[Archivist]

Patriot, perhaps your first language is not English, but the more I read your posts the more the dunce cap applies.

 

[LowPolygon]

The building should be torn down. The owner has invested no money in the fascade, which is crumbling and shaddy looking. The owner is either cheap, or cash-strapped to invest money into the propery. If the building was renovated, it could have easily accommodated a nice respectable multi-level restaurant or flagship store.

The whole corner is falling a part - between this and the stalled Ryerson demolition project across the street.

i've always believed a "a nice respectable multi-level restaurant" is exactly what this neighbourhood needs, as there are SO MANY single level disrespectable ones around.

 

[adma]

No, I'm not suggesting that. There is much heritage worth fighting for, imo, but you yourself insisted on the offputting nature of heritage 'overinsistance'... and in a city with no mythology, who but the pointiest-headed archi-geek or the nerdiest subscriber to the Beaver or whatever it's called 'these days' is really going to bother to 'overinsist' in the first place? Or who is even going to listen, more to the point? These circumstances are different in other 'major' cities... and if you still feel that an enormous pressure for growth in the city combined with a lack of mythology/fundamental relationship to its history and heritage will have little effect on heritage preservation in Toronto then don't be surprised to get 'mugged/raped' yet again.

Er...again. Why are you reading such "lack of mythology" et al? The way you're framing it, we might as well be on the verge of electing Rob Ford mayor and allowing everything to go Calgarian free-market free-for-all.

And...what kind of mythology? Like, when it comes to said "different circumstances", in the case of Boston City Hall, I don't see the mass vilification as reflective of a strong mythology; rather, it reflects a mythology that's weak where it counts. But in the case of Toronto's City Hall, if our mythology were as "weak where it counts" as Boston's, then the NPS walkways would have been swept away as per Councillor Milczyn's original bright idea.

And the fact that there is a certain common, non-apathetic pro-heritage engagement, at all, to the Yonge & Gould circumstance (and other previous collapses, demolitions, etc) proves that when you scratch the surface a little, we're not so inherently mythology-devoid or mythology-unsympathetic as it seems. (And thank God for Councillor Kyle Rae to drive the point home in this case; were somebody like Rob Ford the local councillor, then the site'd be vacant by now.) Sometimes, disasters have a paradoxical way of doing that. Maybe it's a limited active "we" I'm referring to; but it isn't like it isn't that much more unlimited in the different-cirumstance locales elsewhere--face it: the vast majority everywhere is, if not actively hostile, then at least indifferent or "let George do it" about heritage issues. Technically, the limited pool of "overinsisters" you refer to is everywhere.

Tewder--maybe it comes with being conditioned through this here realm of skyscraper/development-focussed message boards, blogs, etc, but something about you strikes me as an awkward Johnny-come-lately when it comes to heritage, urban mythology, et al. May I recommend that you don't let yourself lie prostrate before the wide-eyed development nerds or the cranky-amateur newspaper-blog-commenters or the "enormous pressure for growth" scare-tacticians.

Thus, as for

No, it would be more accurate to characterize it as like living in a neighbourhood full of (un)known sex-offenders, being sexually raped on several occassions recently and in a variety of circumstances yet refusing to acknowledge there may be any common underlaying issues.

...by such metaphorical parameters, how many neighbourhoods aren't like that? And you might as well construe (real or perceived) leering as "sexual rape"--actual rape being rare by comparison (think wartime destruction, or a few select megalosses like Penn Station). In any case, it doesn't mean one has to engage in radical-feminist or Catherine MacKinnon paranoia about it, esp. if a defter Madonna/Gaga/whatever approach is available.

And substitute, in your statement, gay bashing for sexual violation, and you might as well be condemning all queers to sympathetic-yet-inert gay-ghettos--thus compounding the problem. If you pardon my lingo, just because one is a faggot doesn't mean one has to be such a faggot about it. (By comparison, I'm all for a disarming "there's a little fag in all of us" approach. Likewise referencing Madonna/Gaga, I suppose.)

 

[HHC]

Great news, I guess it now forces the city to restore the entire building.

 

[photosbymkh]

that corner never has any luck. it seems like every business which has opened there recently has been around for no longer than a year at a time.

 

[MetroMan]

Great news, I guess it now forces the city to restore the entire building.

The city doesn't own the building. The owner can decide to (and probably will) only fix the collapsed portion to make it safe and allow it to be leasable again.

Unless an investor can be found to buy out the property, I don't see why the current owner would do anything differently than before. If they didn't have money/willpower to renovate the building before -- even using wood planks to prop up deteriorating brick -- what makes us think they'll have a change of heart now?

