Dan416
Senior Member
Realistically, if they had the money, "heritage" would not be much of an issue here.
I do. Most people couldn't give two hoots about Don Mills beyond polite conversation. Certainly nobody would consider the 'heritage' value of Don Mills great enough to compel them not to build their little slice of the Parthenon. I have some personal attachment to Don Mills, having grown up there, but I don't delude myself into thinking there is any sympathy for the place outside of the "50's contemporary fanning" (though I have never used that phrase) crowd. It isn't a coincidence that more and more of those bungalows are disappearing, they are small and very impractical. Most people just want a bigger house with better insulation.
So, I'm the normal guy while you and the "forces of heritage" are high functioning moron Homer J Simpson? Odd choice of simile, but okay.
I think this was addressed to me. In short, you can justify some heritage buildings/districts on the criteria I listed (cost, feasibility, returns). Major heritage buildings, like City Hall (old or new) are significant tourism drivers and draw a lot of attention to the City. Or the CN Tower, it is a major attraction in the city. You could probably build something marginally more attractive, but at the expense of cost and feasibility which upsets the evaluation. Honestly though, does anybody come to Toronto to see the Bush shed? That is an open question. I have never seen Tourism TO put it on a poster. Heritage isn't just there to please people like adma, it is supposed to actually make life better for the people who use it. I can't see the train shed doing that.
Yeah, but you might as well argue they couldn't possibly understand the beauty of this art, as wellRight, because suburbanites aren't really people. They couldn't possibly understand the beauty of this art. This just further reinforce my points, you have no consideration for people that actually use the train shed instead of waxing on about it's heritage value.
Nobody has made the case. Nobody. Not you, not Angella Carr, nobody. In fact, on the topic of the train shed, she had very little to say about it. She recognized that it was "more practical... and better suited to the Canadian climate" than St. Pancras' large glass arch (though not as "elegant" and filled with "gloom"). She also mentioned that it is possibly the last example of a Bush Complex in Canada. I'm sure the tourists will be riveted knowing that they are standing under an utterly practical (for the period 1910-1920) "economic invention" before being succeeded by more practical designs in 1918. I'm practically vibrating at the sheer excitement!
The Bush Shed wasn't built to reflect on Toronto's soul, or some other ethereal quantity that heritage wonks like to treat as scientific quantities, it was built to be a practical way to stop people from getting wet. If we can do better today, why the hell shouldn't we? Maybe we should go back to ridding horse carriages and riding trolleys like we did back in the '20s too (this would be funnier if half of it wasn't taken seriously...).
I have some personal attachment to Don Mills, having grown up there, but I don't delude myself into thinking there is any sympathy for the place outside of the "50's contemporary fanning" (though I have never used that phrase) crowd.
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.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.
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.
'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.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.
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.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.
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.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...
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.Second, re suburbanites.... 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.
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?Rule of thumb: a place without a story or a cherishable fabric is garbage--or at least, readymade incentive to be treated like garbage.
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.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.
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.(And given that you seemed elsewhere to advocate a PM Harper-appointed mayoralty over the present council, maybe I shouldn't be too surprised.)
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.
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.
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.
Nobody has made the case. Nobody. Not you, not Angella Carr, nobody. In fact, on the topic of the train shed, she had very little to say about it. She recognized that it was "more practical... and better suited to the Canadian climate" than St. Pancras' large glass arch (though not as "elegant" and filled with "gloom"). She also mentioned that it is possibly the last example of a Bush Complex in Canada. I'm sure the tourists will be riveted knowing that they are standing under an utterly practical (for the period 1910-1920) "economic invention" before being succeeded by more practical designs in 1918. I'm practically vibrating at the sheer excitement!
Get this straight, Whoaccio: you're not in heritage power.
You're (sarcastic sic) calibre of overall heritage sensitivity still earns an F grade and expulsion...
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.
Look at it this way, Whoaccio. If you'd advocate destroying this, I'd gladly slice open your abdomen and strangle you with your own intestines.
But seriously, folks. (Then again...)
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.
And, yes it was a tragic event, which IMO the US government planned/let happen, but I'd rather leave it there.
Why leave it there when you could supply actual evidence?
I'll suggest my own view: you were part of the terrorist group that brought the buildings down. I have no proof, just my opinion.