1. Follow BHN of Twitter and Facebook
Catherine Nasmith

As as subscriber you will be aware that there have been fewer editions of BHN lately. This is  because increasingly news is shared on Facebook and Twitter. 

If you are not already following BHN of Facebook and Twitter, I hope that you will. 

For Facebook, go to https://www.facebook.com/builtheritagenews/  and while you are there, please Like!

For Twitter follow https://twitter.com/BHN_cn

2. HOLD THE DATE - September 12 - A TOAST TO YORK SQUARE - September 12, 2017
Catherine Nasmith

Recent Lunch in York Square, masonry is in perfect condition and food terrific

Depending on what the OMB decides about the future of Toronto's York Square, (Yorkville and Avenue Road) there may not be too many more chances to visit. If you can, go have lunch in the square over the next couple of months, it is one of the great Toronto experiences and could go any minute.

ACO Toronto is putting together a celebration, (hope its not a wake), of York Square. On September 12, from 5:30 to 7:30 we'll be partying in the square, rain or shine. You are invited to wear what you were wearing in the 70's. If you are too young to remember look at old pics....We'll be shooting video.

Drinks and snacks from Il Posto Restaurant. Put in your calendar now, details to follow.

3. Please sign Petition to Save 401 Richmond
Phil Tucker

401 Richmond Street West is a restored, heritage-designated, industrial building turned arts-and-culture hub in downtown Toronto. It is home to over 140 artists, cultural producers, social innovators, microenterprises, galleries, festivals, and shops.

Now looming property tax increases threaten to price tenants out of this long-time sanctuary for dozens of Toronto's non-profit cultural organizations. SIGN HERE

4. Please Sign Petition to Save Davisville School
ACO Toronto

Sketch by Stephen Yeates

BHN subscribers will be aware of the challenges in saving the Mid-Century Masterpiece, Davisville Junior School. It has recently been added to the National Trust for Canada's Top Ten Endangered List for Canada....the school trustee's response to this national embarassment was "who cares". SIGN HERE

5. The Moccasin Identifier Project is Launched
Catherine Nasmith

Phillip Cote Moccasin Design

June 21 is National Aboriginal Day, coinciding with the longest day of the year. What does that mean for Canadians post Truth and Reconciliation Commission? What does it mean to cultural conservation organizations? What to do on June 21? What to do every day?

The Moccasin Identifier Project (MIP) is a beautiful, gentle idea created to teach non-indigenous Canadians whose territory we are on. Founded by former Mississaugas of the New Credit chief, Carolyn King, the project consists of stenciling marks of the moccasins of Indigenous Peoples. As Carolyn King said in a recent presentation of the MIP, “We all have different moccasins.”  Her hope is that over time stenciling these marks will become an annual event in school yards across Ontario as a way of teaching the history of the land we share. Marked in chalk, the disappearing moccasin marks represent those who are still here, yet who left no permanent marks, people who lived lightly on the land.

Even though the project is still in development stages it is having an quite an impact. In Toronto last week it appeared three times, in permanent and disappearing forms. At the entrance to the newly opened William Davis Park at Ontario Place, deeply carved into granite of the Canadian Shield are much, much, larger than life moccasin stencils. Ms. King describes the Ontario Place installation as the formal launch of the MIP. Also carved into stone is the phrase “Walk Gently on the Land,” in French and English, but not in an indigenous language. Hope that is coming soon…

At the sidewalks to Fort York, prints have been stenciled in black paint.

ACO Toronto, (I am President) recently partnered with Heritage Toronto, the City of Toronto, Heritage Toronto and MIP to bring the stenciling project to Nathan Phillips Square. The stenciling co-incided with the launch of five flags representing the five Indigenous Peoples currently present in Toronto, Mississaugas of the New Credit, Six Nations, Huron-Wendat, Métis, and Inuit as well as a sunrise ceremony on June 21. MIssissaugas of the New Credit are the treaty people of Toronto. To bring the MIP to Toronto City Hall, we were asked to have stencils representing all five groups. We were limited to using materials that would leave no permanent mark on the square. Artist Phillip Cote created several new stencil designs. We opted for the tempera paint used by school children.

A small party arrived to start the night of June 20, to stencil up the ramp so that participants the next morning would see the stencils as they moved from the flag area at the bottom to the members lounge at the top. We made it half way up, and then hastily photographed the results as the rain hit and washed the marks away.

So was that a waste of time and effort?

No… everything teaches you something. We need to refine the materials to make marks that are a little less ephemeral and that can allow more to participate in stenciling exercises. The more important lesson was that stenciling is not so much about making marks, but what one is thinking about while doing it: the people each stencil represents, thinking about what it means to all of us to share the land and restore fairness to our relationships.