 

[Tewder]

... in the case of Boston City Hall, I don't see the mass vilification as reflective of a strong mythology; rather, it reflects a mythology that's weak where it counts. But in the case of Toronto's City Hall, if our mythology were as "weak where it counts" as Boston's, then the NPS walkways would have been swept away as per Councillor Milczyn's original bright idea.

.. so one single instance in Boston, the one building you pin your whole argument on, is proof positive for you that Boston has a weak mythology while Toronto has a stronger enduring one? Clever but no... Boston City Hall is far more realistically the proverbial exception proving the rule: it is precisely because they do have such a strong collective mythology that some have a difficult time reconciling City Hall to it, rightly or wrongly (and I would agree with you wrongly). That said, it is not simply on grounds of architecture/heritage that Bean-towners show resentment to this building, there are all kinds of urban issues and issues of function motivating this disdain and if you were to visit yourself you would understand... That said again, Toronto's NPS is a weak argument to make for a Toronto 'mythology' as a) it was mass destruction of heritage that allowed Toronto to modernize with places like NPS in the first place... and b) don't read too much into those overpasses, there are all kinds of disrespectful alterations happening to NPS to make even the most 'chill' advocate cringe... and as 'pretty' and urban-friendly as it may all end up being (the opposite of Boston City Hall in fact) be careful about judging a place like Boston on these issues when it appears that their City Hall may actually stand to remain uncompromised (thanks at least in part to a tanking economy) ... unlike ours.

And the fact that there is a certain common, non-apathetic pro-heritage engagement, at all, to the Yonge & Gould circumstance (and other previous collapses, demolitions, etc) proves that when you scratch the surface a little, we're not so inherently mythology-devoid or mythology-unsympathetic as it seems. (And thank God for Councillor Kyle Rae to drive the point home in this case; were somebody like Rob Ford the local councillor, then the site'd be vacant by now.) Sometimes, disasters have a paradoxical way of doing that. Maybe it's a limited active "we" I'm referring to; but it isn't like it isn't that much more unlimited in the different-cirumstance locales elsewhere--face it: the vast majority everywhere is, if not actively hostile, then at least indifferent or "let George do it" about heritage issues. Technically, the limited pool of "overinsisters" you refer to is everywhere.

... which sort of reiterates my point about 'opposing forces' at play. All these forces appear in other cities to one degree or another, but the particular recipe that is our context is what we need to focus on to be constructive...

and, in a city where vocal minority groups rule you have to be careful about conflating the special interests of heritage advocates - as effective as they may or may not be - to mythology status: it's like bike-lane advocates who insist that the louder they protest the more evident it is there is a growing movement in the city to ditch the car for the spandex and the ten-speed. One simply doesn't follow the other.

Lets not overstate it though, cultural/societal mythologies by definition are simple, relatable, recognizeable and, more importantly, shared. Toronto destroyed any notions of this through modernization as surely as it did much of its heritage in a somewhat histrionic 'out with the old, in with the new' gesture... and so not to say that new ones wont emerge, and may be emerging, but that they simply do not function as or cannot be viewed as mythologies yet without time, no matter how stridently or compellingly some special-interest groups will try to convince otherwise.... and hey, I'm not even necessarily coming down on interest groups and would verily place myself in the camp of some, to which...

Tewder--maybe it comes with being conditioned through this here realm of skyscraper/development-focussed message boards, blogs, etc, but something about you strikes me as an awkward Johnny-come-lately when it comes to heritage, urban mythology, et al. May I recommend that you don't let yourself lie prostrate before the wide-eyed development nerds or the cranky-amateur newspaper-blog-commenters or the "enormous pressure for growth" scare-tacticians.

No, I am conditioned through real experiences, not academic ones... which too often seem to inform your self-consciously clever parsing of heritage issues... and detonating the value of mythology/heritage/patrimony in Boston with the very selective and questionable bomb that is Boston City Hall becomes a logical fallacy when the deconstruction is reversed... but this is where we end up time and again, the intellectual wank that is the endless deconstructing of each others points. Case in point:

...by such metaphorical parameters, how many neighbourhoods aren't like that? And you might as well construe (real or perceived) leering as "sexual rape"--actual rape being rare by comparison (think wartime destruction, or a few select megalosses like Penn Station). In any case, it doesn't mean one has to engage in radical-feminist or Catherine MacKinnon paranoia about it, esp. if a defter Madonna/Gaga/whatever approach is available.

