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Tile Over Substance
Selected quotes from “Toronto’s Type and Tile Heritage” by Edward Keenan, from the November 14th issue of Eye Weekly:
Joe Clark: “The trick is trying to prevent the destruction of the subway system as we know it. What are these [TTC] commissioners doing, exactly? Through malign neglect, they are beginning a 35-year process of destruction. Because if they make over Pape station so that it doesn’t match any of the other stations, if they make it over in artificial stone — which has ‘fake’ right there in the title — then the design uniformity of the Bloor-Danforth line is busted…”
TTC Chair Adam Giambrone: “We could get special tiles [to preserve the look of stations undergoing renovation], presumably someone could make them, because they do reproductions, but it’s going to be very expensive.”
Councillor Adam Vaughan: “You can build a city off a budget sheet, but you end up with Tucson…. The reality is if you build Paris, you’ll have an economy. If you build an economy, you’ll have Houston. Or Calgary.”
Or Spadin.
Photo of the meeting of old and new (due to an elevator installed in 1997) at the eastern end of Spadina station’s westbound platform taken by Jonathan Goldsbie. Thanks to Cy Goldsbie for the tip.