Mayor John Tory mentioned the MIP in his remarks and looked around for the stencils as he spoke. Afterwards we explained to him what had happened, and that we hope to find a way by next year to be able to invite more people to participate in blanketing the square with moccasin stencil marks that last just long enough for contemplation and celebration.

ACO Toronto is honoured to be able to partner with the MIP. 

6. Is your Ontario Community interested in Hosting an Ontario Heritage Conference
Catherine Nasmith

ACO and CHO have been holding joint conferences for over ten years. We have a joint conference committee that works to locate future conference locations and venues. 2018 is scheduled for Sarnia, nominations for 2019 is closed and proposals are being evaluated but from 2020 out there are lots of opportunities. 

For more information you can see the current RFP posted at the ACO website, including who to contact if you think you might like to showcase your community in this way. http://www.arconserv.ca/news_events/show.cfm?id=448It can also be found at http://www.communityheritageontario.ca/rfp-for-hosting-ohc

7. CBC National Radio Interview: Catherine Nasmith and Chris Borgal "debate" Façadism
Catherine Nasmith

It was a wonderful opportunity to make some points on behalf of the heritage community to a national audience. Chris and I agreed and disagreed in interesting ways. Get ready for the following phrases- Urban Taxidermy, Buildings are not Garbage.....here's the link

8. National Screen Institute- Film offering A Metis View of Canada 150

Kiskisiwin/Remembering

A jingle dress dancer, an 1850s blacksmith and a troop of defiant urban Indians assert Toronto as Indigenous territory and challenge Canadians to re-write their nation’s history.

Creative team
Writer: Jesse Thistle
Directors: Martha Stiegman, Jesse Thistle
Producers: Martha Stiegman, Anders Sandberg

Filmmakers’ statement

As Canada celebrates 150 years of colonialism, we offer kiskisiwin | remembering as an interruption of the pioneer mythology at the foundation of the Canadian historical narrative, and to force a space for Indigenous presence.

For Jesse Thistle, a Métis-Cree doctoral student of history at York University, and a Vanier and Trudeau scholar, this work is deeply personal, and part of his research examining intergenerational trauma and Métis history.

For Martha Stiegman, a settler and assistant professor at York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies, kiskisiwin | remembering is part of larger body of documentary video and scholarship that explore the history of treaty-making in eastern Canada, and the settler responsibilities that derive from those agreements.

In this Indigenous/settler collaboration, we work together in the hopes of building healthy, honest relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada.

The film also represents a gesture towards embodying truthful public history displays about the Nation’s past and how positive interventions, such as the small film, can dislocate romantic settler narratives that try to erase Indigenous peoples from the history of Turtle Island.

Click here for Link

9. Toronto Star: Situation at 401 Richmond dire-Province must Act
Murray Whyte

Time running out for deal to save 401 Richmond

On a steamy pre-summer evening this week, Councillor Joe Cressy stood beneath the raw wooden beams of a common space at 401 Richmond St., looking grave. He had every reason to. 

Click here for Link

10. Ten Editions Bookstore to Close
Catherine Nasmith

Ten Editions bookstore at 698 Spadina Avenue in Toronto, a neighbourhood institution that the community has been trying to save through heritage designation has announced it will close. University of Toronto owns the building and wants to redevelop the site for student housing. The little building is humble but has all of its original woodwork and tuckpointing, hidden under a lot of paint.

The city may be able to save the building, but the business could not withstand the pressure. 

Its a cultural loss for U of T, and for Harbord Village.

For the story on the designation go to http://thevarsity.ca/2017/02/27/community-council-votes-to-designate-ten-editions-bookstore-as-heritage-site/

Click here for Link

11. Canadian Architect: New Entrance for Royal Ontario Museum

Hariri Pontarini Architects designs new façade for ROMs Weston Entrance

Mike McMann Rendering

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) has announced that it is re-opening the Museum’s heritage Weston Entrance, an important component of the ROM’s Welcome Project that will enhance the ROM’s role as a vital civic hub for visitors and offer greater access to Canada’s pre-eminent museum.

Slated for completion in September 2017, the re-opening of the entrance on Queen’s Park is timed to coincide with Canada’s 150 celebrations. This revitalization project was made possible by The W. Garfield Weston Foundation and through a $1.5 million investment by the Government of Ontario.

“Opening the doors to Queen’s Park is part of the ROM’s ongoing transformation as a 21st century museum, one that both respects our heritage and looks forward to the future,” says Josh Basseches, ROM Director and CEO. “This project opens up the ROM — both literally and symbolically — to our community, offering visitors better access to their Museum and builds on our commitment to create an exceptional visitor experience.”