And substitute, in your statement, gay bashing for sexual violation, and you might as well be condemning all queers to sympathetic-yet-inert gay-ghettos--thus compounding the problem. If you pardon my lingo, just because one is a faggot doesn't mean one has to be such a faggot about it. (By comparison, I'm all for a disarming "there's a little fag in all of us" approach. Likewise referencing Madonna/Gaga, I suppose.)

... about a thousand miles away from anything substantive I was trying to say which basically is:

At the end of the day you and Archivist take a positive spin on the state of heritage preservation and its future while I, though not disagreeing there are positives to celebrate, feel there are many legitimate concerns to work through. Nuff said?

 

[Ladies Mile]

I agree with Tewder--whatever one thinks of Boston's architecture, they have a far stronger commitment to preserving it than we currently do. And from the way adma writes, one would think they'd demolished their City Hall already. far from it, and it looks increasingly unlikely to happen.

 

[adma]

At the end of the day you and Archivist take a positive spin on the state of heritage preservation and its future while I, though not disagreeing there are positives to celebrate, feel there are many legitimate concerns to work through. Nuff said?

Well, I don't disagree, and I doubt that Archivist would, either--but it's really a no-brainer issue. And I still feel your painting of things in roll-over-and-play-dead weak terms, including said "legitimate concerns", is overwrought--like, by extension, we shouldn't even bother thinking in terms of heritage in places like Mississauga because the deck's so "obviously" stacked there.

But when it comes to something like Boston, as I see it, a well-rounded and healthy current-day "heritage mythology" is one that'd encompass Boston City Hall together with, well, "the older stuff"--maybe not to the frozen-in-amber point in either case; but, still. Heritage ambidexterity, one might say. And the fact that, in real terms, it's difficult to universalize such ambidexterity among regular armchair-heritage-mythology-loving Bostonians, as opposed to what to them might be the, uh, Polanski-defender-esque universe of academics and architectural buffs--yeah, there, too, the "marginal special interest" camp of optimum heritage sensitivity--well, there's the proof that at the end of the day, regular Bostonians aren't so unlike regular Torontonians in being, uh, amateur hacks and/or reactionaries. Albeit perhaps with a different thrust.

In the end, maybe, this isn't merely a "state of heritage preservation" issue, but more about something hit-the-ground-running meta-mythological, i.e. the ability to creatively appreciate our existing fabric in a way that can ultimately feed the heritage cause, among other things. Sort of like, appreciate it, and the heritage reflex will follow--sure, a little Pollyannaish, but why not, esp. over the past four decades or so it's worked time and again. And backfired as well, whether through Yonge + Gould-esque collapses or One Bedford-esque facadism--but, that's part of the fun: learning through failure. And even occasionally embracing that which was once vilified for wiping out heritage--doesn't mean we'd do it the same way today. A disarming wide-range love for "the products of their time".

With this in mind...why give up on Yonge + Gould?

 

[adma]

I agree with Tewder--whatever one thinks of Boston's architecture, they have a far stronger commitment to preserving it than we currently do. And from the way adma writes, one would think they'd demolished their City Hall already. far from it, and it looks increasingly unlikely to happen.

But on account of your opinion of Richard Serra, I'm tempted to bind you in with the hack amateurs as well...

 

[HHC]

The city doesn't own the building. The owner can decide to (and probably will) only fix the collapsed portion to make it safe and allow it to be leasable again.

Unless an investor can be found to buy out the property, I don't see why the current owner would do anything differently than before. If they didn't have money/willpower to renovate the building before -- even using wood planks to prop up deteriorating brick -- what makes us think they'll have a change of heart now?

So you're telling me the owner can leave the building in it's current state as is, and the city would allow it?

 

[Ladies Mile]

But on account of your opinion of Richard Serra, I'm tempted to bind you in with the hack amateurs as well...

Personal insults? How very, very clever.

And no matter how many back-flips you turn to vilify Bostonians, point is there is a greater appreciation for a greater body of work en toto in that town. This is the center of Brutalism in the Americas, the home of MIT, the launching of the new Bauhaus, the location of the only building by Corb in this hemisphere (truncated as it was by Harvard's codes). And they know it. If they're dismissive of City Hall, a building I personally admire, it's partially because they have so many other similar structures from that period to choose from. End of story.

 

[Tewder]

Well, I don't disagree, and I doubt that Archivist would, either--but it's really a no-brainer issue. And I still feel your painting of things in roll-over-and-play-dead weak terms, including said "legitimate concerns", is overwrought--like, by extension, we shouldn't even bother thinking in terms of heritage in places like Mississauga because the deck's so "obviously" stacked there.

