Toronto The One | 328.4m | 91s | Mizrahi Developments | Foster + Partners

Tuscani01 said:
The city is being proactive, but it's hands are tied behind its back. Heritage Preservation Services has a massive backlog. There's no fixing that without more money and more resources.
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Or a better, more restrictive set of criteria for labelling something as "heritage"?

This city seems intent on saving *everything* over a hundred years old, instead of the best of the best. If it's in any way decorative, it gets saved. Imagine if we did that with every nice building in the original city of York? We'd have a city full of two story houses with nowhere near the amount of commerce, excitement or population. Hamilton would be the economic capital of the province.

If this insane level of heritage preservation had started 70 years ago, we'd have held on to Shea's Hippodrome (https://tayloronhistory.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/f1231_it08401.jpg). It had immense cultural history, and was a beautiful theatre. But in turn, were it not torn down, we would be short the architectural icon that is Nathan Philips Square.

The Sam the Record Man sign is a perfect example of the issues some have in this city. We are glorifying an anachronistic sign that once belonged to a business that slowly dwindled away because it couldn't keep up with the times. All because of what? Nostalgia? It has less cultural importance on the music scene than half of 1960s Yorkville did, but because someone bought their first New Order LP at Sam's, it "must be saved".

Cities are organic, and in order to grow we need to let go of a lot of the past. We have to pick our battles. We can't save everything. We should *only* save *the best*.

Otherwise, it's just hoarding.
 
I can't believe this argument continues...

The desire for "clean slate architecture" is all fine and dandy until you run into real life. A heritage building on a development site is like having a subway run under the site, or the site being on a 5% grade. You can't just wish these things away. A developer and architect must deal with them accordingly.

774 Yonge was listed on the heritage register in 1974, so the building was deemed architecturally important to Toronto over four decades ago. You can't just wish that away.
 
zang said:
Or a better, more restrictive set of criteria for labelling something as "heritage"?

This city seems intent on saving *everything* over a hundred years old, instead of the best of the best. If it's in any way decorative, it gets saved. Imagine if we did that with every nice building in the original city of York? We'd have a city full of two story houses with nowhere near the amount of commerce, excitement or population. Hamilton would be the economic capital of the province.

If this insane level of heritage preservation had started 70 years ago, we'd have held on to Shea's Hippodrome (https://tayloronhistory.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/f1231_it08401.jpg). It had immense cultural history, and was a beautiful theatre. But in turn, were it not torn down, we would be short the architectural icon that is Nathan Philips Square.

The Sam the Record Man sign is a perfect example of the issues some have in this city. We are glorifying an anachronistic sign that once belonged to a business that slowly dwindled away because it couldn't keep up with the times. All because of what? Nostalgia? It has less cultural importance on the music scene than half of 1960s Yorkville did, but because someone bought their first New Order LP at Sam's, it "must be saved".

Cities are organic, and in order to grow we need to let go of a lot of the past. We have to pick our battles. We can't save everything. We should *only* save *the best*.

Otherwise, it's just hoarding.
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If that was the case, then every 'old' building would be granted protection. That's not how it works though. There is a set of criteria laid out by the Province that building must meet in order to be designated a historic building. Simply being old isn't enough to gain protection.
 
Tuscani01 said:
If that was the case, then every 'old' building would be granted protection. That's not how it works though. There is a set of criteria laid out by the Province that building must meet in order to be designated a historic building. Simply being old isn't enough to gain protection.
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No, but that was (I thought) obvious exaggeration. Still, we save far too much. In an age when we can take 3D scans of the interiors and exteriors of buildings, photographs, videos, etc. we don't need to be saving as much as we seem to be doing. I'm not saying we need spare nothing from the wrecking ball, but we artificially inflate the value of old buildings (Toronto Heritage Grant Program and Toronto Heritage Tax Rebate Program), making it more than worthwhile to preserve what might not really be worth preserving.

Should just about every one of the run-down rooming house Sherbourne Mansions be saved? Not really. Is that going to stop half the street from having 120 year old brick-and-mortar pedestals on 60-storey condos? Not a chance in hell.

In my ward alone (Ward 27), a search for just residential heritage properties turns up 853 results. 853! Outside of just residential, there are a grand total of 5296 existing heritage properties in Ward 27.
 
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Ward 27 includes Yorkville, all of Rosedale, North Rosedale, a good deal of the U of T, Queens Park, City Hall and Old City Hall, in fact all of Downtown north of Queen and east of University…

Of course it's got an impressive number of heritage properties!

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Zang: who gets to decide what's "the best of the best?"

