Seventy years ago, a provincial reform school for boys on the outskirts of Bowmanville was transformed into a POW camp for captured German officers during World War II. Today, the surviving structures of Camp 30 are fighting another war, against vandals and time. Victory appears to be a possibility. Recently, Torontoist joined a tour of [...]

The challenge: assemble a dozen speakers engaged in a wide range of cultural and heritage activities, give each of them five minutes to discuss their interests or the projects they’re passionate about, and add PowerPoint presentations consisting of 20 slides that change every 15 seconds—regardless of whether the speaker or the audience is ready to [...]

Preserving Toronto’s past is complicated business. Current example: the planned conversion of a historic church into a condominium, which raises issues about heritage preservation, adaptive reuse, and community intervention. Preserve the full building? Adapt it, with pieces missing? And how much say should neighbours get? Such questions surround the development proposed for 129 St. Clair [...]

WHERE: Queen Street West and Bathurst Street WHEN: Thursday, 5 p.m. WHAT: For two years, the building that once housed the Big Bop has been shuttered: first a forlorn, fading purple reminder of the shows we’d inevitably been to, then a tarp-covered mystery renovation. Those renovations were in anticipation of the new tenant, mass furniture [...]

Shortly after 5 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre–Rosedale) reached an agreement over the phone with a demolition company, to halt work that had begun that morning at the back of 81 Wellesley Street East. An hour later, as the equipment was moved to the front of the property, a [...]

It’s probably not the first time people have done this. Surely others have camped on the sidewalk outside the Carlton Cash Box, hoping to be first let in the next day. Maybe they were there to see the Beatles, or watch a Stanley Cup game, or marvel at the skating carnival. But today the more [...]

“Our heritage is not for sale. Our heritage is not for closure. Our heritage is not for contracting out and it is not for dismantling piece by piece.” With these words Councillor Joe Mihevc (Ward 21, St. Paul’s) greeted a crowd of around 200 concerned citizens outside Montgomery’s Inn in Etobicoke yesterday afternoon. The historic [...]

One of the great misconceptions about Toronto is that its past is boring. The city has seen its fair share of rebellions, grand celebrations, tragedies, ambitious plans, and unrealized dreams that in various ways intersect with our present. Teaching Toronto’s citizens about how the past and present connect is one of the goals of The [...]

One of Toronto’s landmark buildings is up for sale: the Gooderham Building, a.k.a. the Flatiron, in St. Lawrence Market. Opened in 1892, the building was designed for the Gooderham family to house the offices of the Gooderham and Worts distillery; the family sold the building in the 1950s. It is currently owned by Woodcliffe, which [...]

The Royal Conservatory of Music is really the perfect place for the Heritage Toronto awards ceremony. It’s an old building with a new addition, restored and integrated into the street and with modern educational needs, proof of the concept that reviving can be better than replacing. Last night heritage architects, designers, writers, activists, researchers, and [...]

In the ongoing battle over Toronto’s future, today is a critical day for reminders of its past. City council will vote on a proposal to close city-operated museums with low attendance and little financial reward, one that the City’s Executive Committee approved last week. Hanging in the balance are heritage sites with roots that go [...]

If KPMG's Core Service Review accomplishes nothing else, it has at least prompted Torontonians to defend and promote those elements of city life they value most highly. So far we’ve seen an all-night session of deputations at City Hall and efforts to combat any cuts to the Toronto Public Library.