Click here for Link

12. ERA Article on Towers, Heritage and Energy Conservation Practice
Michael McClelland, Christine Paglialunga Alexis Cohen

Towers: a comparison in evaluation, context, and conservation

This article explores emerging practice issues in heritage conservation through the comparison of two conservation projects in Toronto, both built in 1969: Mies van der Rohe’s Toronto Dominion (TD) Centre in the Financial District and a residential apartment tower by the Estonian-born Canadian architect, Uno Prii. By broadening both the cannon of heritage resources and approaches to conservation, heritage professionals have an opportunity to contribute solutions to global issues like climate change and social and economic inequality. If traditional distinctions between ‘highbrow’ and ‘low brow’ resources are revisited, a more expansive understanding of value can lead to better and more creative uses for our built heritage.

Click here for Link

13. Globe and Mail: At Risk - The Palace Arms Hotel
Arthur White

Last call at the Palace Arms: Developers covet the King West property, but where will its poor tenants go?

The building on a coveted King West intersection is one of the last of its kind: an affordable refuge for poor men. Now it’s up for sale. As developers begin to circle, Arthur White examines what the future holds for the hotel and its tenants

For sale: A derelict long-stay hotel at the corner of King and Strachan, its interior design scheme centred around stucco, ceramic tile and wood panelling. In Room 8, where I’ve booked myself for six nights, there’s a carpet stained with splotches of white and black, a sheet peppered with cigarette burns and two pictures of the Last Supper – one in 3-D. It’s one of the better rooms.

The price: $14-million. The Palace Arms went up for sale last spring, when owner Bernie Tishman decided he’d had enough of the hotel game.

“My family and I have been here for 53 years,” he says. “I think it’s time to retire.”

If the market is any guide, it’s only a matter of time before a new project arrives to energize this sleepy strip of King West. The 125-year-old heritage building sits on one of the last underused sites in an area coveted by condo developers (some of whom have already met with city officials to pitch preliminary ideas). With the city aiming to conserve most of the structure in any sale and redevelopment, this Cinderella of Toronto’s Victorian period might be safe – but things aren’t so clear for the tenants, who say they don’t have anywhere else to go.

The Palace has 91 rooms, and the manager says they’re always about 90 per cent full. The mostly middle-aged men who live here scrape by with rough jobs or disability benefits. More than a few are mentally ill. Many are alcoholics.

“The accommodations are basically for men only,” say the rules, but young women are a common sight, strolling along the hallways, knocking on doors. One calls me “sunshine” and asks if I want to party.

Toronto used to have a wide selection of cheap long-stay hotels. But many, like the Gladstone and the Drake, have since been transformed from dilapidated flophouses into swanky neighbourhood hubs.

Riverside’s New Broadview Hotel, once the home of Jilly’s strip club, looks set to follow. As it stands, the Palace Arms is one of the last of its kind: a refuge for poor men seeking privacy and affordable downtown living.

Development Proposal by Denegri Bessai Studio

Click here for Link

14. Guelph Today: Protecting 13 Stuart Street

Guelph City Council voted to fast track efforts to protect a 126-year-old city mansion Tuesday night.

Guelph City Council voted to fast track efforts to protect a 126-year-old city mansion Tuesday night.

Amidst fears that the house was on the verge of being demolished, council voted 10-1 to pass a notice of intention to designate 13 Stuart St. as a heritage property.

The stately home, located in the St. George’s Park neighbourhood just east of downtown, was once the home of the Cutten family.

Its current owners, John and Pamela Rennie, were not in attendance at Tuesday’s council meeting, but their lawyer Eric Davis was.

Davis was seeking a delay in council’s decision.

“My clients haven’t had adequate time to consider this matter” and their options, Davis told council.

He said the speed at which the matter got before council has “taken them aback.”

Even council’s heritage champion, Coun. Leanne Piper, agreed that it is “usually a much longer process.”

But Piper said what brought the matter to council so quickly was a “concern in the community and amongst staff that demolition has already started to occur.”

Interior demolition has apparently already taken place, a staff report to council said.

“It’s been completely gutted,” Piper said.

“This is really a no brainer. The time for comment from the property owner is over.”

Click here for Link

15. Hamilton Spectator: Historic Windows Tested for Energy Efficiency
Jeff Mahoney

MAHONEY: Old windows part of the soul of our past

As Hamilton experiences a spike in building, renos and housing values, the age-old battle between tearing down/replacing and preserving existing vintage housing and housing features rages more hotly than ever. Shannon Kyles and her students at Mohawk built a special test house to compare the energy and heat loss efficiency of old heritage windows compared to replacement ones. The Heritage ones, restored (not replaced) properly, are even more efficient. A look at a special crusader for the preservation of our housing and architectual heritage. 

