High Park. Photo by chhoy from the Torontoist Flickr pool.

City council’s latest meeting hasn’t exactly been a showcase of thoughtful and productive governance, but amidst the bickering, exasperation, and saying “no” to things, politicians did agree on something: a new parks plan [PDF].

The new plan attempts to chart out a five-year course of action for the City’s Parks, Forestry, and Recreation division. It’s like a wish list for improving the City’s parks system. Even though council adopted the plan, the millions of dollars in capital and operating expenses that the plan proposes will have to be approved over time through the budget process.

“There’s lots there in the plan, and we’ve seen strategic plans in the past. But now let’s get some action,” says Dave Harvey, director of Toronto Park People, an advocacy group. He’s optimistic this plan will fare better than others, like 2004′s Common Grounds, because of the dedication of City parks staff, political help from pro-park city councillors, and pressure from organizations like his.

So, what sorts of changes are we looking at? Here are some highlights, with commentary from Richard Ubbens, director of Parks, Forestry, and Recreation for the City:

Urban Park Rangers

Though Ubbens stresses the rangers program is a small part of a large plan, the concept is attention-grabbing. In keeping with the model used by similar programs in New York City and Edmonton, the rangers would be a point of human contact. They’d help park users get information about parks, whether that be about the plants in a particular flower bed, or how to get a permit for a large barbecue. There would be two rangers per district, totalling 12 by the time the program is fully phased in. Rangers could also attend community and volunteer meetings, to maintain human contact between the City and park users.

Improved Online Services

From trail guides to permit services, more parks information will be put online and made accessible. Ubbens hopes to see more guides and information for tourists, or city-dwellers visiting new parts of town. The City also plans to put the parks permitting system online, to cut down on confusion.

More Cooperation With Volunteers

When park users are engaged with the planning and maintenance of horticulture, they’re more likely to talk to fellow park users about it and to keep an eye on its condition, says Ubbens. That’s something the Parks department has already seen during the redevelopment of some trails, especially in environmentally sensitive areas.

“We’re not trying to replace staff, we’re just trying to do this work in cooperation with those who are really interested, really love their community, and really want to participate with making the parks beautiful,” says Ubbens.

And with the growing popularity of park-focused advocacy and community groups, like the many “Friends of…” groups or the Toronto Trees and Parks Foundation, the City wants to harness that effort. There are also plans to make donating cash and in-kind contributions simpler.

Better Amenities

As the city has grown, the parks system hasn’t always been able to keep up, says Ubbens. From the over 14,000 responses the department received during the consultation process leading up to the release of the new parks plan, he says most people were happy with Toronto’s parks overall, but they noticed the little things. Some little things the plan calls for include adding more water fountains, improving washrooms, adding shade structures and seating, and making parks infrastructure more accessible.

igalsc from the Torontoist Flickr Pool

The Regent Park Daniels Spectrum was packed on Saturday afternoon for the third annual Toronto Parks Summit. The four-hour-long event provided an update on Toronto Park People’s progress improving the city’s parks, and a heads up on what the group is planning to do next.

Toronto Park People is a non-profit, grassroots organization formed in early 2011. It has grown from an outfit with few staff and little money into a conglomerate of 80 parks groups. Its mandate is to inspire new innovations in the use of public space, and to make great parks accessible to all Torontonians.

“It’s really an expanding movement. As people see good things happening in other people’s parks, they want to make that happen in their own parks,” said Dave Harvey, the organization’s director.

This year, the W. Garfield Weston Foundation pledged $5 million over three years to Toronto Parks People to fund new parks initiatives in Toronto. And that’s not the only new development. “We’re expanding our resources,” said Harvey. “We’re bringing in some new staff to help us on the policy front. We’re expanding our outreach resources to help build those new parks groups, in particular with this goal of having a parks group in every ward of the city in two years.”

Keynote speaker Mickey Fearn, the US National Park Service’s deputy director for communications and community assistance, gave an entertaining speech about the virtues and challenges of running a successful parks and rec department. According to Fearn, parks and recreation is the most invisible of government services because its results are hard to quantify. Cities need thriving parks departments, he said, because good parks inspire civic engagement and environmental stewardship.

Collaboration and partnership can be tricky things to maintain. In explaining this, Fearn used a vinaigrette metaphor. Oil and vinegar mix together, he said, but they inevitably separate. In the same way, people get together on initiatives like building better parks, but eventually lose interest and go their separate ways. There must be a unifying vision to keep everyone together. Organizations like Toronto Parks People, Fearn said, act as an emulsifying agent, keeping the oil and vinegar (that is, different organizations and community members) together as a whole.

“The interesting thing is, people are getting together on things to which they feel commitment and power. So they’re willing to work on them because it causes them to feel powerful,” Kearns explained, after his speech.

“There’s these three things: critical mass, force field, and tipping point. You get a critical mass of the people working on things, then this force field emerges, and there’s this tipping point. You see Parks People getting close to that tipping point,” Kearns added.

Capping off the presentation was a series of success stories about four people and organizations that did things to promote public spaces in their communities. CBC Radio One host Jane Farrow interviewed each honoree. Of the four, the crowd favourite seemed to be Fairmount Icemasters, which sets up a skating rink at Fairmount Park every year. After a recent round of funding cuts, a crew of volunteers stepped in to make up the difference, working long hours. They even trucked in snow from hockey arenas to make tobogganing slopes. The whole episode showed that when the City trims the parks budget, local communities are the ones that suffer—and that even in the cold of a Canadian winter, parks can still bring people together.

