CN Towers; but rather, about presenting a symbiotic city where even the Don Millses and Rexdales and Malverns have their story and inherent cherishable qualities. It isn't that those who come for the potboilers need bother with the more peripheral stuff; rather that they could, if they wanted to--and Toronto, *all* of Toronto, the 416 and even beyond, presents itself as the kind of place where they could. A *much* more interesting Toronto--and remember: not all of our visitors are staying in the downtown core "among the landmarks". A lot of them might be staying out of the centre for family or practical reasons--or might even ultimately choose to live there. If a visitor's staying in a Scarborough neighbourhood, then why shouldn't they be offered incentive to learn about said Scarborough neighbourhood, and others nearby?
Rule of thumb: a place without a story or a cherishable fabric is garbage--or at least, readymade incentive to be treated like garbage.
So...
And that's where it's showing that you are--and presumably the family and cultural milieu you come from is--part of the problem that desperately needs to be fixed.
You're (sarcastic sic) calibre of overall heritage sensitivity still earns an F grade and expulsion, i.e. if it's deemed that the Bush shed's got to go, it'll be in spite of you, not because of you, short of some kind of Common Sense Revolution in heritage policy. (And given that you seemed elsewhere to advocate a PM Harper-appointed mayoralty over the present council, maybe I shouldn't be too surprised.)
Sir Novelty Fashion
Senior Member
At some point in time heritage planners have to run up against the question of Historic Things That Are Nasty. The bush shed is really kinda nasty. It may be a relic, and a unique one at that, but I'm unsure of the extent to which it could be renovated to meed modern needs. At the extremities of the station, where the train shed extends past the station proper, the walls could be punched out and replaced with something more transparent, which might let more light in. Otherwise, I fear that the bush sheds are antithetical to the current goal, which is an appealing and humane transit space, desired for the sake of the greater good.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
I'm not, but I don't have to be to understand that 99% of people don't care about Don Mills beyond how to make their little dream home. I disagree with it, but they can very well disagree with my home. That is why I respect their poor choices. If you want to actually be taken seriously you have to acknowledge that people's opinions aren't somehow void because they disagree with you.
Err... that was specifically referring to jswag's response that a purely pragmatic approach to construction would automatically lead to the end of all heritage. I don't think this is true. If you believe that heritage has a value (I don't mean popular in some circles, i mean actual dollars and cents value) like I do you shouldn't treat it differently from any other cost. Just to use a really simple example, the extreme heritage value of the the Kremlin (just add in any building you want, it doesn't matter) is valued into the building. If someone tried to buy the Kremlin, the upfront capital outlay would be 'priceless.' Nobody would spend the requisite billions to purchase the Kremlin just to replace it with a McDonald's. The only way it would be practical to justify destroying the Kremlin would be to build something better (creative destruction). The point is, heritage values are factored into value of a structure. By destroying heritage buildings, you are loosing 'value' unless they are replaced by something better.
'Supposed'? Where else do you see a Via & GO Train under a Bush Shed? Gare du Nord? The context is spot on actually, that is the view that nearly everyone who uses the Bush Shed is greeted with. That is what people actually have to deal with in real terms beyond heritage polemics. As far as I see it, it is clearly an unappealing environment from virtually any context beyond giggling at the horrible life of people in the1920s before figuring out that it is still with us.
If it's not just for rail fans, who is it for? When was the last time you went to the train shed to bask in you're superiority? When was the last time you heard anyone remark positively on the train shed beyond the way school kids visit mock Iroquois settlements? Here is a fun thought experiment: how much would you, personally, pay to keep the train shed as is (maybe sex it up a bit)? 20$? 40$? 1,000$? You keep harping on as if you have some kind of authority when (as far as we know) you are just some random person with too much time. Are you David Miller? Do you own Union Station? Why should anyone listen to you over the people that wanted to put an arena over the trainshed? At least they had the money and gumption to back up their ranting. If Toronto had a referendum next year to fund replacing the train shed, would you have anything more substantial to dissuade them besides everyone other than you being idiots? Go ahead, tell us proles why the Train Shed is so great. Please. I beg you ohh great heritage monk, teach us the glory of the Bush Sheds! Why don't you try explaining it for once instead of coming up with insults that nobody finds clever or even insulting. Well, almost no one. Rest assured I will go to sleep crying knowing that you think I live in a McMansion.
What the hell is 'heritage power'? This sounds like something a 12 year old would say, but I know you are older than that because no 12 year old could possibly have such an inventory of useless knowledge about buildings nobody cares about. I can't believe this even needs pointing out but, "get this striaght...:you're not in heritage power." Not because I disagree with you, but because there is nothing remotely approaching 'heritage power.' It is a myth that heritage majors teach themselves to make their degrees seem important. There is electrical power, mechanical power, political power, and many more. As it relates to the trainshed, the only 'power' is that of its myriad owners. Not you and the Justice League, or whatever you are calling it now.
