Proposed renaming of Dundas Street

[EnviroTO]

You don't make much selling naming rights if the existing location designation stays. People will continue to call the station Dundas Station if Dundas remains in the station name at all and will cut out the branding when talking to people. Philadelphia's station rename made money only because the old name was completely removed and wouldn't have made money otherwise. For anything less than dropping the name the cost of wrapping the station on a more permanent basic probably makes more sense.

 

[Northern Light]

Separately......a report to Executive also recommends renaming Dundas street, and othewise expunging the name Dundas, everywhere..........

SMH.

Upwards of 6M ;

enough to house 24 people or families permanently.

enough to put 60 people from low-income minority households through advanced post-secondary degrees with no tuition, and no debt.

****

This is just Dundas..........

I could care less about this on a certain level.

Dundas had no tangible connection to the City.

That said, I always find symbolism for its own sake, not supported by substance to be wasteful and hypocritical.

If we want to make a real difference in lives of currently disenfranchised people (a disproportionate number of whom are First Nations or Black)........there is a long list of worthwhile places to put the money before this.

Report here: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2021/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-168523.pdf

 

[nfitz]

I guess they should have sold the naming rights. They'll have to rename Dundas and Dundas West now. Hopefully that will end the confusion with tourists ending up at the wrong station.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-dundas-street-tory-staff-report-1.6082798

 

[picard102]

Renaming a street falls off the list of things that need addressing.

 

[Steve X]

I guess they should have sold the naming rights. They'll have to rename Dundas and Dundas West now. Hopefully that will end the confusion with tourists ending up at the wrong station.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-dundas-street-tory-staff-report-1.6082798

If they named it Ryerson Station (likely at the time)... they'll need a re-rename!

 

[M II A II R II K]

And the town of Dundas would have to be renamed.

 

[TRONto]

I guess they should have sold the naming rights. They'll have to rename Dundas and Dundas West now. Hopefully that will end the confusion with tourists ending up at the wrong station.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-dundas-street-tory-staff-report-1.6082798

When it because fashionable, people will read about Sir George Yonge and I suppose we'll rename that street too.

"While there is some humour in Yonge’s flailing and fumbling – Barnard nicknamed him the “Lofty Twaddler,” in reference to his misplaced superiority complex and the foolish drivel he constantly spouted – his self-interested attitude toward slavery was downright despicable. By 1800, thanks to the pioneering activism of William Wilberforce, British public opinion had turned against slavery, and colonial governors were instructed to keep the importation of slaves to a minimum. But Yonge ignored that recommendation, teaming up with a chap called Michael Hogan to exploit a loophole whereby any slaves found aboard vessels captured in combat were considered “fair prize” and could be sold."

It's from here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opi...-street-named-after-a-monument-to-mediocrity/

I find it funny that Dundas hated Yonge and they arguably share one of Toronto's most iconic/important intersections.

 

[gabe]

Maybe change the stations and streets to numbers? If we do research on every street name, the city could have thousands of streets that need to be renamed.

 

[Undead]

As an eastern European, I find it humorous and troubling seeing these statute teardowns/renamings. This was one of the things we fled from; it's ironic and disappointing seeing the same rubbish sprouting here.

 

[zang]

Maybe change the stations and streets to numbers? If we do research on every street name, the city could have thousands of streets that need to be renamed.

Slippery slope arguments are lame.

 

[Towered]

As an eastern European, I find it humorous and troubling seeing these statute teardowns/renamings. This was one of the things we fled from; it's ironic and disappointing seeing the same rubbish sprouting here.

Why is it rubbish?

 

[W. K. Lis]

Frederick Langdon Hubbard Station. William Peyton Hubbard Street.

From link.

Frederick Langdon Hubbard (1878–1953) was Chairman of the Toronto Transportation Commission from 1929 to 1930. He was the first African Canadian to serve on the TTC board (first as Commissioner and later as Chairman).[1] Born in Toronto in 1878, Hubbard was son of a high profile African Canadian and Toronto politician William Peyton Hubbard and son-in-law to the first African Canadian licensed to practice medicine in Ontario Anderson Ruffin Abbott (married to daughter Grace Isabell Hubbard). Hubbard died in 1953.

Hubbard worked for the Toronto Street Railway from 1906 to 1921, and served as the chair of the TTC from 1929 to 1930, vice-chair in 1931 and a commissioner from 1932 to 1939.

From link.

William Peyton Hubbard (January 27, 1842 – April 30, 1935), a Toronto alderman from 1894 to 1914, was a popular and influential politician, nicknamed Cicero for his oratory;[1][2] he was one of the first politicians of African descent elected to office in Canada.

 

[Undead]

Why is it rubbish?

This illustration expresses it much more succinctly and vividly than I ever could:

Source (notably, from a Polish artist)

 

[nfitz]

This illustration expresses it much more succinctly and vividly than I ever could:

So we shouldn't fight fascism because it will always return?

 

[DSC]

Slippery slope arguments are lame.

Not really; once we start judging historical events and historical people by the (ever changing) standards of today there really is no end to it. FAR better to explain the names and their histories; that way we might, just might, avoid repeating the same mistakes again and again. Would we name something after Dundas today? Of course not, but the fact that we did this ca 200 years ago tells us something about our country to know why his name was memorialised (he was the friend of a colonial official) and why (apart from this) Henry Dundas' name is not something that we now think worth commemorating.