The summit ended with a tour of the Regent Park redevelopment, including the new aquatic centre that opened up last year. Right now, a planned park area is just an open field of dirt and snow cordoned off by a chain-link fence, but soon it will be a verdant public space. The revitalized Regent Park will, it is hoped, exemplify the type of progress that Toronto Parks People strives toward.

A utility tower looms over a downtown hydro corridor that some would like to see converted into parkland.

In New York City, an elevated freight rail lane in west Manhattan became the High Line, a celebrated linear park running through a busy part of the borough. Design firm Workshop Architecture hopes that one of Toronto’s hydro corridors can be similarly transformed into a continuous recreation area for Toronto’s pedestrians and cyclists, and that an international contest soliciting ideas for the space will help hasten the process.

The corridor in question is a strip of grass, more than five kilometres long and filled with massive hydro towers (like the one in the picture at the top of this post). It connects several neighbourhoods in the city, from the Annex to Davenport. These, according to Helena Grdadolnik, Workshop Architecture’s associate director, are areas that lack the park space that other parts of Toronto enjoy.

Right now, the City licenses space from Hydro One for eight separate small, unconnected parks along the corridor. Last year, Toronto’s parks department invited area residents to give input on an upgrade for one of those parks. This led Grdadolnik to think that it may be time for a larger vision for the entire corridor.

An electricity corridor may not seem like the ideal spot for a park, but Grdadolnik thinks that with the right plan, it could happen. “I thought it would be great for the communities along this route to be galvanized to input into a full vision for this area, as one linear park,” she said. “I also thought it was important to extend beyond the green strip of the electricity infrastructure and include the sidewalks and streets adjacent to this corridor in any future planning. My office and home are nearby, and I see many people using this corridor as a shortcut to the grocery store, but it is broken up by streets that are hard to cross, and by fences and steep grade changes.”

That, Grdadolnik said, is why Workshop started the Green Line competition, which challenges designers around the world to come up with ideas for revamping the corridor. The land is geographically different from the railway that gave rise to New York’s High Line, but the ethos is similar: citizens working to reinvent industrial infrastructure into a beloved public space. (The High Line’s development also began with an international competition.) “We have had lots of people interested and asking questions from as far away as Peru and Turkey, as well as many locals,” Grdadolnik said. The deadline for the competition has been extended to February 11.

And, as with the High Line, Workshop Architecture commissioned a photographer—in this case, Mark Kasumovic—to shoot the corridor. Those photos, along with the winning contest entries, will be shown in an outdoor exhibition in May, which will kick off with a community event. Judges for the competition include Spacing senior editor Shawn Micallef and gh3 partner Diana Gerrard, and the results will be published in Spacing. (Micallef has already written a series of articles about walking the Green Line.)

Right now, the public entities responsible for the hydro corridor—the City, Hydro One, and Infrastructure Ontario—aren’t involved in the competition, and there are no plans to build the winning design. But Grdadolnik hopes that the exercise will provide an opportunity for public input before anything official happens.

“As designers, we have our own ideas of what we’d like to see happen, but instead of drafting something up and imposing it on the neighbourhood, we have decided to hold an open competition to get dozens of ideas from around the world,” Grdadolnik said. “Some will be reasonable and others will be pie-in-the-sky, but they are meant to start a real dialogue about the Green Line.”

All photos by Mark Kasumovic.

A cycling riding in front of St. Patrick's Market on Queen Street, 1970s. Photo by Ellis Wiley. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 124, File 2, Item 125.

In the introduction to their booklet Bicycling in Toronto, Estherelke and Bob Kaplan imagined two ways the state of getting around the city on two wheels during the early 1970s might be viewed at the dawn of the 21st century:

Maybe in 30 years or so our children’s children will run up from the basement to announce the discovery of a rusting bicycle. Did we really ride bicycles back then, all that long ago? And maybe we’ll tell them about the great fad of the early Seventies, when businessmen and aldermen and all sorts of other Torontonians actually rode bicycles to work, doing their bit for ecology and physical fitness…On the other hand, we may be in the throes of something other than another fad. Let’s hope so. Let’s hope that the non-polluting, compact, maneuverable, healthful bicycle will continue to grow in popularity.

While cycling has proven stronger than a passing fad, there have been moments where it feels like members of the current City Hall administration wish it was. Yet when the Kaplans published their guide for city cyclists in 1972, there were many signs that officials, even suburban ones, were alerted to the future needs of two-wheeled riders.

In a 1971 interview with Star columnist Alexander Ross, Metro Parks Commissioner Tommy Thompson observed that local geography made cycling downtown impossible. “If I asked somebody to ride from Front Street to Queen’s Park,” Thompson noted, “do you know what would happen? The average person would be dead—and not from the traffic. The average person would be so tired from the upgrade that he’d end up walking.” Ross disagreed with Thompson`s contention, noting that he rode daily from Bloor to King and “was not even puffing.” We also suspect aldermen like William Kilbourn and John Sewell, who cycled to work at City Hall, might have taken issue.

Thompson’s department was probably happier if people walked anyway—apart from a couple of short trails such as one along Mimico Creek opened in 1965, cyclists were prohibited from riding off-road in all parks across Metro.

A bicycle tour along the Belt Line as proposed in Bicycling in Toronto (1972 edition). Note suggestion to ride through Oriole Park, which was illegal.

