Haydain Neale, 1970–2009
Transit City and Transit Cities
Peeve Patrol
Newsstand: November 23, 2009
The Making of a Medley
With Rogers' plan to move Citytv, OMNI Television, and the Fan 590 to the southeast corner of Dundas Square, those familiar with the current streetfront studios on Queen Street have wondered if the former Olympic Spirit building will be opened up in a similar way.
Though merely an preliminary concept rendering, Rogers and Quadrangle Architects seem to have grand designs for the space, currently dubbed Rogers Television City, as evident in this image supplementing a February City Council report [PDF]. Multiple studios would be visible on the ground level and on the roof, with a ticker-style pixelboard banding the exterior. It seems that the rarely-used short-turn streetcar tracks running through the building must remain intact, though we wonder how the TTC will handle the inevitable crowds at such close proximity to the Dundas streetcar line. The tower mockup is also wrapped with a benign, multicultural "welcome" theme, but this is Dundas Square, so let's not kid ourselves: it'll likely be choked with ads.
When the doomed Olympic Spirit museum was built on the site, the "torch" tower was meant to generate revenue from third-party signage rights, some of which the City would share in (this net revenue never materialized). Built for $42 million, the building closed after only two years despite its select location.
Quadrangle is no stranger to television studio construction—they were responsible for the famed CHUM City building renovation, as well as facilities operated by TVO, CBC, and Corus. The Dundas Square renovation is slated to begin construction this spring, with a first-quarter 2009 completion date.
Thanks to Rami Tabello for the tip, via Jonathan Goldsbie.
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That tower makes my stomach absolutely churn.
We get it. You're "multicultural".
Yay Rogers! Let's see if they can destroy what was Citytv the way they wrecked Maclean's when they hired Ken Whyte, and fired 90 per cent of their editorial staff.
It looks like a dead penguin.
2, I'm pretty sure Maclean's circulation numbers don't support your point.
This building looks like a piece of bird turd and will make a great addition to Yonge&Dundas Square which with the horrific TO life square macabre already looks like a nightmare.
The tower especially looks like crap - it reminds me of some government brochure about multiculturalism.
The entire thing lacks immagination.
I would encourage everyone who thinks that this building sucks and the designers should actually use some immagination when developing this to let them now. Here's their email: contactqal@quadrangle.ca
X the X:
What the hell do you know about circulation numbers? Do you even know about CARD, Canadian Advertising Rates & Data?
There are PAID subscribers, and newsstand sales, which vary from issue to issue, and are only available six months after a particular issue date. When Whyte became editor of Maclean's in 2005, individual newsstand sales increased (the girls gone wild cover, for example), while paid subscriptions plummeted. Annual subs are the backbone of any magazine, and Maclean's have declined. Do you post uninformed comments just for the sake of posting?
I liked Maclean's previous to 2005 and it's quite different these days, but I like it just as much now too. [shrug]
I'm hardly a Rogers fan, despite having cable, mobile, and internet with them, but one thing I will say is that their online subscription ordering system works like a charm with minimal effort. I'm a magazine junkie and I often give subscriptions as gifts, and online account maintenance is generally an ordeal, but Rogers' system has been great, in my experience.
FORTY TWO MILLION????? Blood...boiling...
This new design is garbage.
If I was getting sanctimonious, I probably wouldn't be relying on circulation numbers published in the Toronto Star in 2005.
Circulation 2005 to 2007 has roughly doubled (from publically available sources). I don't read the trade paper you mention, but then I'm not in the trade. Why the outrage?
Dear God.
The building looks like ass, so it'll be a perfect fit for Rogers and the Yonge/Dundas Advertising Venue. There is no way the tower wouldn't end up covered in ads, so they might as well have just put them on the concept art.
(The Korean on the tower, 환영, also means 'illusion'.)
Doggiez
I didn't cancel because of the covers. I cancelled because I didn't get my magazine every week and when I did it was often days late, they don't give a discount for their no-paper edition and now they send me "FINAL NOTICE!" renewal letters pushing junky plastic Sudoku toys as "gifts".
Maclean's used to have decent promos, like clock radios, clocks, and good-quality gym bags.
