May 23, 2007
"Why Did You Tear Down My Collapsing Building?", The Bronze Thieves, Hybrid Cabs, Truck Bans
"The recent buyers of Walnut Hall want to know why the city demolished their 1850s heritage building over the weekend, ruining their restoration plans in the process." Dear developers: because the building was falling down. A lot. Like, half the building collapsed. Maybe the former developer should have started fixing the place up a decade ago. But you're probably out of luck.
Remember last year when that statue of Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko was stolen and sold for scrap? Now stealthy scrap metal thieves are stealing bronze urns from cemeteries—Glendale Memorial Cemetary reports 800 urns stolen! Who steals an urn?
While all cabs in New York will go hybrid by 2012, Toronto's will not.
Councillor Michael Walker (Ward 22, St. Paul's) wants to ban delivery vehicles in the downtown core during morning and afternoon rush hours, suggesting that trucks make deliveries overnight. Here is a person who has obviously never worked in a small business or the service industry.
Photo courtesy of Marc Lostracco.
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If the current owners of Walnut Hall (well, the rubble and site) are serious about restoration and not merely massaging public opinion after taking it out themselves, is there any hope that the City could step in and provide some kind of grant or other financial encouragement to rebuild at least the facade and maybe some of the more interesting first floor interiors?
It certainly wouldn't be the same as not having let the building collapse in the first place, but brick-by-brick reconstructions of heritage sites aren't that rare. And any construction project on the site was going to require fairly massive changes anyway.
Plans to restore? Dastardly. When will developers learn?
I found it humorous that The Star identified the buyer as "Domenic Santaguida of Trisan Reality Corp."
You'd think a person whose business is "reality" wouldn't be so shocked about the condition of the buildings!
I might have a bit more sympathy for delivery companies if they played nice in traffic, but they don't, so why should we be nice to them?
Certainly the businesses receiving the deliveries need to be considered, but why isn't anyone discussing the fact that delivery companies pretty much don't care about the impact they have on traffic when doing their rounds?
I can't count the number of times I've had to swerve into traffic on my bike to get around a delivery truck parked right in the bike lane on College during rush hour (or at any other time for that matter).
The best idea of the week (banning delivery vehicles) gets such a small mention. Let's worry about a 150 year old dump instead.
Why does it have to be overnight instead of rush hour? Why not between 10 and 4?