Actually it is less stacked in Mississauga than in Toronto, in some ways.... but I'm not suggesting submission so much as a focusing of energy, or resources more to the point. I'm happy for Gould street, truly, but it would be delusional to not view it for the 'finger in the dyke' victory it really is. This one grabbed the headlines and this one was saved but how many more will be? The pressures on low-rise Yonge and Queen are enormous, whether you find this to be 'overwrought' or not, and much more of it is sure to go the way of Roy's Square, over time...

Take heart though, new buildings will rise that will come to be viewed as 'heritage' in their time, and all the more so if they offer greater density and actually meet the long term needs of the city... and I find it interesting that for somebody who so vehemently disparages the 'frozen in amber' approach you seem so eager to resort to it everywhere? I mean, you argue for a 'mythology where it counts' without actually defining what 'counts'...

But when it comes to something like Boston, as I see it, a well-rounded and healthy current-day "heritage mythology" is one that'd encompass Boston City Hall together with, well, "the older stuff"--maybe not to the frozen-in-amber point in either case; but, still.

It does. The 'spirit of America - Freedom Trail'-type heritage for which Boston is mythologized is actually only a small part of the layers of heritage that exist there. It is unbelievably 'overwrought' to cling so closely to this one case when there are clearly so many extenuating circumstances at play... as with lowrise on Yonge Street if the heritage building(s) in question do not serve basic functions then they are at risk. If Boston City Hall doesn't welcome people to it in an open, civic, urban-friendly and people-friendly way then it is a failure, no matter how compelling or unique a design it may be from other perspectives.

And the fact that, in real terms, it's difficult to universalize such ambidexterity among regular armchair-heritage-mythology-loving Bostonians, as opposed to what to them might be the, uh, Polanski-defender-esque universe of academics and architectural buffs--yeah, there, too, the "marginal special interest" camp of optimum heritage sensitivity--well, there's the proof that at the end of the day, regular Bostonians aren't so unlike regular Torontonians in being, uh, amateur hacks and/or reactionaries. Albeit perhaps with a different thrust.

Look, whether you think I or Ladies Mile or the people of Boston are all hacks is neither here nor there, except in your own fragile ego... Mythology provides a simple story but a powerful one, and we can excuse the people of Boston somewhat if they filter a perception of heritage through the enormity of this mythology, as primal a 'founding' story it is, or if for them this is the mythology that 'counts'... but how to excuse the people of Hogtown where pointy-headed geeks notwithstanding the average individual has absolutely zero appreciation for, nevermind zero basic understanding of, any collective mythology or story whatsoever? And in this sense the average armchair hack in Boston is far more invested than said counterpart in Toronto. After all, in the absence of a story what is heritage but a collection of eventually outdated structures, obstacles to change and progress? It is the story that confers the significance which is why relatively newer structures like Boston City Hall remain vulnerable until their story is understood, contextualized and embraced.

You can wage a battle for every single lowrise structure that languishes in miserable condition in Toronto but it will be an uphill one with few resources and a somewhat inevitable end... or you can take a more selective approach to heritage preservation that may actually stand a chance, focusing on the greater 'story' and allowing for it to evolve... to which:

In the end, maybe, this isn't merely a "state of heritage preservation" issue, but more about something hit-the-ground-running meta-mythological, i.e. the ability to creatively appreciate our existing fabric in a way that can ultimately feed the heritage cause, among other things.

Absolutely. A collective story is easier to tell and save than buildings, but it will also have far greater power to save them in the long run. In this sense we should not be so disdainful of the armchair hack who is able to get to the meat and potatoes of what is truly important while the self-appointed 'knowledgeable' among us will spend an eternity wringing their hands over useless details - all things being equal - like whether a building is preserved in situ or not... as it is lost to the wrecking ball.

 

[MetroMan]

So you're telling me the owner can leave the building in it's current state as is, and the city would allow it?

Not like it is now, partially collapsed. They're going to have to make the building safe and reconstruct the wall and roof. As for cleaning up the building and restoring it to its former beauty, the owner has shown no intention in the past to do so and the city has had no power in forcing them to.

If Ryerson could come in and buy the building out, I'm sure we'd see it well maintained. However, Ryerson isn't a charity so there would need to be a business case for them buying the property.

 

[Rebecca - HT]

The building will be designated (great news!) and fixed up. In regards to the long-term care of the building, we'll see.