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Old City Hall Proposals

Put me down as one guy who's awfully glad ksun isn't the dictator he'd clearly love to be. Next thing you know we'd have to start addressing him as Your Supreme Excellency.

Ksun: dial down the drama about Toronto being "in desperate denial of a problem." Take a deep breath, please. The city is growing, and it's managing. It will all be fine. Some of your expectations will be met handily, some won't. That's life. The city will survive us both.
 
Lenser said:
Put me down as one guy who's awfully glad ksun isn't the dictator he'd clearly love to be. Next thing you know we'd have to start addressing him as Your Supreme Excellency.

Ksun: dial down the drama about Toronto being "in desperate denial of a problem." Take a deep breath, please. The city is growing, and it's managing. It will all be fine. Some of your expectations will be met handily, some won't. That's life. The city will survive us both.
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Actually in a sad way maybe that's the problem - Toronto never had an enlightened despot with suitably good taste. We just muddled along by committee and it showed.

As a parable, I would bring attention to the backstory behind how the now iconic City Hall design by Revell was chosen- it is easy enough to find online.

AoD
 
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The last thing Toronto needs or needed is an "enlightened despot". Can you hear yourself? Are you really saying that you would put up with all the criminal actions of a despot in order to gain a park? Even the so called "enlightened despots" were all a bunch of greedy self-serving pricks that caused the deaths of countless people for idiotic reasons. Let's leave the despots to the dustbins of history and get on with real life in a democracy.
 
wopchop said:
The last thing Toronto needs or needed is an "enlightened despot". Can you hear yourself? Are you really saying that you would put up with all the criminal actions of a despot in order to gain a park? Even the so called "enlightened despots" were all a bunch of greedy self-serving pricks that caused the deaths of countless people for idiotic reasons. Let's leave the despots to the dustbins of history and get on with real life in a democracy.
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Of course not, it was all in jest, particularly from a historical perspective - though it's pretty self-serving pricks hasn't really disappeared from the scenery either.

AoD
 
Harper/despot... potayto/potahto? ;) At least Napoleon built some damn cool stuff.
 
I am undoubtedly in the minority, but I always thought that Old City Hall was somewhat awkward. It's an okay copy of a much better building, but only an okay one. The tower provides a wonderful terminus to Bay Street, much as the Old City Hall in Philadelphia caps off the center city district in that burg. Perhaps keep the tower, open it as an observation space and develop the rest of the site as a park?
 
It's inspired by Richardson's Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh. Dramatic changes are not going to happen - it's a National Historic Site.

AoD
 
Ladies Mile said:
I am undoubtedly in the minority, but I always thought that Old City Hall was somewhat awkward. It's an okay copy of a much better building, but only an okay one. The tower provides a wonderful terminus to Bay Street, much as the Old City Hall in Philadelphia caps off the center city district in that burg. Perhaps keep the tower, open it as an observation space and develop the rest of the site as a park?
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Wait what? Knock Old City Hall down? Cause you don't 'like' it? Wow, just wow...
 
Ladies Mile said:
I am undoubtedly in the minority, but I always thought that Old City Hall was somewhat awkward. It's an okay copy of a much better building, but only an okay one. The tower provides a wonderful terminus to Bay Street, much as the Old City Hall in Philadelphia caps off the center city district in that burg. Perhaps keep the tower, open it as an observation space and develop the rest of the site as a park?
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Never ever going to happen. The Eatons proposed just that in the 1960s (keep the tower, tear down the rest) and it didn't happen. The passing decades since then would guarantee an even more hostile reaction to such a proposal.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
It's inspired by Richardson's Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh. Dramatic changes are not going to happen - it's a National Historic Site.

AoD
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So was that recently demolished building at the Women's College site. Unfortunately, heritage designations are meaningless in this city (not that I think Old City Hall will be torn down).

This reminds me of this awesome Rob Ford quote re heritage: Heritage: scrap 5 new positions for the strategic initiatives team; two new heritage studies staff, five for avenue studies. Total savings $789,000. “Please. This is not the time. We don’t need more people in heritage. We could use less, not more.”
 
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Armour said:
So was that recently demolished building at the Women's College site. Unfortunately, heritage designations are meaningless in this city (not that I think Old City Hall will be torn down).
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Was Women's College really a National Historic Site? Never heard of such status, unless it related more to the institution and "significant things happening within" than to the physical plant, per se...
 
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