Toronto Cathedral/Church Preservation and Maintenance - Is Tourism the Answer?

[jn_12]

Was surprised to see this thread resurrected. Thanks.

I actually had a chance to attend a conference on Thursday about the issue of Church preservation in Canada. The Canadian Heritage Foundation actually views this as the biggest problem facing built heritage in the country right now.

Thanks for the link Keithz. It's good to hear what's going on in other countries. I'm well aware of the fine line these places have to walk between being a tourist attraction and a place of worship. That's why most churches don't charge admission. The only ones that do, actually do it to limit the number of visitors because they don't want to charge their congregations. In the UK it's only a handful of famous places like Westminster Abbey, St Paul's and Canterbury that charge.

I know in rural parts of the country we're losing a lot of churches and that we don't have churches going under here in Toronto. But we really run the risk of losing them in the future if we don't start taking care of them today. The numbers are declining, even in places like St Mike's and St James' and they're on a downward trend for the future. Honestly, I see tourism as the answer to two things: 1) increasing their importance in the community as economic drivers and contributors and 2) increasing the amount of attention they receive in terms of their importance long term as structures of architectural, cultural and heritage significance. I don't think anyone would say that tourism could be a cure strictly from a financial perspective, but if it helps preserve their status, then I'm all for it.

 

[Anth]

The Catholic church routinely gets criticized by some for hanging on to what it terms are 'priceless' works of art and architecture and spending tens or even hundreds of millions to maintain their collections. There's always that argument that the best thing they could do for the poor is liquidate all their possessions and use that money to fight poverty.

Ironically, that criticism is usually levelled by the same people who decry the state of arts funding.

I'm hard pressed to think of any other single institution that has consistently funded the arts and sciences globally for 2000 years.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I was lucky enough to visit York Minster before they began charging admission...I would not have gone in if there was a fee since there's so much 'historical' stuff to see literally steps away. The place was swamped with tourists, poisoning the cathedral's ambience...I was expecting a horde of fanny-pack wearing obese Americans being led around by some twat with a bullhorn. It is an amazing cathedral, but I stayed for only a few minutes before leaving and wandering around the Shambles, watching street performers, following York's wall, etc.

I had a much more pleasant and inspiring visit to Ripon Cathedral, which had no entrance fee. It's less spectacular but just as historic, being older and built in a fairly different style. I bought a spoon in the gift shop. It's probably easier to part tourists form their cash in a place like Ripon or a stop on a tour of England like York Minster than it would be in a church in Toronto.

I don't know how the situation has changed with York Minster's entrance fee...perhaps there's fewer visitors with more people flocking to cheaper Ripon. Perhaps York Minster is branding itself as more of a tourist attraction and luring even more hordes of tourists. Many tourists like consuming heritage and history in neat little packages ('if it charges admission, it must be better or worth our time!') and I doubt Ripon makes it onto as many guided tours or into as many guidebooks or internet lists. York Minster would also have much larger expenses than a place like Ripon - it definitely seemed cleaner and more continuously renovated, the kind of place where even the tiniest crack or speck of dust is taken care of, and there's also more staff to pay, like guards to wrangle the crowds. Ripon seemed less sanitized but more authentic and charming, though I know they have a harder time acquiring funds for upkeep.

I wonder what kind of local charitable/volunteer force exists or would exist to take care of Toronto's churches should they evolve into greater tourist attractions - and both dollars and manpower would be needed, even if we just put a pay-what-you-can collection box at the unlocked door and called it 'open for business.' They are a relatively trivial part of Toronto's tourist economy, unlike the typical European church, and there's so many more organizations to donate to or spend time assisting in Toronto compared to towns like Ripon, or even small cities like York. Marketing would be a challenge...for example, tons of people visit a "tourist attraction" like Casa Loma but a much smaller number poke inside of UofT buildings like Hart House, which offer a similar experience for free - how would UofT go about transferring some of those tourist dollars from Casa Loma to its own pockets? Churches would either have to market themselves as more appealing and worth visiting/spending money at then some other tourist place, whether it be Casa Loma or the Zoo or the AGO, or they'd have to attract new tourists to Toronto and increase their share by baking a bigger pie. I don't know how large the 'historical' tourism crowd is around here...it's certainly large in Europe, if due to nothing other than seniors group tours.

 

[jn_12]

Oddly enough, when I was in York 3 years ago we skipped the York Minster as well. York just has so much to offer and we were there for just a few hours as we hopped off the train en route to Edinburgh from London, so we didn't want to waste it in a packed church. In hindsight I wish we had gone, but it's not like the church is going anywhere, so one day I'll go back.

