Toronto Union Station Revitalization | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto | NORR

Markster said:
It's historical, and Toronto spent the 60s and 70s indiscriminately tearing down its history and is still repenting.
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And now we're stuck with the opposite - not being able to tear down what's fundamentally useless while more worthwhile buildings get demolition by neglect and in the meantime we're stuck with replacements that doesn't speak to the quality it should be having.

crs1026 said:
Heritage preservation has to balance the pure preservation goal with the context and continued function of the structure. We preserve historic buildings that did not have plumbing for their first 100 years - but we don't preserve the outhouse, nor do we insist people use the outhouse just because that's a heritage attribute of the building.

The mistake made with Union's trainshed preservation was to put a green roof on top. (one progressive agenda, quite a good idea in other contexts, too far). Had the roof been retained with translucent panels, a better compromise could have been reached.

I sit on one of the city's Heritage Preservation panels, so I'm not going to speak out against preservation...... but forcing the travelling public into a dark, dreary structure just because that's what travellers traditionally experienced is not a wise strategy either for preservation or for urban development.

My suggestion would be - nix the green roof - or at least reduce its area - change the roofing material, but keep the trainshed structure.
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Not just that - and it is kind of late to do otherwise - but the fundamental problem goes far beyond just the shed - but how by keeping the underlying structure you are basically limited to having an awful track arrangement, awful in/egress from the platforms, etc. Keeping the shed since it is "heritage" is just the icing on the cake. Like seriously, did they even try and use this thing? It's embarrassing. Like one person wide staircases? It doesn't matter whether you clad it nicely in glass with little LED mood lighting - ultimately it is inadequate.

And spending what will likely be a neat 1B on the whole ensemble is just atrocious. All because no one can get their act together and make some tough decisions and plan ahead.

AoD
 
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TOareaFan said:
Is it attractive? Even if I thought it was, would the next person...."attractive" is a purely subjective opinion and if we are only going to preserve/maintain that which some sort of majority (if you could somehow find that) thought was "attractive" then we are going to preserve a very skewed version of history.
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And what's wrong with preserving a very skewed version of history if it means current users can benefit from increased comfort, efficiency and still be impressed by something spectacular that will be in a position to accommodate future demand? Preserving history doesn't mean subjecting people to diminished expectations and having them bend over backwards for inefficiency.

Besides, I hate to inform everyone, but we have always been living in a city where history is preserved in a skewed manner - otherwise, we'd all be using outhouses in logshacks at Front Street, which will be right at the edge of the lake. We're preserving what really matters - the head of house; who cares about a shack that was built with utility in mind. It was meant to be functional - and when it isn't, it is time for it to go instead of being placed on the altar of heritage and worshipped as the last extant example of ye olde time. We stopped running steam engines for awhile now.

As to the question of using beauty and aesthetics as a form of judgement - why not? Why not build something that is actually beautiful, worth preserving, make history instead of satisfy ourselves with something that isn't, slap a heritage label on it and call it a day? Is it any wonder the city is rather ugly?

AoD
 
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crs1026 said:
My suggestion would be - nix the green roof - or at least reduce its area - change the roofing material, but keep the trainshed structure.

- Paul
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I've often thought that - the heritage roof supports are really quite attractive, but the rest of the roof should go in favour of more light.

But wouldn't it be very hot under such a low roof if solar energy were allowed to pass through? Those great glass train sheds in Europe tend to be much higher, I think.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Not just that - and it is kind of late to do otherwise - but the fundamental problem goes far beyond just the shed - but how by keeping the underlying structure you are basically limited to having an awful track arrangement, awful in/egress from the platforms, etc. Keeping the shed since it is "heritage" is just the icing on the cake. Like seriously, did they even try and use this thing? It's embarrassing. Like one person wide staircases? It doesn't matter whether you clad it nicely in glass with little LED mood lighting - ultimately it is inadequate.
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This is what I dislike more about the shed. Not so much the aesthetics—the ironwork is kind of cool. My ideal would be preserving/restoring the shed over tracks 1 and 2 like they've done and completely rebuilding the rest of it.
 
I noticed that the food marked has returned as I was walking by today.

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salsa said:
Let's see how's the moat coming along.
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I think the answer is 'rather slowly" but I suppose there is no point finishing off the level connection between TTC doors a nd Union Station doors until the area inside Union is finished. Does anyone know when they hope to re-open this connection (on the level) and (I assume) move to doing the same excavations and wall-cutting to the section to the east.
 
Rasho said:
I pass through Union in the mornings (like many of us) and have been keeping track of the moat on both the Bay and York sides as it has progressed this year. Pictures from July thus far.

http://imgur.com/a/JbHhy
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This begs the question. How complete is the interior of the Bay Concourse? I too am curious how soon it will be before they at least open a bypass route there to enable further closures of the former bay concourse.

On a side note, I saw the work done so far on the former ticket booths on the north side of the great hall and I must say I never saw them look so good. They look so much better (even at this stage of construction) without all the 1980s dressing on it. I never knew they had windows in the ceiling.
 
interchange42 said:
Not at all. Not slightly. Nothing yet.
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Concur. Bay Concourse is still an open pit of dirt with a grid of unfinished pillars.

I peeked through open gates while walking past, as they were moving mounds of materials.

A bigger and more well-progressed pit of dirt, but still a pit with no foundation floor yet.
 
TOareaFan said:
https://twitter.com/femwriter/status/758666937211752448
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I've heard it's very mediocre.

Great, though, that we've added yet another establishment to an active passenger concourse at a major transit hub so that lineups can block commuters from actually getting where they're going in the station easily, quickly, and safely. Shame they're not building a floor under the transit concourse specifically for retail so that the transit concourses can be kept for transit, as opposed to lining up for food...
 
Megaton327 said:
I've heard it's very mediocre.

Great, though, that we've added yet another establishment to an active passenger concourse at a major transit hub so that lineups can block commuters from actually getting where they're going in the station easily, quickly, and safely. Shame they're not building a floor under the transit concourse specifically for retail so that the transit concourses can be kept for transit, as opposed to lining up for food...
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Agreed, on both fronts.

I don't understand why that cheesecake is considered to be so good. I go to a Portuguese bakery and get a slice that's cheaper and 10 times better.

Also, how the heck haven't they relegated food to the lower concourse? Did we learn anything from the old Bay concourse? McDonald's line-ups drove me crazy.
 
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