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Whoaccio
Senior Member
This is why God came up with things like statistics. See, any one of us can say we dislike this or that. It is all a bit hollow though, isn't it? Statistics show that the Eaton Center, CN Tower, Skydome, ROM/AGO and so forth are by a ridiculously large margin the most popular non-business tourist attractions. Fine, maybe you don't like it. It is more a reflection on an overinflated ego though than anything else because every single piece of evidence suggest tourists do like those things. Sorry, it might offend your sensitivity but it is a fact.
Statistics, statistics, statistics. Lies, damned lies and statistics is much better than Lies, damned lies and random conjecture. Heritage types are probably not alone in their peculiarities. I would wager there are a few hundred of you. Smart money, and you clearly think you are smart, isn't worth more than tornado-bait, I-Hop infused money though. I'm still confused as to how people can be so willingly dismissive of most people. Do you ever wonder why precious little Don Mills bungalows and abandoned factories need endless streams of government support and protection to struggle on while McMansions pop out of every other plot and Wii sales are skyrocketing while BC's ballet is going bankrupt? Or is everyone else stupid? Even if you don't agree with things, it isn't healthy to foster the false sense of superiority you obviously have about yourself. Just a quick case study of said complex:
My job often had me travel to N. Ontario for a while. As anybody who has been there will say, it is a land of intense natural beauty. Realizing the gold mine of sorts they were sitting on, the locals were perpetually confused by us city folk. "Our country has so much beauty to see outside of Toronto," they would say, "why are you all cramped up in there when you could be in a cabin or dockside?" To them, so immersed in the local culture and lifestyle, this was a logical question. Nobody really asked questions like, how can 'city folk' make a better living in Gowganda, or whether their communities had adequate infrastructure or schools or hospitals or non-nature attractions. This is the problem with tunnel vision approaches to problems. You inevitably miss the solution. People pay thousands of dollars to travel to Banff or the Louvre and get treated like crap to get their nature or heritage fix. There are reasons beyond 'everyone else is stupid' why we don't go to Milton or Rainy River.
Any place in time, down to the smallest sub atomic particle, has qualities which are cherished. That doesn't imply a kind of values based communism where all places in time are equal and should be equally loved. We know that people, on average, prefer Paris over Brussels, Chicago over East St. Louis, Whistler over Earl Bales and sandy beaches to freezing tundra. Niches do exist for just about anything and everything (Don Mills included). They are, by definition of being niches though, atypical of what most people look for. It also implies that we can't improve. Ignoring the practical realities of making way for the 1m immigrants who will settle hear over the next decade or so, the idea that we can never improve on Don Mills is insane. If we followed this line of heritage preservation, Union Station and the bloody train shed wouldn't even have been built in the first place because the admas of the 1920s would be complaining about all the stuff it replaced. Don Mills wouldn't exist because it would have destroyed the farmlands that previously occupied the land. A natural function of any succesful city is to build new things. Every now and then, a few structures are built whose value (including heritage) is so high that it doesn't make sense to replace. In every other situation though, we demolish the sucker and try again.
A lot of people who travel through the rust belt will usually remark on the generally positive local heritage situation. Beyond buildings laying abandoned or as crack houses, they are there for anyone who cares and have plenty of stories to tell. Conversely, cities like Hong Kong or even Atlanta (much as it pains me to admit it) are by any objective measure booming metropolises filled with life. Toronto, say what you will about it, has also done a good job of moving past the anal retentive state of heritage policy and accepting that the goal isn't to turn the city into a collection of buildings to show anybody who is interested how people lived back in the 20th century. At the heart of this issue is what you expect communities to do; function as effective breeding grounds for social interaction or preserve Toronto like a kind of 20th century Pompeii. Heritage itself isn't mutually exclusive to one or another. The RCM has melded quite well the original building to a newer more practical addition while the some fresh construction sites have yielded positive results as well.
Statistics, statistics, statistics. Lies, damned lies and statistics is much better than Lies, damned lies and random conjecture. Heritage types are probably not alone in their peculiarities. I would wager there are a few hundred of you. Smart money, and you clearly think you are smart, isn't worth more than tornado-bait, I-Hop infused money though. I'm still confused as to how people can be so willingly dismissive of most people. Do you ever wonder why precious little Don Mills bungalows and abandoned factories need endless streams of government support and protection to struggle on while McMansions pop out of every other plot and Wii sales are skyrocketing while BC's ballet is going bankrupt? Or is everyone else stupid? Even if you don't agree with things, it isn't healthy to foster the false sense of superiority you obviously have about yourself. Just a quick case study of said complex:
The reason why most Miltonites don't visit old Milton is, probably, the same reason I don't visit Fairview. They don't like it. It really is that simple. It doesn't have any serious workforce, so nobody's professional life will draw them there. It doesn't have any decent retail, so nobody's shopping needs will carry them there and land economics (there) don't really work in favor of dense housing, so that wont occur. Unsurprisingly, if people cant live/work/shop/play in Old Town Milton, they wont care about it.
