Toronto Clare R. Copeland Transformer Station | ?m | ?s | Toronto Hydro | Arcadis

You're welcome... but as it says at the top of the article, it wasn't me, it was Dumitru Onceanu, a.k.a. 'Atlantis'. I only did the editing!

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We have a dataBase page for this project up now with all-new and more detailed renderings!

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This is absolutely terrible. For years and years there was discussion about a museum at the roundhouse which as, as the article mentions, a National Historic Site.

That said, the space was allowed to be eaten up by Steam Whistle and Leons. With little help from government, some volunteers managed to set up a museum in the remaining 3 of the 32 bays.

With only 9% of the roundhouse under their control, Toronto Hydro wants to squeeze them out even further. And worst of all, the local councillor is OK with that!

This is a sad reflection on how little we care for our heritage and our institutions.
 
LEONS should be the one going...Steam whistle provides entertainment to a entertainment area and so does the museum... on the other hand we could buy furniture anywhere... I am saying this and I actually really like that Leons and I have only been to steam whistle once.. However the need for entertainment in this area seems like the obvious choice.
 
Im wih the Cityplace residents association (Adam Vaughan mentioned that the project is needed so people at Cityplace could use their elevators) and we are in the process of fighting to give the museum all of the space. The fact that he even used Cityplace to justify the decision quite frankly pisses me off. The city knew condos were going to be built and should have thought about their needs years ago. If Toronto Hydro is too short for time to study other options, that is the city's fault, not the museums, developers or the community. We were told the transformer was going underground. Either put it underground, or come up with a different plan. I can't even believe councillor Vaughan is allowing Toronto Hydro to bully the museum staff like this.
 
^^ Should they not have thought of (and planned for) that when the railway museum was being developed? It's things like this that lead me to believe that very little thought goes into our city planning. Frequently, our right hand seems to not know what the left hand is doing. Look how badly the construction of our roads/sidewalks/transit appears to be planned and coordinated.
 
It's pretty disappointing to read this article.

This museum, given the chance to grow, could become fairly decent. And if there's something the city needs more of, it's medium to large sized museums and galleries. We still don't have a proper TTC museum (my $0.02: that should be located at Davisville) and until that time, this could potentially be the next best thing. Historically, the settlement of Canada is the story of ships and railways. And while this museum will never be our Ellis Island, it could certainly tell tourists and locals an important part of our history that shouldn't be disregarded.

It should behove Toronto Hydro to realize that and work with this museum towards a much better outcome.
 
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The planners are showing a distinct lack of creativity in dealing with this. Building it somewhere else in the contiguous area shouldn't be too difficult. I really like Adam Vaughan and there's no one else I'd rather have in my ward, but as stated elsewhere it's silly to act like the growing energy needs in the area are a surprise.
 
It's really dispiriting to see such disrespect towards the volunteers who have devoted thousands of hours for so many years to restore the artifacts and make the museum a success. The roundhouse is a National Historic Site of Canada and no place for this kind infrastructure. Building a transformer station will mean modifications that will compromise the historic integrity of the structure. This article provides important details. It will significantly compromise the railway museum which commemorates an important part of what built up Toronto and Canada as a country. Toronto Hydro should have nothing to do with site, even considering the better underground scheme with disassembly and reassembly of the structure. It seems like we're regressing in terms of how we treat heritage buildings, no matter how important.
 
Hang on, the railway museum isn't being run by the city, and strictly speaking it doesn't even exist yet. They aren't talking about Roundhouse Park, they're talking about a proposed museum that would have occupied space in the Roundhouse. Instead of the guys behind the museum buying the buying the space Toronto Hydro did, and now Toronto Hydro wants to locate infrastructure there instead. And the kicker is that Toronto Hydro is even offering them 40% of the space that they never even had in the first place, and the museum folks have gotten indignant at the offer.

Those volunteers did a tremendous job at Roundhouse Park, and the city really should consider stepping in (or more realistically, chipping in) to help them out. Given the success they've had with such limited resources, and given how there's a burgeoning tourist strip along Bremner, it makes sense to maximize the potential of the attraction. At the same time, as things stand the museum never really had a claim to that space.
 
whatever said:
the kicker is that Toronto Hydro is even offering them 40% of the space that they never even had in the first place, and the museum folks have gotten indignant at the offer.
Click to expand...

Um, no. "The kicker", as you put it, is that essentially this group believes that Toronto Hydro has misled them, repeatedly, in bad faith. What they're saying is that Hydro won them over with assurances that the station would be unmanned, completely below ground, and would preserve the heritage integrity of the existing structure. This group clearly believed, or feels it was led to believe, that they would be able to operate their museum in the machine shop -- all of it. They're now being told they can have less than 40% of the space, and they have huge concerns about the impact that construction will have on the heritage integrity of the current structure.

They clearly also feel that Hydro is being needlessly uncooperative and denying them the opportunity of finding a compromise solution.

If everything they've said is true, then it sure looks to me like they have a justifiable sense of grievance.
 
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