Unfortunately VisitBritain's annual report doesn't include Ripon Cathedral. It has stats for 100+ Cathedrals/churches, but that one is left off. It would be interesting to know if they've seen an increase in visitors and whether that's had any sort of impact (positive or negative).

Regarding admission fees, I think the way to go is always donation. Even if it's in the form of paying to light a tea candle. Forcing an admission fee only works in places where the church is used as a meeting place (like Westminster and St Paul's). They actually had people just hanging out in the church waiting for friends or it was used as the start point for tours and it was causing serious congestion issues and significantly more wear and tear.

For my thesis I'm working with Truro Cathedral in England, and they're a "by donation" attraction, and I'll be really interested to see what their donations are like once I get their donation stats considering they attract 140k people annually.

Regarding marketing, Tourism Toronto should be doing that. They ignore our heritage infrastructure and if they would actually acknowledge it, it would go a long way. The other option is that the church's here team up and do joint marketing. Market a heritage route in the city, create brochures, etc. They don't do that right now. I actually think there's a lot of potential, it's just a case of out of sight, out of mind and if people actually saw inside some of these places and learned the stories about the people who built them, it'd be a no-brainer. I mean, does anyone in this city know that 800+ Irish immigrants are buried in a mass grave under St Paul's Basilica? The other interesting thing is that the people who tend to be interested in this type of tourism are the ones with the most money and these are the people that we should be trying to attract. Instead, Tourism Toronto is all about mass tourism and attracting families, which isn't a great idea at a time when we have a huge number of baby boomers with expendable income that are interested in these types of niche experiences.

 

[ganjavih]

In Prague, the solution was concerts. Shrinking congregations rent out their churches to musicians.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

In Prague, the solution was concerts. Shrinking congregations rent out their churches to musicians.

Along these lines, Ripon Cathedral does lend itself out for art shows and music festivals that draw visitors to the town who would otherwise have skipped Ripon for York or Harrogate or elsewhere...this kind of thing is probably less feasible in a place like York Minster, where you have a constant flow of admission-paying tourists, but is definitely an option for some Toronto churches, particularly since these churches will not be able to generate hordes of admission-paying tourists and since there are many music, art, and cultural groups looking for suitable spaces.

 

[junctionist]

I don't know if tourism is the answer since I'm not in favour of charging admission, but there's absolutely no reason our attractive heritage places of worship should be ignored by tourism officials. Our cathedrals aren't the finest, but still quite beautiful buildings which many would love to visit. Plus, many tourists are religious anyway.

I'm partial to the Metropolitan United Church not mentioned in this thread yet, which has a gorgeous cathedral interior. It's grand in scale with beautiful materials yet restrained in ornamentation. The tower has a carillon, which is great for concerts, I'd imagine.

 

[jn_12]

^ not charging admission doesn't mean tourism doesn't help. Donations from tourists would obviously help, but I think the biggest part is being able to re-orient these sites as important structures in the community. I'm not religious at all, but I appreciate the community work and programs (such as concerts), and I appreciate the architecture and art, so I don't want to see these places torn down. To me tourism is just a means towards us giving these places more importance in the community. Unfortunately, that tends to mean that they need to be commodified, but I think we can do that in a way that is beneficial to all.

 

[Chuck]

Having designed several church restoration projects myself, I agree that funding for repair work is a huge dilemma. Forget the large, downtown cathedrals. There are dozens of smaller 100 year old churches scattered throughout the inner city in dire need of repairs, and many more approaching 50 years old in the suburbs. GTA wide, the deficit for church repairs is likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars - a lot of money considering that no rent is charged!

I believe that the only viable option for most churches is change of use, which will at least save the exterior. The fact of the matter is that the cost to repair even a smaller church could easily run into the millions, which is money that is painstakingly difficult to raise in most cases. The situation is equally critical in the suburbs where the buildings are newer, because at least the trades knew what they were doing in the 1800s.

 

[jn_12]

Thanks for the input Chuck. I'd be really interested to hear where you got the church maintenance deficit figure. It'd come in handy for my thesis.

And, I agree completely with you. Small churches are in real danger and eventually we're going to need to find alternative uses for them. The key is making sure people understand that they can be adapted and don't need to be torn down, which is unfortunately an option people are considering lately.