By the way, Maclean's has a one-year contract position open for an aspiring journalist. The pay isn't great at $22,500 a year, but it's a good way for someone to break into the business. The deadline is March 15. More info is at www.macleans.ca or contact Chris Johnston, manager of editorial services, Maclean's, One Mount Pleasant Rd., 11th Floor, Toronto, Ontario
M4Y 2Y5, Fax: (416) 764-1332.
Rather bland - where is the greenery, the light towers, the use of more than one cladding material?
About the only good-looking thing on the buiding is the Google Desktop logo over the entry - oh, wait, that's just Omni...
It's only a minor reskinning of the existing building, with some bits knocked out. Keep in mind that it's only a simple preliminary rendering—not necessarily what it will actually look like. There isn't much they can do with the site, since the building is flush with the property line and nobody's tearing it down. I'm cautiously optimistic since Quadrangle has a good record.
$22,500 a year? My sister makes more than that working at Zara...
I hate media for this very reason: It's an industry that loves to exploit the talents of newcomers like no other... because "it's a job a million people would kill for!"
No other professional sector thrives off year-long free internships or attracting talent through salaries below the poverty line. Sad sad sad.
I agree $22,500 isn't much, but many places still have unpaid apprecenticeships, NOW Magazine for one. I'd much sooner work at Maclone's than that leftist rag.
I don't want to look up that woman's nose.
Is that Zanta getting really excited at the window?
The overweening, jacked-up tedium of the structure depicted in this rendering could give Quadrangle's reputation a permanent black eye. What a frustratingly vapid clunker.
Is looks to be rising out of a lake of fire and brimstone.
I just threw up in my mouth a tiny little bit... and I'm pretty sure even that looked better than this. SNAP!
But, look at how Rogers cares about the commmunity. Look at how "multi-cultural" they are. Look at all of the quality programming they bring, which you pay ofr, of course. Who wouldn't want this monstrosity in their neigborhood, it'progress, it's the future...
We welcome all people, all cultures.
Now...please leave or we will have to call security.
The best thing to come of Rogers is Structures, period. I love that show!!!
that's right Toronto, shit all over your own as usual. Can't ANYONE in this city see beyond the end of their own freakin' noses?
An increase in subscriptions CAN coincede with degradation in product. Maclean's looks more like People magazine now and reads more like the National Post. What does doesn't do anymore however, is hold substantive influence in the Canadian landscape.
If subscription numbers did correlate with a quality product, then US Weekly would be an excellent magazine.
Oh, and multiculturalism, like that building, is a sham.
Can't ANYONE in this city see beyond the end of their own freakin' noses?
- No. No profit in THAT.
"What does doesn't do anymore however, is hold substantive influence in the Canadian landscape."
Thanks, but I'll take qualitative measurement (circulation) over your personal opinion.
More to the point, more people are reading it. Surely that correlates with influence (though, from your comment, it appears you believe those readers are the wrong type of people, i.e., People people, i.e., not people like yourself).
I won't comment on the design (mostly because I don't care), but the content has improved immeasurably - some of our country's best writers are with Macleans, and many left steady newspaper gigs to get there.
Comparisons to gossip mags, while cute, are misplaced - Macleans is still a politics and news magazine and deals with the same serious material as any newspaper. Its against those that its content should be judged.
On topic: the building in hideous. What is with the sail? Take that away and I think it would work, especially with the multiple see-in floors, I like the voyeristic aspect of that in a public square.
I won't comment on the design (mostly because I don't care), but the content has improved immeasurably - some of our country's best writers are with Macleans, and many left steady newspaper gigs to get there.
Comparisons to gossip mags, while cute, are misplaced - Macleans is still a politics and news magazine and deals with the same serious material as any newspaper. Its against those that its content should be judged.
Ooh you MUST be talking about Rebecca Eckler and her riveting articles about serious, not at all self-serving issues.
^^ second para should also be in italics, sorry. only the third is mine...
Re: “some of our country's best writers are with Macleans, [watch the apostrophe, please] and many left steady newspaper gigs to get there.”
