jn_12
Senior Member
The original article from Apr 11, 2004:
I'm digging up this old article from another thread to start a bit of dialogue that I'm hoping will help me with my potential masters thesis, but also look at architectural and heritage preservation. I didn't continue with the thread that the quoted article comes from because I just want to touch on some of the issues found in the article and not all the crap about race and racism,
So, what can we do about Toronto's Cathedrals?
While I'm in an urban planning program, I'm actually using that as an angle for my interest in public policy and tourism. Trying to come up with an idea for my thesis I thought about my own travels. I noticed that many of the prominent European attractions that I had visited were actually cathedrals and churches and after my time with the province and the city's tourism departments I noticed that we really don't think of our cathedrals as tourist attractions.
When I bring this up to people, most of the time they say: a) they're not old/historical enough or b) they're not as beautiful or c) there are better things to do in the city. I know they're wrong on all accounts.
First, in terms of age, we have a number of cathedrals dating back to before 1850. St. James', St Michael's and St. Paul's are all inching towards 200 years old. If you look at statistics from the UK, Truro Cathedral stands out significantly. They've had over 200k visitors annually. The first section of the Cathedral was completed in 1887 and as far as I can tell is not home to anything specific that would make people want to visit the cathedral (such as an important religious event, etc). Also, Truro is in Cornwall which is about the farthest southwest anyone can go in Britain. It's not near any other significant tourist attractions yet the Cathedral still gets that many visitors per year. What is preventing our Cathedrals from those types of visitor numbers? What are our visitor numbers? The city and province do not recognize Cathedrals as attractions so there are no statistics available. Also I haven't contacted the Cathedrals to find out the numbers (I'm not allowed yet) so right now it's unknown how many or if any tourists visit these sites.
In terms of beauty, it's impossible to describe, but I'd urge everyone to go to one of the above mentioned Toronto cathedrals and tell me that they aren't visually stunning with their own certain charms. Maybe we don't have a Notre Dame, but that's ok. It's not about being the best. We have fantastic stain glass works and architecture and it's amazing that they go unnoticed. And St Anne's is home to works of art by members of the Group of 7. Untapped potential I'd say.
As for better things to do, well, I guess the CN Tower is great, and the ROM and AGO are fantastic, but a good tourism city has depth. We shouldn't rest our laurels on glitz. The way we do depth in Toronto is to say we have great neighbourhoods. We do, but I feel it's much easier to appreciate architecture and art (especially year round) than it is to get an appreciation for Kinsington Market.
The problem is that our cathedrals are dying because people aren't attending church as much as before. So donations dwindle and it gets harder and harder to maintain the buildings, which is a shame because they are essentially works of art. So I'm wondering what people think about marketing our cathedrals as tourist attractions as a means for preservation and for enhancing the role of these buildings as centres of our community and history?
My thesis work will probably look at British policy and see how and where it can be applied here in this area and see what type of difference it can make. I'm crossing my fingers that I can get some funding and maybe go over there to do research and talk to people, but in the meantime I'm relegated to reading reports and academic journals and discussing it with people like you.
I'm really interested in hearing people's views, especially if anyone has knowledge of what's going on in Britain in this area.
The Original Article/Thread can be found here
Apr. 11, 2004. 08:57 AM
A prayer for the city's great churches
Buildings decay as congregations shrink
St. Paul's shines after $3 million renovation
I'm digging up this old article from another thread to start a bit of dialogue that I'm hoping will help me with my potential masters thesis, but also look at architectural and heritage preservation. I didn't continue with the thread that the quoted article comes from because I just want to touch on some of the issues found in the article and not all the crap about race and racism,
So, what can we do about Toronto's Cathedrals?
While I'm in an urban planning program, I'm actually using that as an angle for my interest in public policy and tourism. Trying to come up with an idea for my thesis I thought about my own travels. I noticed that many of the prominent European attractions that I had visited were actually cathedrals and churches and after my time with the province and the city's tourism departments I noticed that we really don't think of our cathedrals as tourist attractions.
When I bring this up to people, most of the time they say: a) they're not old/historical enough or b) they're not as beautiful or c) there are better things to do in the city. I know they're wrong on all accounts.
First, in terms of age, we have a number of cathedrals dating back to before 1850. St. James', St Michael's and St. Paul's are all inching towards 200 years old. If you look at statistics from the UK, Truro Cathedral stands out significantly. They've had over 200k visitors annually. The first section of the Cathedral was completed in 1887 and as far as I can tell is not home to anything specific that would make people want to visit the cathedral (such as an important religious event, etc). Also, Truro is in Cornwall which is about the farthest southwest anyone can go in Britain. It's not near any other significant tourist attractions yet the Cathedral still gets that many visitors per year. What is preventing our Cathedrals from those types of visitor numbers? What are our visitor numbers? The city and province do not recognize Cathedrals as attractions so there are no statistics available. Also I haven't contacted the Cathedrals to find out the numbers (I'm not allowed yet) so right now it's unknown how many or if any tourists visit these sites.
In terms of beauty, it's impossible to describe, but I'd urge everyone to go to one of the above mentioned Toronto cathedrals and tell me that they aren't visually stunning with their own certain charms. Maybe we don't have a Notre Dame, but that's ok. It's not about being the best. We have fantastic stain glass works and architecture and it's amazing that they go unnoticed. And St Anne's is home to works of art by members of the Group of 7. Untapped potential I'd say.
As for better things to do, well, I guess the CN Tower is great, and the ROM and AGO are fantastic, but a good tourism city has depth. We shouldn't rest our laurels on glitz. The way we do depth in Toronto is to say we have great neighbourhoods. We do, but I feel it's much easier to appreciate architecture and art (especially year round) than it is to get an appreciation for Kinsington Market.
The problem is that our cathedrals are dying because people aren't attending church as much as before. So donations dwindle and it gets harder and harder to maintain the buildings, which is a shame because they are essentially works of art. So I'm wondering what people think about marketing our cathedrals as tourist attractions as a means for preservation and for enhancing the role of these buildings as centres of our community and history?
My thesis work will probably look at British policy and see how and where it can be applied here in this area and see what type of difference it can make. I'm crossing my fingers that I can get some funding and maybe go over there to do research and talk to people, but in the meantime I'm relegated to reading reports and academic journals and discussing it with people like you.
I'm really interested in hearing people's views, especially if anyone has knowledge of what's going on in Britain in this area.