I also went with Ataratiri. Makes sense, and is a rather cool sounding name.
 
I'm an Ataratiri guy too. The only reason the Ataratiri redevelopment did not go ahead way back when that I am aware of is that the cost of remediation was so much higher back in the 90s before some of today's bacteria digestion technology was developed. I was not happy when the plan died, and when it came back to life I could n't for the life of me see why the named should not be applied to the new redevelopment plan. The fact that this is the West Don Lands while right across the Gardiner we have the Lower Don Lands has always seemed like a major potential source of confusion to me. Call the park Ataratiri and maybe in 20 years the neighbourhood will have picked up the name too.

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I went with Ataratiri as well, for the sound of it, the double historical significance (I remember being disappointed that the project in the 1990s didn't go ahead) and the fact that it's indigenous.

King's Reserve is worth indicating somewhere on a commemorative marker, but too nondescript for the area now and there is a surfeit of royalty-related names as it is.

Don River Park is just too literal.

Corktown Common? Well, it's sort of in the outer reaches of Corktown but it doesn't have much of the amorphous quality that makes a piece of open public land a common rather than just a park with a lot of green space or a field. Boston Common, sure. Clapham Common, definitely. This, not so much, and Sherbourne Common even less so. Plus it'd be doomed to be referred to as Commons by some.
 
UrbanFervour said:
I like Wonscotonach the best too. "King's Reserve" is my least favourite - it smacks of Neo-Colonial pretense (imho)... although I guess its rooted in local history (but still eyeroll inducing for a park dedicated in 2013) The others are so-so.
:)
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I hate King's Reserve too. There's nothing at all unique about it in a city that used to name everything after the monarchy, and regardless of local history, the word "reserve" has huge baggage in this country. And, barring some tragedy, we don't/won't have a king when the park opens.

I like the two indigenous names, but I wouldn't want to use them without consulting the nations those names come from. Otherwise it just seems like the same type of feel-good tokenism you find with mini-inukshuks in your garden or a dreamcatcher hanging from your rear-view mirror.
 
GraphicMatt said:
I'm not going to lie. You should all vote for "Corktown Common." It's what fate wants you to do. It's what I want you to do. Make me proud.
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I really don't get how "Common" became so common all of a sudden. It smacks of false historicism. The earliest public spaces in Toronto were known as Square or Place - in good Regency tradition. Even "Garrison Common" seems to be a modern invention. The old maps refer to it as "Park Reserve" or "Military Burying Ground". Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

Just because Boston has a Common we need one too? Or are we trying to pretend were a Cotswold village?

Besides, if they choose this one I will continually get it confused with "Carrot Common"!
 
"Common" works here mostly because it's alliterative. As Stan Lee knew when he helped create Peter Parker, Reed Richards, Scott Summers and Matt Murdock, alliterative names are great, last decades and will occasionally band together to defeat Galactus.

In all seriousness, my desire to see "Corktown Common" wins out comes from (of course) being a resident of Corktown and feeling like this great neighbourhood in downtown remains unknown to the vast majority of Torontonians. A major landmark park carrying the name "Corktown" would put us on the map.

Yes, the Corktown nomenclature is most frequently applied to the old area along King and Queen Street, but its formal boundaries do include the West Don Lands developments and the Distillery, and there's no reason why the new WDL developments shouldn't be welcomed into the established Corktown neighbourhood -- the community will be stronger for it.
 
^^ I disagree. The West Don Lands or Ataritiri, as some might still prefer to call it, is a new neighbourhood and deserves its own name. This new park is the centrepiece of the new neighbourhood and should bare its name. Corktown should be defined by its historic buildings and history. Why would we want to confuse people by mixing the two districts together and watering down the unique image of Corktown? That small square or park being built at Queen/King & River streets, I could see having a Corktown name because it actually is in the core of Corktown (Corktown Square?) but once you go south of King on River Street, you are entering a completely new neighbourhood, that I think should be called Ataritiri. I have never been happy calling it the West Don Lands. That name just sounds too generic and could be placed on any of the parks that boarder the Don River. As for it being a "waterfront" neighbourhood, well, for me anything north of the rail tracks, is not the waterfront. We don't think of The Esplanade/St. Lawrence as waterfront, so why is Ataritiri waterfront? It's not.
 
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Damn, I wish I'd thought to nominate "Post-Industrial Park".

That would saytisfy everybody, shurely.
 
Considering this is a brand new neighbourhood, save for the Canary Restaurant, calling this park Corktown doesn't make sense to me. I chose Don River Park since it is something that would guide people to its location better than anything else. Ataratiri Park would have been my second choice followed by King's Reserve, Wonscotonach Park, and Corktown Commons. I would have placed Wonscotonach higher as I liked the tie to the historic name of the river but if it really means black burnt grounds coupled with the fact it doesn't roll off the tongue I scored it lower. King's Reserve has a nice tie into history as well. I think it is a great list of finalists really. Even with this not being recognizable as Corktown to anyone that would come back from childhood to see it, it isn't that bad a name. Walking through Pan Am village and explaining this is where the Irish settled... hmm.
 
Well, at least it's not the unpronounceable Wainscoting-nosh.

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Ya when I read that on WT's website today I thought that was awesome sauce! Not sure why so many people don't think that the area is in Corktown...but it is...and it's a great and fitting park name. Congrats to Tedd Konya for the winning name :D
 
They might as well now drop the term 'West Don Lands' in place of 'Corktown South', 'South Corktown', 'Nueva Corktown', 'Corktown II', or something like that now. There are too many uses of 'Don' for Waterfront Toronto's various projects anyway to avoid confusion for most people. Wait, how about Southcork?

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