One of the first battlegrounds for Toronto’s cycling future was the Belt Line in North Toronto. When Canadian National Railways (CN) put the old railway line on the market in 1970, two opposing visions of its future emerged. Metro parks officials and York Mayor Phil White saw a great opportunity to develop the land into recreational land that could include a bike path. Toronto Mayor William Dennison and his executive committee favoured buying portions of the Belt Line to expand roads and existing parks. Dennison told the Star that he opposed a continuous path along the Belt Line because “people have demonstrated they just won’t use it.”

Dennison also echoed the fears of homeowners along the Belt Line in Forest Hill, who worried about safety issues and vandals salivating over easier access to wreck their homes. Resident William McKay, who belonged to a ratepayers association opposed to any public use of the right-of-way, feared a Belt Line park would attract lusty young lovers. “How can I teach my children morals,” he told the Star, “when there are couples seducing each other a few feet from my house?” Also underlining anti-park sentiment was the possibility, endorsed by Dennison, of selling portions of the Belt Line Toronto didn’t need to residents to expand their backyards. As a Star editorial declared, “there are always people who cannot see past the ends of their noses.”

After two years of talks, Toronto City Council approved a land swap with CN in October 1972. In exchange for the title to Union Station (which CN and Canadian Pacific intended to demolish as part of the never fully realized Metro Centre project) and a parking lot at Lake Shore Boulevard and Yonge Street, the City received the Belt Line and the future site of Roy Thomson Hall. Among the boosters of turning the rail bed into a bike path was alderman David Crombie, whose election as mayor soon after may have raised the hopes of North Toronto cyclists. Though it took a few years, both green space and a path were built and eventually named after park proponent Kay Gardiner.

Bikeway signs proposed in Bikeway System Within Metropolitan Toronto, 1974.

The possibilities surrounding the Belt Line weren’t the only promising signs for cycling infrastructure in 1972. That May, Metro Council’s transportation committee approved a bike path running along Eglinton Avenue between Martin Grove Road and Islington Avenue. Metro Roads and Traffic Commissioner Sam Cass indicated the Eglinton pilot would determine any traffic regulations introduced to future trails. By October the committee, under strong urging from East York Mayor True Davidson, instructed Cass to initiate a study to plan a Metro-wide “bikeway” network.

In eastern Scarborough, the Metro Parks Committee approved construction in June 1972 of a bike path along Highland Creek. This route was intended to connect with a path previously approved by Scarborough council which would stretch from Ellesmere Road to Markham Road. The new path was built by the Scarborough branch of Pollution Probe and funded by a mixture of federal and provincial grants, donations of materials from the road construction industry, and fundraising events like a bike-a-thon to Ontario Place in September, which drew 1,000 participants.

Cover of the 1972 edition of Bicycling in Toronto.

It’s possible some of those participants might have flipped through Bicycling in Toronto before their ride. Published by Toronto Life, the guide offered cyclists tips on rules of the road, rental locations, maintenance tips, and many tours around the region. It noted the dearth of bike racks, a problem authors Estherelke and Bob Kaplan tried to tackle by urging the post office to install them as a public convenience at their Metro locations. Private parking lot chains they talked to weren’t interested in providing space for bicycles—“For one thing, they feel guilty about charging for such amounts of space, and for another they don’t want the responsibility of protecting bikes from theft and damage.” They also discovered many managers of high-rises wouldn’t install racks unless there was sufficient demand from tenants via petition. One private company was praised for its extensive use of racks: McDonald’s.

The guide received a critical drubbing in the Star, where reviewer Roger Whittaker (not the mellow singer) tore it to shreds. He was outraged that Bob Kaplan, a Liberal MP who, as Solicitor General in the early 1980s, oversaw the formation of CSIS and passage of the Young Offenders Act, openly advised riders to break the law in the suggested tours section by riding through several parks—“When a man who helps make laws advises people to break them—that’s remarkable.” Whittaker felt the routes the Kaplans devised were “ill-advised” as they placed riders on busy arteries like the Bayview Extension or, where no roads or proper paths had been built, led people into “a mudpie.”

Map of routes proposed in Bikeway System Within Metropolitan Toronto. The Globe and Mail, June 11, 1974.

Paving over muddy spots was among the items Wojciech Strok reviewed when he was handed the task of devising a “bikeway” system for Metro Council. Based on research, European examples, and a telephone survey, Strok devised a cycling infrastructure designed more for recreational use, and less as an alternative commuting network. “By designing a system,” he told the Globe and Mail, “we hope to draw a large majority of cyclists off unsafe streets.”

Released in spring 1974, Strok’s report, Bikeway System Within Metropolitan Toronto, recommended the construction of a 246 mile system across Metro Toronto in stages. The first stage consisted of six routes, the longest of which stretched from Eglinton Avenue and Highway 427 to the Metro Toronto Zoo via a diversion through Queen’s Park. Over the long term, routes needed to provide easy access to recreational areas, schools, downtown, and shopping areas like the Golden Mile and Six Points. The network should also tie into larger provincial bicycle routes, such as a “Lakeshore Route” he envisioned running from Niagara Region to Kingston. Strok advocated routes that offered as few intersections as possible to create safer riding conditions by using parklands, parallel routes along major roads, and hydro corridors for the bikeway. He suggested that riders could utilize sidewalks in low-traffic areas, as he felt riders could co-exist easier with walkers than other vehicles.

Portion of a cross-section of a bikeway from Bikeway System Within Metropolitan Toronto, including a couple who might have disturbed opponents of a Belt Line path.