They say the eyes are the windows of the soul and so, correspondingly, the windows must be the eyes of the home. Or of any building.

As Hamilton steps into its own vision, in a time of excitement and forward growth, mingled with pride of past, including architectural heritage, we should take care of our eyes.

The windows are, of course, not just the eyes of a building; they're part of the lungs, maybe even the hypothalamus (the body's thermostat), regulating temperature.

Windows do all those things: they bring light in, like the eyes, bring in air like the lungs, seal in desired warmth and coolness. But apart from functional considerations, windows, again like the eyes, contribute to a sense of "beauty."

So why, asks Shannon Kyles, would you replace the windows in a beautiful old building? "It's like poking its eyes out," she says, of the common but horrifying expedient of replacing original windows with vinyl and other modern materials.

Old windows should be restored, not replaced, says Shannon, Mohawk College architecture professor, daughter of late Hamilton architect Lloyd Kyles. Now she has the studies and evidence to prove it.

Shannon doesn't just teach architecture, building heritage and restoration to her students. She evangelizes. It's about salvation, of buildings. She goes to every length. Four years ago, I wrote about how she disassembled a crumbling Regency-era cottage in Ancaster, preserving everything of character, stored it in her basement, and reassembled it as a historic bed-and-breakfast (The Gryphon) in Prince Edward County.

Click here for Link

16. NPR: Architecture Of An Asylum' Tracks History Of U.S. Treatment Of Mental Illness
Susan Stamberg

The Center Building at St. Elizabeths, pictured circa 1900, housed administrative offices and patient wards. Established in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane, the hospital became widely known as "St. Elizabeths" during the Civil War, and took

The Center Building at St. Elizabeths. National Archives and Records Administration - National Building Museum

When I moved to Washington, D.C., in 1962, St. Elizabeths Hospital was notorious — a rundown federal facility for the treatment of mentally ill people that was overcrowded and understaffed. Opened with idealism and hope in 1855, the hospital had ballooned from 250 patients to as many as 8,000. Its vast, rolling patch of farmland had fallen into disrepair, too, in the poorest neighborhood in the U.S. capital.

The hospital is now the subject of an exhibition at the National Building Museum; Architecture of an Asylum explores the links between architecture and mental health.

Dorothea Dix, the 19th-century reformer who fought for the hospital, would have rolled over in her grave to see what St. Elizabeths had become by the 1960s.

"She had observed the treatment of the mentally ill in jails and other kinds of alms houses [and] poor houses all over the country," explains exhibit curator Sarah Leavitt. Dix "was really appalled by the treatment that they were getting, and she made it her life's work to change that story."

Editor's Note:
see also the following link to the exhibition, https://www.nbm.org/exhibition/architecture-asylum-st-elizabeths-1852-2017/

Click here for Link

17. OHA+M: Proposed changes to OMB underwhelming
Dan Schneider

Changes to the OMB --meh

In case you missed it … on May 30, 2017 Minister of Municipal Affairs Bill Mauro introduced the government’s long-anticipated changes to the Ontario Municipal Board. Bill 139, the Building Better Communities and Conserving Watersheds Act, 2017, combines OMB/planning system-related changes and changes to the Conservation Authorities Act, which has also been under review. [1]

The province says: “If passed, the proposed legislation would overhaul the province’s land use planning appeal system.”

Personally the overhaul leaves me underwhelmed. (And that’s not a bad thing!) [2]

Let’s look at the proposed changes to the OMB and what this means for heritage.

Not to put too fine a point on it, much of what the government is proposing looks a lot like smoke and mirrors — changes that are designed to appease the mostly Greater Golden Horseshoe municipal politicians who rail against the (as they see it) unelected, anti-democratic, unaccountable, cumbersome, unfair, etc., etc. body that has had a major role in the province’s land use planning system since 1906. But changes without a lot of substance.

Click here for Link

18. Please Donate to Help Restore Historic Ham House Pub in Bath
Shannon Kyles

To go straight to donating https://www.gofundme.com/hamhouse

Click here for Link

19. The Record: Electrohome Factory for Sale by City of Kitchener
Catherine Thompson

NO successful bids in tax sale of contaminated Kitchener property

KITCHENER — The city's effort to collect more than $1 million in taxes owed by forcing the tax sale of a contaminated property has failed.

The tax sale of the former Electrohome property at 152 Shanley Street attracted just one bid for $200,000, well short of the minimum amount of $1,086,116.41.