My job often had me travel to N. Ontario for a while. As anybody who has been there will say, it is a land of intense natural beauty. Realizing the gold mine of sorts they were sitting on, the locals were perpetually confused by us city folk. "Our country has so much beauty to see outside of Toronto," they would say, "why are you all cramped up in there when you could be in a cabin or dockside?" To them, so immersed in the local culture and lifestyle, this was a logical question. Nobody really asked questions like, how can 'city folk' make a better living in Gowganda, or whether their communities had adequate infrastructure or schools or hospitals or non-nature attractions. This is the problem with tunnel vision approaches to problems. You inevitably miss the solution. People pay thousands of dollars to travel to Banff or the Louvre and get treated like crap to get their nature or heritage fix. There are reasons beyond 'everyone else is stupid' why we don't go to Milton or Rainy River.
Any place in time, down to the smallest sub atomic particle, has qualities which are cherished. That doesn't imply a kind of values based communism where all places in time are equal and should be equally loved. We know that people, on average, prefer Paris over Brussels, Chicago over East St. Louis, Whistler over Earl Bales and sandy beaches to freezing tundra. Niches do exist for just about anything and everything (Don Mills included). They are, by definition of being niches though, atypical of what most people look for. It also implies that we can't improve. Ignoring the practical realities of making way for the 1m immigrants who will settle hear over the next decade or so, the idea that we can never improve on Don Mills is insane. If we followed this line of heritage preservation, Union Station and the bloody train shed wouldn't even have been built in the first place because the admas of the 1920s would be complaining about all the stuff it replaced. Don Mills wouldn't exist because it would have destroyed the farmlands that previously occupied the land. A natural function of any succesful city is to build new things. Every now and then, a few structures are built whose value (including heritage) is so high that it doesn't make sense to replace. In every other situation though, we demolish the sucker and try again.
A lot of people who travel through the rust belt will usually remark on the generally positive local heritage situation. Beyond buildings laying abandoned or as crack houses, they are there for anyone who cares and have plenty of stories to tell. Conversely, cities like Hong Kong or even Atlanta (much as it pains me to admit it) are by any objective measure booming metropolises filled with life. Toronto, say what you will about it, has also done a good job of moving past the anal retentive state of heritage policy and accepting that the goal isn't to turn the city into a collection of buildings to show anybody who is interested how people lived back in the 20th century. At the heart of this issue is what you expect communities to do; function as effective breeding grounds for social interaction or preserve Toronto like a kind of 20th century Pompeii. Heritage itself isn't mutually exclusive to one or another. The RCM has melded quite well the original building to a newer more practical addition while the some fresh construction sites have yielded positive results as well.
You have argued to no end that virtually anything and everything qualifies as heritage (wanna clarify that?). If everything has heritage, than everything has a story and fabric. The farthest reaches of suburbia has no shortage of stories or fabric. None that I care for but that isn't the point. We could, theoretically, demolish all of Toronto and start from scratch. That alone would provide a "story" to satisfy your rule of thumb. The ROM, new as it is, has received more public attention and story telling in a few years than the entire old building (positive or negative, stories are stories by your metrics.) Care to explain why some cities with no shortage of fabric and stories, say Newark, are in deaththrows while Phoenix is booming?
Do I hear zee final solution, herr adma? Grow up. At least I can string together an argument without advocating for the annihilation of everybody I disagree with.
Just for compliance, I never actually said that (and is probably why you didn't bother actually quoting, much easier to just lie right?). To be specific, I mentioned that it could be interesting to have a mayor appointed by "Harper or McGuinty" like those fascists over in Amsterdam. If anything, an appointed mayor would help your dreams of perpetual stasis. An elected mayor wouldn't have to deal with the "silent majority" or the "tyranny of the majority over the forces of the heritage" (which I couldn't make up if I tried). Considering your entire thrust thus far is that anybody who isn't you is utterly and totally incapable of voicing their distaste at a structure, which we all readily admit is abhorrent, must be "fixed," I hope you are at least partially aware of the blatant hypocrisy.
toraerach
Active Member
I think you're being a little unfair to suburbanites. I find in general people have very little knowledge about local history no matter where they live. Right now I'm living in downtown Peterborough in a neighbourhood that is at least a century old, and I can tell you that very few people actually care beyond passing interest. Many of my friends and relatives in Toronto don't know anything about their areas' histories or the history of the city itself. Meanwhile there are groups like the Oakville Historical Society who from my experience are extremely dedicated in the history of that suburban area, though again most of the people living there don't really care.