The report recommended licensing as both a method of raising revenue to build the network and to make cyclists fully aware of the rules of the road. Children would undergo three levels of graduated licensing, while those with motor vehicle licenses automatically qualified to ride bicycles anywhere, though driver training would now include a section on cycling. Beyond licensing, other suggested funding methods included general revenues and property taxes, and subsidies from higher levels of government.

To provide relief for users, Strok proposed building convenience facilities like bathrooms, newsstands, refreshment stands, and water fountains along the routes. Since winter was deemed too harsh for normal cycling, it was suggested Metro could avoid clearing paths and use them for cross-country skiing.

Advertisement, the Globe and Mail, February 20, 1975.

Due to demand from governments and citizen groups around the world, the 700 copies of the report quickly disappeared, prompting reprints sold for $25 apiece. Its findings were discussed over the next year, with critics pointing out its downplaying of commuting and fears over mixing cyclists and pedestrians on sidewalks. If nothing else, the report built momentum—in June 1975, Metro Council approved a $1.8 million budget to build a 100-mile bikeway network by 1979. The first approved route ran from Eglinton Avenue and Islington Avenue through the Humber Valley to the lake, then east to Lake Shore Boulevard and Bathurst Street. That summer also saw a nine-mile test route along city streets from Lawrence Avenue to Lake Shore Boulevard, which incorporated future bike lane arteries like Russell Hill Road and St. George Street.

The popularity of cycling received a forced boost thanks to a 23-day TTC strike during the summer of 1974. Phones rang off the hook at bike shops across the city as frazzled commuters purchased new sets of wheels or pulled their old cycles out of storage. Bloor Cycle co-owner Peter Kent told the Star that “because of the repair volume, customers have to wait two or three days instead of getting same-day service.” While some chains, like Simpsons, saw their bicycle sales more than double, others like Eaton’s were ill-prepared to meet the sudden demand. It didn’t help that local manufacturer CCM’s plant in Weston was retooling for new models and couldn’t resume production.

Bob and Estherelke Kaplan enjoying a ride. Bicycling in Toronto (1975 edition).

The Kaplans reflected on the strike in a revised edition of Bicycling in Toronto issued in 1975. “As we dodged in and out among rows of waiting cars,” they noted, “we looked at the frustrated drivers, they looked at us and we both knew that bikes were winning. That experience gave drivers a bicycle-consciousness that will stick with them to our benefit.”

Additional material from Bicycling in Toronto by Estherelke and Bob Kaplan (first edition Toronto: Toronto Life, 1972; second edition Toronto: Greey dePencier Books, 1975), Bikeway System Within Metropolitan Toronto by W. Strok & Associates Limited (Toronto: Metropolitan Toronto, 1974), the May 30, 1972, August 29, 1972, September 18, 1972, October 13, 1972, and May 18, 1974 editions of the Globe and Mail, and the August 12, 1970, August 22, 1970, October 13, 1971, May 12, 1971, September 16, 1972, August 20, 1974, and July 12, 1975 editions of the Toronto Star. Thanks to Astrid Idlewild for archival photo suggestion.

Every Saturday, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today.

Detail of a photo by Larissa Haluszka-Smith.

Agnes Macphail became Canada’s first female MP in 1921, and later served as MPP for a swath of land on Toronto’s east side. “Agness McPhail,” meanwhile, is currently the namesake of a small patch of green space near the intersection of Pape and Mortimer avenues, right in the middle of the provincial electoral district Macphail represented until 1951.

The misspelling (of both first and last name!) on Agnes Macphail Square’s City-issued sign was noticed by Larissa Haluszka-Smith earlier this week. She forwarded a picture to her husband, Greg Smith, who posted it to his Twitter feed. The image is embedded above.

It’s clear that Macphail’s name hasn’t been misspelled for long. An archived City press release indicates that the square was named for her more than a decade ago, in 2001. And everything appears to have been fine for at least a decade afterward. Google Street View imagery shot in 2011 clearly shows a sign with Macphail’s name spelled the right way.

Mark Hawkins, the City’s general supervisor of parks for the Toronto and East York district, explained what happened. “We believe [the sign] came down in a heavy windstorm,” he said during a phone call. That storm happened last spring. A new sign, Hawkins believes, was installed in August. That replacement sign is the current one—the one that’s misspelled.

The City makes its park signage in-house, and so, Hawkins said, this was likely a case of a City parks worker—he’s not sure which one—typing the wrong thing into an email, or something like that. “It doesn’t happen often, but periodically it does,” he said. “There’s 1500 parks.”

As a result of Torontoist‘s phone call, the parks division has ordered a new sign for the square. “We’re hoping to have it up in the next day or two,” said Hawkins.

Photo by {a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dtstuff9/7688760316/"}dtstuff9{/a} from the {a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist"}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

They may be fairly vague, but they have been endorsed in principle: today Minister of Tourism and Culture Michael Chan backed the recommendations issued by a panel convened to look at the future of Ontario Place. Those recommendations, though they are short on specifics, lay out a general direction for the site—mixed residential, commercial, and recreational uses; a place geared to Toronto locals rather than tourists; and no casino. The panel, spearheaded by former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory, wants Ontario Place to be environmentally friendly, focus on public spaces, and become better integrated into surrounding neighbourhoods. While we don’t know exactly what that might look like—and we certainly don’t know how it might get paid for (the panel’s report was especially skimpy on the details when it came to this)—the government has accepted all 18 recommendations, which set out a direction for further discussion and planning.

