adma
Superstar
So? Just living in New York and London doesn't make one automatically "enlightened". 99 44/100% of those "plenty of people" wouldn't know Jane Jacobs from a hole in the head, either.
- Thread starter newyears1974
- Start date
So? Just living in New York and London doesn't make one automatically "enlightened". 99 44/100% of those "plenty of people" wouldn't know Jane Jacobs from a hole in the head, either.
adma
Superstar
Re Spacing Toronto, I wouldn't read too much "judgment call" into their neglect. And re Skyscraper City, you gotta remember, they're dateless fanboys who love Dubai, so they're off-radar unless someone within decides otherwise...
adma
Superstar
Yeah, but they typically don't go to "look at neighbourhoods" or to engage to anything but the usual "safe zone" shopping, museumgoing, etc. itinerary.
And frankly, in my books, there's an inherent obtuseness, at least from an open-ended urbanist standpoint, to anyone who approaches anyplace with a unilateral "such and such a neighbourhood was in bad shape - they should rip it down and start over" attitude...
Peepers
Banned
I hope that this is true but it seems to me if they twice turned down grants why would the owners be inclined to rebuild the fallen facade? And what about the Yonge street facade, it requires extensive work also. It seems to me that the carrot approach of offering grants just doesn't work with owners inclined to see their buildings fall apart and that the City should adopt a stick approach. The city should assess an "eyesore tax" on these buildings that gets progressively steeper each year restoration work is left undone until essentially the city owns the building. If the owners want to redevelop their properties allow them to do so provided they incorporate the original facade (e.g. as is proposed with the 5 St Joseph project). I know that "facadism" is a dirty word on this forum but I would much rather see facades restored to a pristine condition as was done with 11 St Joseph http://www.torontohistory.org/Pages_ABC/11_St_Joseph_Street.html
Ultimately I believe the best outcome for this building would be to carefully dismantle, brick by brick, what is left of the facade and then rebuild it around a new - higher use building - either Condos, or Hotel or extension of Ryerson.
Rebecca - HT
New Member
They are being forced to repair the building, whether they like it or not. Kyle's by-law from a few years ago means if they don't do it, the City will and will thus add the costs to their property taxes.
Archivist
Senior Member
Rebecca, thanks for this. It is good news. I hope the building comes out of this looking better than ever. It certainly has been one of those along Yonge Street that had the most promise if it were fixed up.
It seems as if Gould might be bookended in a few years by an as-yet-unrevealed-but-almost-certainly-fabulous Snohetta on one side, and a repaired and tidied heritage building on the other. Maybe it will be closed to traffic by then too. All is good with the world.
It seems as if Gould might be bookended in a few years by an as-yet-unrevealed-but-almost-certainly-fabulous Snohetta on one side, and a repaired and tidied heritage building on the other. Maybe it will be closed to traffic by then too. All is good with the world.
androiduk
Senior Member
When Gould is closed I'd like to see the ground floor of this building occupied by restaurants and cafes with nice large patios on the Gould St. side.
Tewder
Senior Member
Those cases are not within the last 'decade', they've all happened recently and within a few years of each other...
The greater perspective here though is not the individual cases you cite - which lets face it are the more extreme headline-grabbing cases - but what they stand for: the pervasive neglect and disregard of heritage (with a small 'h') buildings. In other words I'm not talking about the grand sexy projects like the Carlu or the Distillery but about the vast traditional building stock of the city - the vernacular form that defines us in many respects - which for the most part is being left to fall to ruin, literally. I understand that you may see the Palais Royale or the National Ballet School as vindications of this - and I don't completely disagree - but the issues are not entirely one and the same. Those buildings came to be protected by a cultural mandate or a business model, but they are clearly the exception and not the rule, and all the more so in a culture such as ours where heritage has very little real currency, where it basically just gets in the way. In other words, when buildings are left to decay or collapse, or when fires mysteriously happen in buildings that are tinder boxes to start with you simply cannot ignore that there is a certain cultural 'will' at work here, or lack of will in another sense, that creates this sort of vulnerability, to an extent that it is not so much fate pure-and-simple at play as an ever increasing pressure for growth and expansion in a city that the traditional built form cannot keep up with.
I completely agree, and these tend to be the parts of a city that I love too... and for the record I am an advocate of heritage preservation and I am very happy the Gould building will be saved!
As is often the case when debating issues about Toronto it tends to come down to a matter of degree: it's not that this kind of urban shabby-chic doesn't exist elsewhere, it does. It just typically doesn't exist as pervasively elsewhere and it tends to be part of a fringe identity rather than a mainstream or central one as it is in Toronto.
The devaluing of heritage in Ontario is not unique to Toronto and many of the same 'forces' are at play...
As a big city Toronto is quite unique though. Its boom and expansion has been so rapid that it really has gone from sleepy backwater of little importance to a major burgeoning metropolis almost overnight. In this sense it is sort of like taking Brantford as we know it and multiplying its 'importance' and size by ten-fold over the course of a week. The pressure for growth has been enormous, and it is in the face of these pressures that a workable balance between looking back and looking forward has to be negotiated, or we will see more Walnut Halls and Gould Streets, and we will not be able to save them all. Yet how do we save vernacular heritage in the face of pressure for growth and when there is little political or cultural will to do so? In this sense Brantford doesn't seem all that far away.
