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Toronto scraps museum project, plans to raze site instead

Unfortunately, The building's structure is compromised so any future prospects are out of the question without a significant cash infusion now. I also think it will be long time until we see another golden age of real estate investment as with the last couple of years which didn't see one true proposal evolve from the countless visions and dreams.

The inescapable conclusion is that Toronto cares little for its history or past.
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Don't you think that's a little melodramatic. I'm not saying our record is great but there have been many, many more successes than failures in recent years (although the forum in typical fashion tends to harps on the negative ) I'm not condoning some of the poor decisions made but, we tend to forget that we are a young city contending with real growth in comparison to some of the museums across the pond.
 
maestro said:
Unfortunately, The building's structure is compromised so any future prospects are out of the question without a significant cash infusion now.
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As has been mentioned by the city, this building could be restored for a cost of roughly $20 million, and as I said in a previous post in this thread, that is insignificant in a city with an annual budget that tops $8 billion. There's no excuse to tear it down.
 
Have Metronome and the Toronto City Museum always been the same project? I thought Metronome was the waterfront music hall of fame idea. I'm horrified at the idea of Toronto's history being tied up in the musical answer to Torch. The whole Metronome thing sounded like an anachronism of the 1990s.
 
maestro said:
Unfortunately, The building's structure is compromised so any future prospects are out of the question without a significant cash infusion now.
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The photos of the silos show two things:
1. The rebar in the concrete is rusting. Rusting metal expands and cracks the concrete. The remedy is to replace the rebar with teflon coated rebar. This is essentially a complete replacement.
2. The walls of the silo are quite thin. Likely the silo has structural integrity as a vessel but not a structural member. In other words you may not be able to add much weight to the silos to facilitate decks and added area.
 
I'm all for the preservation of buildings. I just don't know if these are salvageable considering their size, dimensions and wear and tear. It would take quite a feat to fix the site up and make it useful and if someone actually came up with a concrete plan rather than some wishy-washy ideas I would be all for the city putting money into the site. I just don't see it happening.

What i would propose is something that a lot of cities are starting to do and that's submerging old relics (whether they're cars, buses, anything) to provide a habitat for fish and other aquatic life. There's a spin-off as well because these are very attractive features for divers and from a tourism perspective people who dive tend to be people on the higher end of the spending spectrum. They tend to be DINKs (double income, no kids) with a lot of expendable income to spend on hobbies like diving and vacations. I don't know if it would be possible, but submerging the silos in the bay could be the start of an aquatic park, while opening up a piece of land that has some strong potential. I've always thought a City Museum situated beside Ireland Park made a lot of sense (I consider it on par with the Old City Hall as a site for the project) and it would be easier to pull off with a clean slate, than to try and fit it into the silos.
 
jn_12 said:
What i would propose is something that a lot of cities are starting to do and that's submerging old relics (whether they're cars, buses, anything) to provide a habitat for fish and other aquatic life. There's a spin-off as well because these are very attractive features for divers and from a tourism perspective people who dive tend to be people on the higher end of the spending spectrum. They tend to be DINKs (double income, no kids) with a lot of expendable income to spend on hobbies like diving and vacations. I don't know if it would be possible, but submerging the silos in the bay could be the start of an aquatic park
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If demolished the silos would indeed become a fish habitat - the Leslie Street Spit
 
Whoaccio said:
What is the meaning or context of the Malting Silos? Their original meaning was clearly to facilitate the trade of grain in the context of industrial era trading patterns along the Great Lakes. It is self evident that neither of these is relevant any more.
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Well I think you've answered your own question in fact. The silos are the historic remnants of Toronto as an industrial Great Lakes city. They tell a story, even if not necessarily a glamorous one. They're part of the waterfront evolution of the city from fort/shipping hub to rail hub and so on to what it is today.

Whoaccio said:
It is self evident that neither of these is relevant any more.
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...which is to say then that 'history' is not relevent. Fair enough if that is your opinion but others would beg to differ.