Kitchener had received at least a half-dozen inquiries about the property over the past several months, said city solicitor Lesley MacDonald.

Tax sales are very tightly regulated under the Municipal Act, and a municipality isn't able to accept any bids that don't cover the costs of all taxes owed on the property, as well as the costs of running the tax sale.

The rules also stipulate that the city can hold the tax sale for only four weeks. Given the tight timelines, the city wanted to give prospective buyers as much time as possible to check out the property before the sale began, and prepared an information package about the property that was available well before the formal launch of the sale.

"Since there was no successful bidder, this is considered an unsuccessful tax sale," MacDonald said in an email. Given the failure of the sale, the city is reviewing its options for the site. The city had put the property up for formal sale at the end of March, and bidding closed May 3.

The property is in a desirable location, in a residential neighbourhood close to the LRT and future transit hub, but any owner would have to contend with several problems, including a long-standing cleanup order from the Ministry of the Environment to address contamination from metals, petroleum hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds, including trichloroethylene, an industrial degreaser.

Current zoning only permits a residential development of up to four storeys, and the building's listing on the city's inventory of heritage buildings would require the owner to carry out a heritage study before redeveloping the existing building, which is in poor shape.

The former furniture factory dates from 1887 and was later sold to Dominion Electrohome, which built hardwood television cabinets there for decades. The building is currently owned by a numbered company, 848835 Ontario Inc. It's one of only two properties that bylaw enforcement officials consider a chronic offender for consistently failing to mow grass or shovel sidewalks.

cthompson@therecord.com , Twitter: @ThompsonRecord

Click here for Link

20. TheRecord.com:Schneider House, Kitchener National Historic Site
Catherine Thompson

Region

KITCHENER — The potential for a clash between competing heritage interests is brewing as the Region of Waterloo pursues plans to demolish two homes in the Victoria Park heritage district to create more space around Schneider Haus.

The region, which owns the historic Schneider Haus at 466 Queen St. South, bought two neighbouring homes at 474 and 484 Queen St. S. almost 30 years ago.

Since then, the homes have been rented to tenants and used as offices. Vacant since 2014, the region now wants to demolish them.

The demolition would give Schneider Haus, the oldest home in Kitchener (it was built in 1816), a more prominent frontage on Queen Street; restore more of the feel and look of the original farm setting; and give the museum more room for programming, especially for large groups, said Kate Hagerman, the region's supervisor of cultural heritage.

Over time, the region has added several outbuildings to the museum property, which have added to the experience at the museum, but reduced the open space around the house.

The two lots would increase the museum's total land by about 25 per cent to 0.35 hectares. The region would put a traditional farm garden in the lots, reducing the need for groups to cross busy Queen Street to reach the existing garden, which would remain. The region has budgeted $400,000 for the proposed changes.

Both Schneider Haus and the two neighbouring homes sit in the Victoria Park heritage district in Kitchener, which was put in place "to protect and enhance groups of properties or neighbourhoods that collectively give an area special character," according to the city's website.

Demolishing the houses would require city approval, and the Victoria Park heritage plan specifically discourages the demolition of homes in the district. "The policies and guidelines of the Victoria Park heritage conservation district are quite clear," said Leon Bensason, Kitchener's co-ordinator of cultural heritage. "These properties were identified as contributing to the significance of the heritage conservation district."

The houses, built in the 1920s, were part of the third wave of development around Victoria Park, Bensason said. "They've been there for the last 90 years," he said. "We typically have not supported the demolition and removal of heritage properties that are in good condition and that contribute to streetscape of the heritage district."

The idea of a heritage district is to protect not just a building or even a group of buildings, but a whole area, he said, and allowing the demolition could set a precedent. "Once you begin to lose homes, you lose one, two, three, four, you begin to lose that understanding of how the area developed," he said.

Click here for Link

21. Do you Remember Pearl's Furniture on Centre Avenue?
John Lorinc

Michael McClelland, Tatum Taylor and I are working on a sequel of sorts to The Ward, tentatively entitled, The Ward Uncovered: The Archeology of Everyday Life - a detailed look at the remarkable archeological dig in 2015-2016 on the Centre Ave parking lot, now destined to be the new Toronto courthouse. One of the foundations excavated was a Centre Ave foundry that became a synagogue (Shaarei Tzedec, 1902 to mid 1930s). After the synagogue relocated to Markham Street, the building was purchased by a furniture retailer called Pearl's. I'm looking for any information or recollections about Pearl's. Please contact me, John Lorinc, at lorinc@rogers.com if you remember the store or anything related to it.