See also:

WHERE: Underpass Park (Eastern Avenue and Richmond Street)

WHEN: Thursday, 9 p.m.

WHAT: Though we previewed Underpass Park during its construction a few months ago, the park officially opened yesterday and we decided to pay it a repeat visit—specifically at dusk, to see how the new lighting would change the atmosphere. We recommend it highly—it’s fairly distinctive, and really highlights the underpass’s urban nature.

Photo by {a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/news46/2676268464/"}Tom Podolec{/a} from the {a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist"}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

Six months ago, the provincial government announced that Ontario Place would be shut down, effective immediately, and that an expert panel would be convened to study options for revitalizing the aging waterfront attraction. Today, that panel delivered its report on Ontario Place to Minister of Tourism and Culture Michael Chan.

Calling it “an exciting model for a new Ontario Place,” John Tory summarized the panel’s recommendations [PDF] for reporters this morning. The panel is calling for a major “state of the art park” to be built on the site: one that is free, easily accessible, and where “people can gather at any time of day and at any point in the year.” They recommend that this park take up the majority of the site, and that development be scaled accordingly, to maintain Ontario Place as a primarily public space. This should include some residential—but “not a wall of condos”—a major institutional or corporate anchor tenant, some retail and entertainment tenants, and new transit infrastructure to support this development.

The panel was determined, said Tory, to develop plans for an Ontario Place “that better reflects Ontario’s culture and history and life…a lot of things have changes since Ontario Place was conceived and built.” Noting the rapid waterfront growth Toronto has seen in the past two decades, Tory emphasized that Ontario Place needed to serve the residents of the city and the nearby communities: “a new opportunity to work and to live and to play and to discover along the water’s edge.” Residential, institutional, and retail tenants are key, says Tory, to keeping Ontario Place vital throughout the year, and not just a seasonal summer attraction.

It’s a stark contrast to the vision for the waterfront that the mayor and his vocal brother have presented since being elected to office, a clear rejection of the Ferris wheel/casino model of development in favour of some more urbanist city-building goals. John Tory’s Ontario Place is meant for the people who live here, not trying to attract tourists for the weekend.

“We strongly recommend bold, excellent design, and insistence on using sustainable and green building principles,” Tory went on, repeating that “discipline” would be required in choosing private-sector development partners who respect these goals. “Any new projects, we believe, must respect and enhance the natural beauty of the surroundings by protecting sightlines to the water,” a point that is discouraging for condo developers who might want to build up—high up—against the water’s edge, and put those lakeside views in their promotional materials.

Tory spoke with clear affection about the old Forum concert venue; he hopes Ontario Place will create a free outdoor performance space (as opposed to the current ticketed amphitheatre). And allaying concerns many historically-minded Torontonians have expressed, the panel recommends keeping the cinesphere and pods; “it’ll never become part of our heritage if we tear it down after 40 years,” Tory remarked this morning.

It is a sweeping vision, one with something for (almost) everyone, and which will be appealing to many residents. What’s far less clear is whether the report includes funding proposals that will get us anywhere close to realizing it.

A sketch of some transit options for Ontario Place (see page 49 of the report).

“[S]uccessfully revitalizing an asset like Ontario Place requires the creation of new partnerships with the private sector,” proclaims the report, but all of the admirable goals about keeping developed, scaled-to-modest proportions may precisely undermine that goal.

The recommendations call for a maximum of 10–15 per cent of the land to go to residential development, and for that development to be on the lower end of the height spectrum. With the hotel, small-scale retail, and major commercial or institutional tenant (the MaRS Discovery District, Corus Quay, and the new George Brown waterfront campus are cited as examples) the report recommends, this amounts to some significant but not enormous opportunities for investment.

Some are already concerned that the private sector money the report envisions won’t be enough to underwrite the revitalization work, and that it would come with strings that would quickly start pulling at Tory’s carefully laid-out vision of a new public space. “It’s not really clear what their focus is and if they’ve broken down the numbers,” councillor Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina), told us by phone after Tory finished his press conference. He represents the ward in which Ontario Place is located, and while he supports many of today’s recommendations—especially making Ontario Place a year-round venue, making it a public space, and building to high environmental standards—he is sceptical that there’s been enough work done around the financing elements. “All of these great things,” he says, and somehow (the implication is magically), “they are going to be funded by private dollars, that aren’t a wall of condos… This isn’t going to fund the whole thing.”

This, of course, raises the question of what role the government might, and should, play in reshaping Ontario Place. MPP Rosario Marchese (NDP, Trinity-Spadina) echoed many of Layton’s concerns, telling CP24 that while he “agrees absolutely” with the panel that Ontario Place should be a public space, he was worried that “there was so much emphasis on the private sector… I really believe the government needs to be a strong player.” Neither he nor Layton spent much time addressing the panel’s other funding recommendation, that Ontario Place pursue philanthropic donations and sponsorships aggressively. Though there are some recent high-profile examples (Millennium Park in Chicago, which got up to 50 per cent of its funding from donations and sponsorships, comes up often in the report), it’s not a practice that has been used to raise such large amounts of money in Toronto before.

Layton is also concerned that some other details haven’t been thought through: building an outdoor concert venue is all well and good, he points out, but you can’t have it near residential developments because you’ll immediately be flooded with noise complaints. Most worrying to Layton, though, is the ability to get appropriate transit into the community. “You’re still missing the key piece, which is how transit is going to work.”