I think with regards to my thesis, I would hope that recognizing the potential found in some of our more significant religious sites would help raise awareness about the problems found elsewhere. Right now these are completely off the map and no one seems to care too much about it. It's a shame because whether big or small, we're going to lose some fantastic places.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

you've got to watch out with these restorations. some churches installed plexiglas in front of stain glass windows in preservation attempts which acted like a magnifying glass under the sun that deformed the lead strips causing the stain glass windows to come apart.

sometimes doing something is worse than doing nothing at all.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Along these lines, Ripon Cathedral does lend itself out for art shows and music festivals that draw visitors to the town who would otherwise have skipped Ripon for York or Harrogate or elsewhere...this kind of thing is probably less feasible in a place like York Minster, where you have a constant flow of admission-paying tourists, but is definitely an option for some Toronto churches, particularly since these churches will not be able to generate hordes of admission-paying tourists and since there are many music, art, and cultural groups looking for suitable spaces.

That's actually been hapening for quite some time, at a high level of musical excellence - sometimes offering subscription series, single ticket sales, and raising handsome amounts for charity - at several local churches: Tafelmusik at Trinity St. Paul's, The Amadeus Choir at Yorkminster Park Baptist and The Bach Consort at Eglinton St. George's United for instance - along with Metropolitan United, Christ Church Deer Park, Grace Church on-the-Hill, The Cathedral Church of St. James and others. Wholenote magazine has pretty comprehensive listings of that established network of concert venues.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

That's actually been hapening for quite some time, at a high level of musical excellence - sometimes offering subscription series, single ticket sales, and raising handsome amounts for charity - at several local churches: Tafelmusik at Trinity St. Paul's, The Amadeus Choir at Yorkminster Park Baptist and The Bach Consort at Eglinton St. George's United for instance - along with Metropolitan United, Christ Church Deer Park, Grace Church on-the-Hill, The Cathedral Church of St. James and others. Wholenote magazine has pretty comprehensive listings of that established network of concert venues.

A small number of churches have regular gigs, but the vast majority do not. As Chuck notes, there's many churches that are having difficulty. If they're lucky, they'll get one CD recording or one random community group performance per month, maybe less. It's probably unrealistic for some kind of Tafelmusik Junoir Circuit to survive playing the churches of Agincourt, but there's opportunities for more churches to earn more dollars from tourism and culture if only through more community performances/events (even though community groups themselves are often reliant on government funding, charity, etc.).

Some churches have physically survived by consolidating the operations of multiple congregations...a sort of sacred timeshare, with the Anglicans getting the Sunday slots and Korean masses being held on Saturday, kids in daycare getting the weekdays, or whatever. The churches currently being supported (in part or more) by performances are probably already amongst the more tourist-viable ones, but if the question here is how to use tourism and culture to prop up chuches in general and not just for a dozen name-brand churches, more could be done to see what added community use can do to assist all these other churches (and that's assuming these community uses are putting dollars into church coffers). Even some kind of central facilities listing with rates and seating and whatnot would be useful so groups don't have to fumble around the city looking for recommendations. Humbercrest United, for instance, is a good place to make recordings.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I'm not sure how much of the money raised from concerts actually goes to "prop up" these churches. When the Bach Consort - which includes several TSO musicians - perform at Eglinton St. George's United, for instance, they donate their time for free, as do the choir, conductor, and opera soloists. Tickets for something like their St. John Passion can run to $60, and the money raised goes to various charities. I suppose the church donates their venue, too. On the basis of their stained glass windows alone the place is a gem - but then so is All Saints' at Dundas and Sherbourne, and they're a homeless shelter with guys sleeping on the floor in the summer. How one squares the general attractions of tourism and culture with the specific on-site priority of providing provision of services to the needy in situations like those is something else.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I'm not sure how much of the money raised from concerts actually goes to "prop up" these churches. When the Bach Consort - which includes several TSO musicians - perform at Eglinton St. George's United, for instance, they donate their time for free, as do the choir, conductor, and opera soloists. Tickets for something like their St. John Passion can run to $60, and the money raised goes to various charities. I suppose the church donates their venue, too. On the basis of their stained glass windows alone the place is a gem - but then so is All Saints' at Dundas and Sherbourne, and they're a homeless shelter with guys sleeping on the floor in the summer. How one squares the general attractions of tourism and culture with the specific on-site priority of providing provision of services to the needy in situations like those is something else.

I don't know what each church does with whatever cultural/tourism/fundraising dollars they get their hands on. On-site services can't exist without sites, and it takes dollars to sustain these sites. I suspect the physical structure of many churches is surviving on the fumes of renovations/maintenance from decades ago when collection plates were presumably lucrative enough to fund both maintenance and services. Maybe some churches today are able to fund maintenance through their congregation and services through charity events, but I know many are not.

Perhaps we simply have an unsustainable number of churches...unless the Bach Consort - and their audience - has doppelgangers with disposable income.