As a nation, we don't put enough emphasis on our history to really spur that type of interest for the average Joe. For example, when I tell people in Peterborough that Samuel de Champlain explored the area, most people don't even know who he is. It's unfortunate, but a lack of interest in our local (and for that matter, national) heritage is not solely a suburban problem.
That being said, I don't think commuters at Union really care one way or the other about the train shed. How much of their day is actually spent there? Around 30 seconds to get from the train doors to the stairs and later 5-10 minutes waiting for the train to get there? They're more concerned with getting a good seat on the train or getting wherever they're going on time than on the train shed.
I think it would be more beneficial to just clean up the shed and leave it and invest that money into making a truly extraordinary concourse level where people actually spend their time at the station. I know they're already planning on fixing it up, but every penny counts on projects like these. If they can use the money for that glass box to invest in more comfortable chairs or more maintenance workers instead, I think it will be more beneficial to the average commuter.
I like the compromise they've come to that will save a good chunk of the old structure and a good deal of cash on what I see as an impulse buy that delivers very little.
adma
Superstar
And on that point, I agree. I know, I may have been unfair (albeit for strategic reasons) about suburban "ignorance"--but at the same time, ignorance doesn't necessary equal Joe Blow "I may not know heritage, but I know what I like" hostility. Sure, the hardcore heritage wonks may be "marginal"; but in the end, so is the "nobody likes this crap" POV Whoaccio's upholding. The rest is a big in-between, not necessarily hostile one way or another.
Besides, let's look back at this quote
Well, as a hitherto unknowing Joe Citizen, never mind as somebody with a direct stake in the heritage community, I *would* be thrilled about learning this much about the Bush shed, and maybe even more from someone "in the know". And I'm postitive there are a lot of Joe & Jane Averages out there who'd share in the thrill--the thrill of knowing; and, knowing has a way of bonding or disarming. To repeat: there's a little Doors Open in all of us. In fact, next to this, they'd probably find Whoaccio's "I'm practically vibrating at the sheer excitement!" sarcasm to be the reflection of a real jerk. It's the stuff you expect from bored louts, farting-12-year-olds-on-field-trips, and maybe at best a P.J. O'Rourkeian cynic or two. Whoaccio wants me to explain the interest here? Well, what's to further explain to an unconvinceable jerk like him? Drop dead.
Now, it isn't like their newly-engendered Bush sympathy would lead these average folks to actively oppose its replacement--but at the same time, they wouldn't be actively opposed to its full or partial retention, either. However, remember that *nobody* but the Goth lunatic fringe of the heritage community is advocating an absolute William Morrisian no-scrape, patina-and-all retention of the present, grimy, murky, deteriorating status quo. *Appreciating* it while it exists is another matter (there's a little Burtynsky in all of us, too).
Keep in mind that there's a precedent for a victory of heritage interests over, uh, "people": Nathan Phillips Square, and Peter Milczyn's high-minded notion of removing the walkways being vetoed by the Preservation Board...
H
Hydrogen
Guest
Sounds like "heritage power" has a streak of what appears to be fascist and anti-human animosity to it. Along with the the self-presumed and snobbish-sounding sense of cultural superiority in pretending to hand out grades based upon opinion (however informed), there are the numerous personal attacks, cultural and familial condemnations, and threats of murder for advocating the tearing down of a building. It all sounds so very neutron bomb; kill the people but save the building.
Just for the fun of it, I'll advocate tearing down the (linked) Narkomfin Building. Now you can come and try murder me for expressing the thought. Just remember to goose step here.
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adma
Superstar
Well, there *could* be a valid argument for it (or the concept thereof) if it were part of some bigger Duchampian aesthetic construct--particularly if you throw a little snuff porn or whatnot into the mix as well.
After all, the Duchampian in me still regards this as the most important aesthetic event of our time--and it'd be so even if I lost loved ones in said event. (Which may help explain said "fascist and anti-human animosity" streak.)
jks
Continuous Lurker
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ok, this is probably out of context, but in that video, the subtitle translation is really funny. And, yes it was a tragic event, which IMO the US government planned/let happen, but I'd rather leave it there.
Ok, this is probably out of context, but in that video, the subtitle translation is really funny. And, yes it was a tragic event, which IMO the US government planned/let happen, but I'd rather leave it there.
jks
Continuous Lurker
Fair enough.
adma
Superstar
Philosophically speaking, we *all* were.
Onward, folks.
Onward, folks.