The last recommendation in the report addresses this question. According to Tory, the panel consulted with Metrolinx in looking at transit ideas for Ontario Place. That agency estimated that one of the leading options—looping the Exhibition Place streetcar through Ontario Place—might cost $100 million. “We’ve got to decide it’s time to suck it up in this region,” said Tory, “and decide how to pay for the transit we desperately need.” As the report more diplomatically puts it: “We understand that the current fiscal situation of governments across the country means there is limited funding for new or enhanced transportation projects.”

The language of the report is telling in its tentativeness: “Ontario place should explore” is perhaps the most-often used phrase in its 55 pages. Whether the Province will take up those recommendations and pursue the direction the panel suggests remains to be seen: the Liberal government has not yet issued a formal response to the report. Minister Chan was not in attendance at today’s announcement; Tory said that he spoke with Chan this morning, and that the panel will be meeting with him tomorrow to discuss their recommendations in detail.

The history, design, and evolution of Toronto’s development projects, brought to you by Urban Toronto.

Aerial photo of 11 Wellesley Street West looking south. Photo by Craig White/UrbanToronto.

Amidst the clamor of construction along Bay Street, there’s one site that has been eerily quiet for all too long: 11 Wellesley Street West, located between Bay and Yonge on the south side of the street, has been a relative eyesore for two decades. Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale) is hoping to change that, with a motion being put forward at today’s council meeting.

The land has some history, of course. Once covered with a mix of low-rise buildings, the provincial government donated the 2.1-acre site in the 1980s for the construction of a new ballet and opera house, a grand post-modern plan designed by Moshe Safdie. That project was cancelled during the recession of 1991, and a large portion of the land has remained undeveloped since, other than serving for a brief stint as a skateboard park. Most recently, the site was owned by developer Morguard, which had approvals to construct mid-rise buildings; those were never built. Subsequently, the site passed into provincial hands.

The valuable plot of land has now been listed for sale by real estate services firm CBRE on behalf of the province, and is meant to appeal to developers as a site for a commercial/residential tower complex. Sales materials speak of 319,210 buildable square feet spread among multiple potential towers.

Wong-Tam has another option in mind: her motion asks for the opportunity to negotiate the City’s acquisition of the land from the province. She has been working closely with MPP Glen Murray (Liberal, Toronto Centre); both would ideally like to see the site transformed into a park. Wong-Tam points out that Ward 27, in which the park is located, includes the tallest buildings in Canada and has seen the heaviest recent residential development within the city, while it continues to contain the lowest percentage of public space.

UPDATE, JULY 14: At the end of this week’s three day marathon council meeting, councillors agreed to enter into negotiations with the province for purchase of the plot of land at 11 Wellesley.

The War of 1812 Memorial, also known as the "Old Soldier," in Victoria Memorial Park. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1257, Series 1057, Item 188.

On the west side of Portland Street, between Wellington and Niagara, sits Victoria Memorial Park, and within this park sits Toronto’s monument to those who served in the War of 1812. Underground lie the remains of several hundred early residents of the area, including many soldiers, buried between 1794 and 1862. Once begun, the process of converting the cemetery into a public park and erecting the cenotaph took multiple decades; it has been frequently been the site of neglect and vandalism.

Over the years, the site has been known by a variety of names, including Victoria Square, St. John’s Square, Portland Square, and Military Memorial Park. Before it was a park at all, the site was known as the “Military Burying Ground,” and was the first British cemetery in York.

Established by John Graves Simcoe in 1793, it was used both by Fort York and the civilian population that lived in the Town of York at this time. The first known burial at the site was actually that of Simcoe’s own daughter, Katherine, who was buried there in 1794.

It’s possible that some of the dead from the Battle of York in 1813 were buried in this cemetery, although no direct evidence exists to verify this. In later years, however, bodies of Battle of York casualties were sometimes uncovered elsewhere in the city, as many of the slain had been buried near to where they fell. At least one of these bodies, that of Captain Neal McNeale, was relocated to the Military Burying Ground after the body was found near Humber Bay in 1829. In Historic Fort York 1793–1860, historian Carl Benn writes that, shortly after Battle of York, the town became a hospital centre for those fighting along the Niagara Peninsula. According to Benn, those who died in York were buried in the Military Burying Ground, which, following periods of heavy fighting, could amount to as many as eight a day.

Drawing of the grave markers in the old Military Burying Ground. Evening Telegram, October 4, 1888.

In 1863, the cemetery was deemed full and closed to new burials. While there are 344 known plots on the site, many of these plots are believed to contain multiple graves; most estimates put the total number of burials between 400 and 500, with one source suggesting there may be as many as 1,500.

Almost immediately after the cemetery’s closure, it fell into a state of disrepair. Accounts suggest that the grave markers were frequently vandalized, and that grave-robbing may also have been a problem. The cemetery was Dominion land, but in May of 1883 the Dominion government said it was willing to “transfer the old Military Burying Ground to the city on condition that the same be placed in a proper state of repair, beautified, and used as a public park, [and] that the sum of $500 be placed in the Annual Estimates of the [Property] Committee for this purpose.” That year saw the establishment of a new Military Memorial Park Board “for the purpose of keeping it free from intrusion and desecration.”

Progress on the site was slow. One of the first efforts was an inventory of the remaining markers, noting their location, shape, material, and any remaining legible text. This inventory remains at the City of Toronto Archives today, and includes transcriptions of the wooden markers that were still on site and legible at this time.