Who can afford to do 3D scans for all these buildings you would rather see go under the wrecking ball - who pays for that tab? The property owners, before they knock 'em down? The developers? What good would that do anyway, when the buildings themselves disappear, their architectural motifs and richly historical vibe no longer able to contribute to the overall urban vernacular and variety? Would I like to see Ward 27 rigorously scoured of its heritage building stock? Nope. What would be gained for their loss, anyway - a bunch of mostly-interchangeable blue-green glass buildings? And that would be an improvement.... how?

Yes, there has to be compromise between preservation and robust city-building. But with this "best of the best" suggestion, the devil is in the details.

A city which routinely pollutes and destroys its own history is a city lacking a soul and pride in its own development.
 
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interchange42 said:
Ward 27 includes Yorkville, all of Rosedale, North Rosedale, a good deal of the U of T, Queens Park, City Hall and Old City Hall, in fact all of Downtown north of Queen and east of University… Of course it's got an impressive number of heritage properties!
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At 6 square kilometres, there are nearly 1000 per square km. That's over half of all designated properties listed on the site (as if little happened west of Avenue), and just seems an insanely high number, even for an area of historical significance.

Lenser said:
Dang: who gets to decide what's "the best of the best?"
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It's *ZANG*, and perhaps an independent group of architects and historians? And why does pretty much every decision have to go to city council?

Lenser said:
Who can afford to do 3D scans for all these buildings you would rather see go under the wrecking ball - who pays for that tab? The property owners, before they knock 'em down? The developers?
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How about the city? They already give a 50% grant towards restoration work and a 40% property tax rebate for heritage properties. And not every place would need a 3D scan, detailed photographs or video would do just fine for many.

Lenser said:
What good would that do anyway, when the buildings themselves disappear, their architectural motifs and richly historical vibe no longer able to contribute to the overall urban vernacular and variety?
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Victorian brocades have been out of (literal) fashion for a hundred years. Yet, fashion students still learn about them, call on them for inspiration, etc. Just because something's out of sight for the general public does not mean it doesn't hold a wealth of information and inspiration for the creators of today. Dinosaurs no longer walk the earth and yet pretty much every child over three can name at least four of them on sight.

Lenser said:
Would I like to see Ward 27 rigorously scoured of its heritage building stock? Nope. What would be gained for their loss, anyway - a bunch of mostly-interchangeable blue-green glass buildings? And that would be an improvement.... how?
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You obviously interpreted as cutting down the number of properties we deem "heritage" to a reasonable number as "burn every old building to the ground". I've never said that, and I'm a huge nut for old architecture. But just as every modern single family dwelling isn't Falling Water, not every victorian mansion or storefront is anything truly special or unique. And I'm just talking about the places that are intended to be saved for architectural reasons; often we save places just because someone lived there (even for a short period of time).

Lenser said:
Yes, there has to be compromise between preservation and robust city-building. But with this "best of the best" suggestion, the devil is in the details.

A city which routinely pollutes and destroys its own history is a city lacking a soul and pride in its own development.
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A city that doesn't destroy a good portion of itself over time doesn't evolve.
 
Fair comment Zang, and sorry for the typo.

I guess we're just bound to disagree over how much preservation is too much. My concern is that, in our rush to go vertical and dispense with certain older buildings because they're deemed ubiquitous, we'll all too soon be in very short supply of actual remaining stock from various historical eras. Open the floodgates and watch how fast the old stuff you're "a huge nut for" goes. And again - who gets to decide "the best of the best?" What's your suggested mechanism for that?

As for 3D scanning, I honestly don't see how such simulacra replaces the real thing - a city's built form is fundamentally different from an archive, however modern, detailed or high-tech said archive might be. Moreover, I just don't see the city footing the bill for such scanning, seeing as it's already having trouble with funding in all sorts of sectors.
 
zang said:
It's *ZANG*, and perhaps an independent group of architects and historians? And why does pretty much every decision have to go to city council?
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Umm... that's exactly how it is done. I'm on one of the panels that recommends properties for protection to Heritage Preservation Services, who then make recommendations to council. It's not council making the decisions. They don't have time to be researching all the historic properties in their wards.
 
I can't be bothered going through the entire rant above, so I will comment that the new hoarding looks great. I couldn't read everything about the artist and the work because it was so dark, but the trees will be nice to look at for awhile. The new box of Kleenex we bought has a picture of all trees, too. Maybe this is a trend; when in doubt use pics of trees as art.
 
innsertnamehere said:
The PATH has multiple parts, it would be connected to the Bloor Yonge section.
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Cumberland Terrace, Holt Renfrew, Hudson's Bay and The Manulife Centre aren't actually designated as part of the PATH.

The city has recently added the MaRS campus and the buildings around College Park, but nothing north of College is officially PATH. And the recent additions completely break the once-contiguous nature of the system.
 
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