Peepers
Banned
They may be required to repair the wall that fell down but what about the rest of the building? Will "Kyles by-law" force the owner to fix up the Yonge street facade that has been in a deplorable condition for as long as anyone can remember? If so why wasn't the owner forced to act much sooner? If all they are going to do is rebuild the damage wall we will be left with odd looking patch work.
Ladies Mile
Active Member
You misunderstood me--I was quoting another post and disagree with the sentiment.
MetroMan
Senior Member
I hope that the financial pressure involved in the obligation to rebuild, forces the owner to sell to a competent and deep pocketed developer. In its present form -- without adding a tower above -- this building would be great if reverted to a boutique hotel with restaurants at street level with a patio facing Gould.
Salad King has already proven its popularity so another restaurant (the new sushi place can't possibly survive being closed for months or longer) next to it would be the right use. Once Gould becomes a pedestrian street, a large patio can occupy the present street.
Salad King has already proven its popularity so another restaurant (the new sushi place can't possibly survive being closed for months or longer) next to it would be the right use. Once Gould becomes a pedestrian street, a large patio can occupy the present street.
Rebecca - HT
New Member
It's simple - because there is only a reaction when something drastic happens, such as this building our Walnut Hall.
As far as I know the whole building will be fixed up. The City doesn't normally enforce this by-law when it can. Also because demolition by neglect is not illegal. Because there are loopholes. Because there are not enough grants and there aren't people who enforce this unless it's the last straw. Because the Inventory of Heritage Properties is not complete - if it was designated it affords it more protection. There are too numerous reasons to list.
Tewder said it better than I could - you have no idea of how many buildings, smaller but equally as historic, are in danger because there just aren't the resources.
Archivist
Senior Member
Tewder, though I suspect we agree more than disagree, I feel I do have to answer on these two quotes. Two buildings in this city on the inventory of heritage properties have collapsed in the last 10 years, one in 2007 and one in 2006. There are no other instances of this occuring in the last decade, which is precisely what I said, and I believe by any definition these did occur within the last decade. And none others.
We want the same thing - for building owners to care for their buildings appropriately - but I think your statements are more alarmist than is called for. I could point to many, many other examples of buildings that are being cared for in appropriate ways.
As a little experiment, I did a search on Yonge Street for heritage buildings. Between the water and Bloor Street, here is what I find:
Total buildings on the inventory: 73
Buildings of recent origin on the inventory: 3
Facendectomied but in good shape: 6 (mostly BCE Place)
In great shape and/or recently renewed: 33
Acceptable (intact in almost all their details, but could use some TLC (things like air conditioners in upper windows): 17
Degraded (significant loss of details, painted ugly colours, bad windows): 10
Personally, given the caterwauling that goes on about strips like Yonge Street, I don't find this so bad. Looking at photos of buildings, it occurred to me that Urban Shocker is really dead on when he notes that it is frequently inappropriate signage that renders a building that is perfectly sound and in fairly good shape somewhat ugly.
If I were to rank the significance of the various buildings, it's clear that the ones in great shape are generally the most "important" (Bank of BNA, 49 Yonge, The Bay, John E. Thompson Block, Ryrie Building, Hard Rock, Foot Locker, Dominion Bank, Gerrard Building, Oddfellows Hall). The buildings that are a disgrace are frequently run of the mill and are on the north end of the stretch: 536 Yonge is probably one of the worst, but 546-550 is bad, 582-584 is ugly, etc. In my opinion, the Gould building was the worst along that stretch for being both a potentially attractive building and in the worst shape of almost all of them.
The point of all of this. It's important not to overreact, especially given the outcome of the Gould collapse.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Once - as I hope we will one day see - the garish commercial muck is scraped off the "run of the mill" buildings ( which, as Archivist points out, are the majority of those on the inventory ) their collective identity as a distinct class of Victorian red brick commercial fronts ( as opposed to their present isolated identities as, essentially, billboards ) will come to the fore. They will re-emerge, just as I think our obscured early history is about to re-emerge in the upcoming War of 1812 celebrations. Always there, just forgotten and hidden for several generations.
adma
Superstar
And re this whole issue--I think our perspective's clouded by the immediacy of our own backyard, as if heritage-inventoryish buildings *elsewhere* don't fall down or rot away or get otherwise disfigured, or that other jurisdictions with perhaps more so-called "historical fabric" intact might be even more backward or hidebound in certain quite conspicuous regards (case #1: the struggle over Boston City Hall, which I feel would be much more constructively--as opposed to destructively--handled in Toronto, even among the general public).
And also re the alarmism--cool it; it's like crying wolf. And you have to remember what makes heritage overinsistence offputting: the association with oppressive overrestored urban museum pieces or saccharine tourist zones a la Lower Town Quebec, or of course the notion of letting tut-tutting HCD-dwelling Miss Grundys stomp all over our free will. Look: the "disgraces" Archivist lists not only have their equivalents in NYC and wherever else, if I may take a Moynihanish stance they're not even all that fatally disgraceful (barring fire/structural-failure potential) in their present grottiness (well, tenants like Eliot's Bookshop help), and I'd rather have the present holding-pattern of their grunge than for them to be "fixed" through gross EIFS Botoxing a la the Yummi's block at Yonge + Irwin.
Look: ultimately, this whole issue isn't about the loaded notion of "heritage". It's about instilling and encouraging broad, open-ended urban sensitivity in an age of mass positive "heritage consciousness", which exists, even in Toronto, whether one likes it or not.