In 1885, the surviving grave markers were moved to a terrace on the western side of the property. The ground was levelled, and paths were planned for the park.

An 1883 letter from the Board’s Lieutenant Colonel William D. Otter to the City’s Property Committee proposes a monument in the centre of the park to the “honoured dead and the regiments and corps to which they respectively belonged.” Otter’s stated goal was “to erect a Monument to their memory, which will be at once the chief and sacred ornament of the ground.” The Military Memorial Park Board placed notices in the Toronto newspapers in 1884, announcing plans for a monument on the site, and inviting people to come forward with information about the identities of those who had been buried there.

(Above: Appeal for information about burials in the old Military Burial Ground. Toronto Evening Telegram, March 25, 1884. Identical notices appeared in both the Mail and the Globe.)

Despite Otter claiming that “it is confidently expected that an appeal to public sympathy for so deserving an object will meet a hearty response,” progress on improving the park remained sluggish, as people struggled to raise the money needed for the proposed monument. John Ross Robertson lamented the situation in 1888, writing, “The soldier finds a nameless grave in time of war, and in this respect he is not much better off in time of peace, for of the graves of the military burying grounds of Toronto by far the greater part are forgotten and obliterated.” For the old grave markers, their new arrangement was less than ideal; in 1890, an Alderman complained to the Military Memorial Park Board that “some lawless parties were committing depredations among the tombstones.”

The cornerstone for the cenotaph was finally laid in 1902, in a ceremony held by the Army and Navy Veterans Association, which by now had assumed control of the project. As was customary at the time, the cornerstone featured a time capsule, including newspapers, coins, and other documents of the day. Those who spoke at the event included Mayor Oliver Howland and composer Alexander Muir, whose speech concluded with the crowd singing his composition “The Maple Leaf Forever.” The newspapers reported that veterans of several wars were on hand for the ceremony, including those who had served in the Crimean War, the Second Opium War, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Second Anglo-Aghan War, the Fenian raids, the North-West Rebellion, and the ongoing South African War.

The plan for the statue was not yet finalized. The Telegram reported that the monument, “when completed will consist of a massive pedestal about eight feet in height, surmounted by the figure of a soldier in heavy marching order, clothed in the uniform worn by the infantry of the line in the years 1812–1815.” The Globe, however, proclaimed that the pedestal would be 12 feet in height, and that “as soon as possible it is intended to place a bronze figure of a soldier, also twelve feet high, on this base, and the whole will form a most imposing monument.”

(Above: Drawing of what the monument was expected to look like when completed. The Globe, November 22, 1902.)

That November, another large crowd turned out for the unveiling of the monument’s pedestal. The Army and Navy Veterans again led the ceremony, and the monument was unveiled by Premier George William Ross, who delivered a speech about the significance of the site. “Nearly 500 have found graves within this sacred spot, including the soldiers, their wives, and children. Perhaps no other spot in the Province of Ontario bears more sacred and, shall I say, more distinguished dust.” Ross then turned to the subject of the war itself, noting that “men not only spared neither limb nor life, but, like the Romans of old, neither son nor daughter nor wife in the defence of the country.” Ross’ speech concluded with him leading the crowd in three cheers for the army and navy veterans in recognition of their work in seeing the project through.

Victoria Memorial Park, seen in 1913. Some of the original markers can just be seen along the fence. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 200, Series 372, Subseries 52, Item 192.

It took another five years for the memorial to be completed by the addition of a statue atop the pedestal. The Globe attributed the delay in its completion to insufficient funds. “The whole monument costs about $4,000, of which only some $200 remains to be subscribed.”

The commission went to Walter Seymour Allward, a Toronto-born sculptor who was establishing a reputation for monuments, having previously completed the memorial to the North-West Rebellion in Queen’s Park. (Allward would go on to design several other war monuments, including the South African War Memorial on University and the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France.) Allward’s work in Victoria Memorial Park is of an older soldier, represented from the waist up, described in the Globe as “sculpted with strength and pathos.” In a 1983 article in the York Pioneer, Jacqueline Stuart writes, “It is a striking monument. This is not a young man, eagerly off to defend his country, but a thoughtful old soldier, with the end of one empty sleeve pinned up.”

Despite having the different unveiling ceremonies, it did not take long for the memorial to be overlooked. Empire Day, which for many years was synchronized with Victoria Day, was Toronto’s annual day for recognizing veterans prior to the First World War. At the 1909 Empire Day ceremony at Queen’s Park, Lieutenant Colonel W. Hamilton Merritt addressed the crowd, saying, “There has been no decoration today of a monument to the brave men who saved Canada in 1812 to 1814 and who laid deep and strong the foundation stone of this great Dominion…. I would ask of you…your sympathy and co-operation towards the object of permanently placing here, side by side with these other memorials, a record of the War of 1812–1814 and of the victories there obtained.” Merritt suggested such a monument would be a fitting tribute for the war’s upcoming centennial.

Major W.A. Collins, President of the Army and Navy Veterans Association, wrote to the Globe the next week, gently reminding Lieutenant Colonel Merritt that a monument to the veterans of this war had been completed in Victoria Memorial Park just two years earlier. Collins further suggested that “the proposed centenary celebration, if held in 1912, take place there.” But if there was a major centennial event at this park to mark the centennial, no mention of it was made in the Toronto newspapers.

