Toronto Ryerson Student Learning Centre | 50.59m | 8s | Ryerson University | Zeidler

I'm loving this building the more I walk by it. It's definitely reflective if the light hits it the right way! I just hope it's maintained properly so this great feature isn't lost.
 
They want to remove one of the 2 retail units on Yonge St as well reduce sidewalk space for the other.
 
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drum118 said:
They want to remove one of the 2 retail units on Yonge St as well reduce sidewalk space for the other.
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I didn't see anything on the Development Application sign about removing any sidewalk space; rather they want to convert a portion of the lower level of the retail space into institutional uses and use the remaining ground-level and remaining lower space for a retailer as originally planned.
 
Gorgeous building indeed!
However, the excessive amount of money they spent to design and build such extravagant building could have been better spent on things that actually improve the quality of the education that Ryerson students receive. The same goes for the Imaging Centre which is in my opinion is nothing more than a museum and doesn't add any value to the quality of education.
Don't get me wrong, I still think that a building such as the SLC was badly needed on campus, I just don't think the building needed to be this extravagant. The Imaging Center on the other hand, as gorgeous as it is, is just a waste of tax payers money by an institute of higher learning.
 
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mdrame said:
Gorgeous building indeed!
However, the excessive amount of money they spent to design and build such extravagant building could have been better spent on things that actually improve the quality of the education that Ryerson students receive. The same goes for the Imaging Centre which is in my opinion is nothing more than a museum and doesn't add any value to the quality of education.
Don't get me wrong, I still think that a building such as the SLC was badly needed on campus, I just don't think the building needed to be this extravagant. The Imaging Center on the other hand, as gorgeous as it is, is just a waste of tax payers money by an institute of higher learning.
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There's that Toronto attitude! Build just enough for it to function. No frills. Conservative. So glad Toronto is changing and that this type of thinking is going away from this city.
 
Edward Skira said:
Yonge Street was a major hooker/strip joint/drug/drinking/porn movie etc shady place back in the 1970's. When shoeshine boy Emanuel Jaques was sexually assaulted and murdered in one of the buildings near Dundas in 1977 the city decided to clamp down on the vice (though I'm sure the newly opened Eaton Centre had an influence on this). The police drove the hookers off of Yonge which is why they all ended up further east on Jarvis or Church by the 1980s. The Harvey's at Jarvis and Gerrard was for the longest time called Hooker Harvey's.
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Hookers, porn shops/peep shows, drug dealing and strip joints continued past the Jaques murder. Hookers were less prevalent but still there and policing ramped up for a few years - it was not "the Yonge Street cleanup" as you would be lead to believe. The real change was the almost overnight shut-down of the massage parlours (aka sex joints) - paper went up in the doorways and lights switched off until bit by bit they were leased out to new businesses. Hookers could still be found into at least the late 80's later at night, mostly between Dundas & Gerrard, on the east side around the front of the two grind-house cinemas & Cinema 2000, the strip palaces, Ford Drugs - even around The Big Slice. Late at night, Yonge Street was really edgy (not in a good way) through most of the 80's.

On the Student Centre, I'm still taken by the enormity of this building on the street when I'm in this area, but so far there's not a thing I don't love about it.
 
khristopher said:
There's that Toronto attitude! Build just enough for it to function. No frills. Conservative. So glad Toronto is changing and that this type of thinking is going away from this city.
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There is no arguing that both buildings are highly attractive and I would have perfectly been ok with it if they were privately funded buildings and Ryerson was a private institution. The issue is that they are publicly funded buildings and Ryerson is a public university, and we are in the age of rampant budgetary deficits in which jobs are being cut in the health care system and benefits are being taken away from teachers. And I think that it could have probably cost half of the $112 million they spent to built the SLC if it was just a simple building like the Raymond Chang building. And the money that would have been saved could have been used on more value-add things such as adding more professors to their faculties and/or hiring more staff instead of cutting jobs. I was actually shocked to find out that there are only 6 security staff responsible for the whole campus! And you wonder why you have drug dealers selling weed on campus in plain sight.

The Imaging Center is just a waste of money ($61 million) on prime real estate; the land would have been better used to build a tower to house more classrooms, more student residences or the health sciences building. Instead they build a "museum" that is rarely visited. And I didn't even mention the amount of energy (and $$$) they waste illuminating that thing at night.
 
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So you don't feel that public funds should contribute to the arts or to inspiring and/or beautiful public spaces? What a sad world you would live in.
 
If we had it that way, we would be complaining about how boring and bland the SLC would've been. Imagine the outcry about losing Sam the Record Man then!
 
mdrame said:
Gorgeous building indeed!
However, the excessive amount of money they spent to design and build such extravagant building could have been better spent on things that actually improve the quality of the education that Ryerson students receive. The same goes for the Imaging Centre which is in my opinion is nothing more than a museum and doesn't add any value to the quality of education.
Don't get me wrong, I still think that a building such as the SLC was badly needed on campus, I just don't think the building needed to be this extravagant. The Imaging Center on the other hand, as gorgeous as it is, is just a waste of tax payers money by an institute of higher learning.
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So, you want all public buildings built to be as utilitarian as possible? Perhaps rectangular concrete boxes? What a load of crap!
 
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