Whoaccio said:
And not one of them got past the drawing boards. Not one of them even got close to completion.
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To be fair though isn't this more a function of Toronto's lack of interest in its history than of the implicit 'worthyness' of the silos for preservation?? The fact that the funding of these things falls low on the priority list is reflective of the reality that as a collectivity we just don't care.

maestro said:
Don't you think that's a little melodramatic. I'm not saying our record is great but there have been many, many more successes than failures in recent years (although the forum in typical fashion tends to harps on the negative ) I'm not condoning some of the poor decisions made but, we tend to forget that we are a young city contending with real growth in comparison to some of the museums across the pond.
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No maestro, in fact I don't think I could be dramatic enough about this. Toronto is no younger than many other cities that do have historic museums, in a North American context at least. Again, this perspective that says we're 'young' and have no history to speak of anyway is more a function of Toronto's apathy than of any objective reality.

Also, I would suggest that most of the heritage successes you speak of are the result of private development or philanthropy and not of government responsibility. This to me is telling. Even a major 'national' historic site like Fort York has languished ignored for too long. I'm glad to hear that it is finally getting a bit of funding and attention but it has taken a bicentennial to warrant this.
 
Tewder:

I would suggest that most of the heritage successes you speak of are the result of private development or philanthropy and not of government responsibility.
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Huh?! The involvement of the private sector is overwhelming when it comes to the destruction of hertiage structures in Toronto - and the most overwhelming successes (e.g. Old City Hall) are the result of government reaction to the the demands of the public instead of the private sector. Beyond that, just how much would the populace tolerate public sector intrusion into property rights? Not to mention, since the day the city was established, heritage is subsumed to "progress" - just think the 1st Union Station, the original Ontario legislature, etc - and ironically we are "better" for it.

AoD
 
The concrete silos on Montreal's waterfront have been converted into giant echo chambers, which is kind of neat.
 
Has anyone here donated to keep these thing from falling apart? Volunteered their time maybe? It is a little frustrating to keep being told Torontonians "don't care about history" (which is clearly untrue, we pay ridiculous fees to go and see "historical" buildings like Casa Loma or go overseas to see random forts) when I would bet good money that not a single person here has invested a penny in keeping these things from being euthanized. These silos aren't some wonderful European fortress or sleek skyscraper that you can charge ten bucks to see. They are malting silos, which have less sex appeal for the general public than aggregate yards. No one is going to pay to see the wonders of early 20th century malting technology, no one. I suspect most people know this at some level, which explains why nobody has bothered to invest a dime in it during two, separate, massive real estate booms.
 
Whoaccio said:
Has anyone here donated to keep these thing from falling apart? Volunteered their time maybe? It is a little frustrating to keep being told Torontonians "don't care about history" (which is clearly untrue, we pay ridiculous fees to go and see "historical" buildings like Casa Loma or go overseas to see random forts) when I would bet good money that not a single person here has invested a penny in keeping these things from being euthanized. These silos aren't some wonderful European fortress or sleek skyscraper that you can charge ten bucks to see. They are malting silos, which have less sex appeal for the general public than aggregate yards. No one is going to pay to see the wonders of early 20th century malting technology, no one. I suspect most people know this at some level, which explains why nobody has bothered to invest a dime in it during two, separate, massive real estate booms.
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Your incoherent argument is mistaken in so many ways:

No one here had any means to 'donate' to keep the silos standing.

No one has been allowed to invest a dime in it either (the city has never allowed anyone, except that music project, to contemplate investing).
 
No one has been allowed to invest a dime in it either (the city has never allowed anyone, except that music project, to contemplate investing).
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That makes just about no sense. The City can't stop people from "contemplating" anything. Anyone who has wanted to has been free, for decades, to propose to do something with the Silos. To date, we've received one half baked music museum that was ridiculous to everyone that looked at it.

If anybody thought this was going to work, it would have already happened.

Seriously, if you think people will pay to visit these nobody is stopping you from scrounging together a few dozens of millions of dollars to plow into them with no hope of seeing a penny of that again. Sounds promising, don't it?
 
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