Advertisement for The Battle of York by Barlow Cumberland. The Globe, April 26, 1913.

The Star noted that the War of 1812 monument was among those decorated on Empire Day in 1912, but the primary Empire Day ceremonies took place, as usual, at Queen’s Park, where most of Toronto’s other war monuments are. In 1913, the centennial year of the Battle of York, the Star reported that the official Empire Day parade began at the city armouries, passed the other monuments on University Avenue, and concluded at Queen’s Park. Victoria Memorial Park, being considerably west of University, was not on the route.

The actual centennial of the Battle of York in 1813 was reported quietly in the Toronto newspapers. Two terse acknowledgements of the date ran in the Globe, and the Star and Telegram do not appear to have mentioned the centennial on the actual date. It is reasonable to assume that the monument may have been decorated that day, but beyond this, acknowledgement of the centennial in Toronto seems to have been limited to a few books, public lectures, and the public library, which displayed “the original manuscript of the terms of capitulation entered into on April 27, 1813 after the surrender of the Town of York.”

The city’s first major commemoration of the War of 1812 appears to have been in 1934, when Fort York was first opened to the public as an attraction, as part of the City of Toronto’s centennial celebrations. Although separated from main property, Victoria Memorial Park is officially part of Fort York National Historic Site and several interpretive panels on site detail the extensive history of the park. None of the original wooden markers remain, but the 17 surviving original stones were mounted in a new installation in 2010. Together with the cenotaph, they are reminders of our city’s past, which is often so quickly forgotten.

(Above: The monument in 1926. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1548, Series 393, Item 20661.)

For more on the history of Victoria Memorial Park, see the virtual exhibit “Heart and Stone” on the City of Toronto website.

Additional material from: Carl Benn, Historic Fort York 1793-1993 (Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc., 1993: Toronto); The Globe (July 2, November 21, November 22, November 24, 1902; December 29, 1906; January 7, 1907; May 25, May 31, 1909; April 26, April 28; November 15, 1913); Robert Malcolmson, Capital in Flames: The American Attack on York, 1813 (Robin Brass Studio, 2008: Montreal); John Ross Robertson, Landmarks of Toronto [Vol. 1] (Toronto: 1894); Michael J. Rudman, “The History of These Graves” in The York Pioneer, Vol. 94, 1999; Michael J. Rudman, The Old Garrison Burying Ground (1794-1862) (April 1997); Henry Scadding, Toronto of Old: Collections and Recollections Illustrative of the Early Settlement and Social Life of the Capital of Ontario (Adam, Stevenson & Co., 1873: Toronto); Jacqueline Stuart, “The Old Military Burial Ground — Toronto” in The York Pioneer, Vol. 78, No. 1, Spring 1983; the Toronto Daily Star (February 12, November 22, 1902; May 22, 1913); the Toronto Evening Telegram (March 25, 1884; October 4, 1888; July 2, November 22 1902).

Every Saturday, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today.

Once a shabby, forgotten corner of the city, the area under and around the Eastern Avenue, Richmond, and Adelaide overpasses is now undergoing a major revitalization.

Although Underpass Park hasn’t officially opened, Waterfront Toronto has confirmed that the two eastern-most sections are almost complete and will become available to riled-up kids and harried parents alike later this summer. The park will feature a skateboard park and half courts, a community gathering area, and a play area featuring unique jungle gym equipment. A piece of suspended public art by local artist Paul Raff is also set to be installed within the next month (it will be reflective, to attract what light is available).

The final section by St. Lawrence Street, a green space, will be unveiled in September.

Waterfront Toronto’s Meg Davis admits that the area under the overpasses were considered “derelict” and were not originally part of the organization’s West Don Lands revitalization project. But when a developer submitted a plan for the space, the wheels started turning.

With new affordable housing going in just north of Underpass Park—and 50 per cent of those residents expected to be families with young children—Davis said that the park will serve the new neighborhood well.

“Wouldn’t it be great on a rainy day your kids are driving you crazy…you can go to Underpass Park and play on the playscape and be weather protected and the kids can get activity and get out of your hair, so to speak,” said Davis.

Diane MacLean of the Regent Park Community Health Centre agrees that Underpass Park will be a welcome part of the redevelopment of the wider area, including the West Don Lands and Regent Park.

“[The area is] undergoing a true revitalization, physical, as well as how you create social cohesion–gatherings, how people come together,” said MacLean. “One thing that I think is great about Underpass Park is that for space that is considered unusable for a long time…it’s going to bring a whole opportunity for people to find new ways to come together.”

MacLean hopes that by injecting life into the underpasses, a sense of safety and ownership will be restored. She would also like to see Underpass Park become part of a Discovery Walk that would further connect Regent Park with the wider community.

It appears at least that the project is unaffected by the political circus that the Port Lands inspired last summer and the “accelerated” plan for development there. “The City, the feds, and the province are all cooperating with us nicely on this project, on the West Don Lands and on Underpass Park,” said Davis.

Underpass Park will officially open in July.

As they do every year, spring-loving Torontonians have had their eye on the cherry trees in High Park—2,000 Somei-Yoshino Sakuras, a gift from Tokyo bestowed by the Japanese ambassador in 1959. The blossoms only last for about a week, and while they typically bloom in late April or early May, this year’s mild weather means that are coming out early. We’ve been shooting the trees for the past few days as they develop, and prettiness is very much underway.

Earlier this week, park officials reported that 75 per cent of the trees were blooming; peak blossom watching is anticipated this weekend.