Many of these journalists – Jonathon Gatehouse, Charlie Gillis, and Steve Maich – are among the nicest people you’ll ever meet. But x the x failed to mention an important point: almost all of the Maclean’s hires after The Great Layoff of 2005 left their “steady newspaper” jobs at the National Post. There was much fear when it was rumoured that Rebecca Eckler would be joining the good ship Maclean’s; thankfully, she didn’t, perhaps due to past indiscretions with editor Ken Whyte.
Yes, many left the NP. Good point. I happen to think that the beneficial aspects of the NP launch was the introduction of some excellent new voices.
Re: apostrophe, mea culpa, but one can be forgiven given the inconsistent by the magazine itself (maple leaf for apostrophe) and the website - "Maclean's 50", for example.
I don't get it - does Eckler write for Maclean's or not? Comments 29 and 31 are hard to reconcile.
Circulation would be a quantitative measurement, and and any relationship found would be spurious at best.
With respect to actual readership and paid circulation figures, I'll defer to Doggiez who (refreshingly) can speak to the topic with some intelligence.
At the risk of further representing my personal opinions (which, admittedly, this is the wrong medium for), I've read Maclean's pre and post-op, and the serious material content you speak of, has been in serious decline both in quantity and quality. But, you know, I'm not "people people."
Last I saw, Yecch-ler doesn't write for Maclean's, but for the North Toronto Post, where she features her weighty tomes on important issues such as, er... shoes.
Dipp, good point re: qualitative and quantitative. I obviously meant the latter.
You are welcome to your opinions, but "what does doesn't do anymore however, is hold substantive influence in the Canadian landscape" is an opinion disguised as an empirical claim, speaking for many ("Canadian landscape") instead of yourself.
Re: People people, the capital was intentional, referring to the magazine you unfavourable compared Maclean's to.
Eckler debuted her silly little "Judd Apatow stole from me" lawsuit in the pages of Macleans, as well as a recent ramble about the NineGramBrain parody blog in which she compared herself to teenage victims of bullying (among other lies and elaborations).
She might not be a regular contributor but Ken Whyte gives her space when she wants it...
Ken gives her space, or she gives him HER "space." Ah, I'm feeling childish today, meow, Kiddies!
Obviously. Given the tense nature of this thread, I'd have been remiss, to not comment though. Haha.
Ah, right, People people. Well, that's just clever. I thought you were insinuating I was bourgeoisie - thus the passive aggressive retort.
Ooooh, and we're on the topic of scandalous and Maclean's... may I add... Barbara Amiel....
This reminds me of the old "busload of lawyers going over a cliff" joke. If a busload of so-called journos went over the cliff, my vote for top seat-fillers are:
1. Rebecca Eckler
2. "Eaging sperm bandit" [spit or swallow?] Leah McLaren
3. Rosie DiManno
4. "Babs" Amiel
5. ...and with great reluctance, Antonia Zerbicias. Sorry, AZ, your celluline-inspired column sucks, and unless you go back to dishing the media gossip, you're on the bus :(
All women, hey? where is this bus going?
My apologies, x the x. I forgot Michael Coren, for one, and I'm sure there are many others. No misogyny intended :)
is this thread about the building or MacLeans? I can't tell anymore.
It's about pancakes.
Mmm, pancakes, hwwaaaa...! Most Eckler-related blogs have been shut down (RIP, nine gram grain!) but there is still "Rebecca Eckler's Writing is a Boil on the Butt of Humanity" on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2385921811
I really don't get the tower, the rest of it looks about how I would expect.
If we couldn't read Rebecca Eckler, how would we know that it's an abomination not to push our cuter-than-yours spawn around in a fugly $3,000 Silver Cross Balmoral pram?
Where would we expose ourselves to self-congratulatory flattery and fashion-crisis management?
How would we encounter devastating upper-middle-class envy without Eckler's anecdotal and authoritative lessons on parenting and relationships?
How would we know to bestow cutesy fucking Carrie Bradshaw-style nicknames on our baby and/or boyfriends ("The Dictator," and "CSM" [Cute Single Man], respectively)?
Where would we expose ourselves to self-congratulatory flattery
Well, Torontoist.com for one.
I kid.