I always liked those Dickinson buildings. There was just something...different about them. Good bones, interesting arrangements on the facades. Funny - with a proper renovation, I bet their Modernist 50's staid-yet-perky stylings would have found a league of new admirers. It seems to me that their floorplans have more room to them than most rentals or condos going on the market today do.
I think it would have been better to bring the services to them by inventing a coherent but charmingly irregular through streetplan for the base, and redeem the buildings by making them fresh again.
Instead, we're losing them, and going through all the old arguments you hear in Toronto when these sorts of things are lost. Lost, and gone for good.
It I think that one of the main lessons of modernist history is that it's not a good idea to go all tabula rasa on a broad area, no matter how good the intentions. I'm surprised we're repeating this problematic solution again at Regents Park.
I think at least two of each like building types from the area should have been kept and adaptively rehabilitated. It would have kept some true architectural and chronological differentiation alive in the area - plus surprise.
Toronto's perfectly rational and commonsense prejudice against its past almost has the air of a phobia to it. It's like dealing with a compulsive handwasher.