1. 2012 -Toronto the Good Celebrates Anniversary of the War of 1812
Catherine Nasmith

Call me cynical, but it is entirely possible that Toronto will celebrate the anniversary of the War of 1812, the beginning of independent Canadian democracy, with both a condo tower marring the view of Queen's Park (almost certain) and a 50 story condo under construction on the site of the First Parliament Buildings (definitely possible). 

There is handwringing about the proposed development at Front and Parliament, and high level negotiations to try to relocate the project... but such things have a way of going sideways in Toronto the Good.

The other important war of 1812 site, Fort York, could be completely ringed by towers as several additional condo tower proposals are coming forward with no policy in place to prevent them. 

The development industry has a lot to celebrate. In Toronto, the financial capital of the country, it has virtually unfettered freedom to tear down and build whatever it wants.

Load the cannon.

2. ACO Survey for Youth and Young Professionals

The ACO has been trying a number of initiatives to attract a new generation of heritage activists, and would prefer to do it without losing great swathes of historic buildings like we did last year. Kayla Jonas of the committee writes:

The Architectural Conservancy of Ontario would like to hear your opinions. We have created a survey to gauge the interest of youth (both students (up to age 26) and young professionals/artisans) in the organization. Your answers will be confidential and the survey will take approximately 5-10 minutes.

Link to the Survey:

http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e3eslkvzgk5l2gzc/start

3. Mexico Travelogue: Two of 31 World Heritage Sites
Catherine Nasmith

Guanajuato from the perimeter road

Readers will know that I have been travelling in Mexico for the last two weeks. My brother’s partner has been vacationing in Mexico every year for 20 years so was able to put together an excellent introductory tour to some of the country's most beautiful places.

We covered a lot of territory, enough to whet the appetite for repeat visits. Landing in Puerta Vallarta, an easy flight from Canada, we drove a day later to Guadalajara, then on to Guanajuato, and finally Patzcuaro. We ran out of time to see Morelia, but we’ll try again another year.

Mexico has a wealth of World Heritage Sites (31), lots of sun and is a very affordable place to travel. We found Mexicans very helpful to visitors, but many commented on the injustice of the U.S. Travel Advisory, devastating to many small entrepreneurs.

The area around the Cathedral has evolved over several hundred years, with the church at the centre of a cruciform plan of four public squares. A pedestrian street links these squares to Hospicio Cabañas, the only World Heritage Site in Guadalajara. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/815 The plaza outside the Hospicio has several sculptures and fountains, and while we were there a temporary skating rink under a tent canopy. There was a huge line-up of locals hoping to enjoy a sport Canadians take for granted.

If you only have one day to spend in Guadalajara, then touring this area including the four block craftmarket adjacent is a great way to spend it. Our host timed the trip to be there on Thursday the day of the craftmarket at Tonala, which has had a pottery market for 3500 years.

The place not to be missed is Guanajuato, a World Heritage City.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/482

High in the mountains this town is unlike anything else in North America. One enters the town through a series of tunnels through the mountains, under the main spaces. The town is situated in a bowl of mountains, with a circular road at the top, and a few roads that link down to a series of linked squares in the valley. Housing and small businesses are accessed off small narrow pedestrian streets, many just staircases which rise several hundred feet….good exercise for sure! Its wealth is from silver mining and there are many fantastic churches and a grand theatre.

Last stop was Patzcuaro, in Michoacan, is a Spanish colonial town, within an hour’s drive of Morelia. It offered a peaceful place to stay and visit nearby craft centres--Capulo for pottery, Santa Clara del Cobre for copper. Michoacan, as most of the Mexican states, has artisan traditions that predate Spanish settlement by centuries. We were particularly struck by the skills of the coppersmiths.

The hotels enhanced our sense of place. Our host, an experienced traveler in Mexico, booked us into a former palazzo and a former monastery. In between we stayed at a B&B high on the slopes of Guanajuato. Over 300 steps to climb to get to bed! These hotels enhanced the trip, offering comfortable accommodation at modest cost and a glimpse of local architectural traditions. To cover this much territory we spent four days out of the two weeks on the road, travelling through lush farmlands, desert, tropical coastline and volcanic mountains. If you squint Michoacan, with mountain lakes and pine trees, looks a little like northern Ontario.

All in all, a great trip, we’ll be back next winter.

4. Sustainable Road Building in Patzcuaro Mexico
Catherine Nasmith

Road building by masons

On our recent trip to Mexico we were fortunate to be able to observe the rebuilding of a local road in Patzcuaro over a period of four days. Road building by stone masons! 

The project mixed heritage and sustainability and artisanship beautifully. 

Over the past several decades the stone street paving had settled quite a bit, so the town decided to rebuild. No mean feat, but clearly the intention is not to have to do it again for another 100 years.

The road was paved with volcanic stone, (the area is full of volcanoes). To rebuild, the stones were taken up and cleaned for re-installation. The bed was excavated to a depth of 8 feet, stone retaining walls built either side, and then the bed rebuilt, using local red clay soil, crushed brick, compressed and watered to settle. Then the surface restoration began.

The masons laid a bed of soft mortar, using local volcanic sand, and then set the reclaimed stone in the bed. Short boards were used to ensure the surface of each stone was level with adjacent stones. The mortar was mixed on site in small batches.The next day we saw the inspectors reject stones that were not level, and the masons resetting a few to make sure the surface was level.

The project employed about 30 artisans, and advanced at about 20 feet/day. 

Hard to say how many times the stones can be lifted and reset, but no petroleum products needed, just local materials and labour. Green, durable and beautiful….doesn’t get better than that.

If we were to build like this in Canada….what would the materials be? Would love to hear from our mason readers with their thoughts on what a Canadian equivalent might be.

5. Globe and Mail: State of Heritage Report
Dave Le Blanc

Torontos heritage buildings face demolition by neglect

“Afterthought.” “Undervalued.” “Lacking teeth.” “Underfunded.”

Such is the state of heritage architecture and heritage laws in the province, according to Heritage Toronto and the Toronto Historical Association, and despite my efforts in this space at Pollyannaism, I’m inclined to agree.

The two organizations presented findings contained within a report, “Heritage Voices,” at St. Lawrence Hall on a bitterly cold morning last week. The result of a series of consultation sessions with heritage and community groups that began in the spring of 2010, it was a sometimes shocking, always enlightening and mostly depressing laundry list of woes for anyone who cares about our built heritage.

It was also a clarion call for change.

Host and former Toronto mayor David Crombie, thankfully, fed the capacity crowd sugar before the bitter pills were forced down a hundred throats. He cited a “rigorous study” by author Robert Putnam that demonstrated how areas in Italy flourished “particularly in times of significant change … because they were able to understand their own history and heritage and deploy it.”

Click here for Link

6. Globe and Mail: Fight over Oakville heritage home goes before OMB
Paul Carlucci

A historic Oakville home, once owned by an industrialist behind the doomed Avro Arrow, is at the heart of a fight over heritage and development.

The lakefront property was once inhabited by Fred Smye, erstwhile vice-president and general manager of Avro Aircraft Ltd, whose state-of-the-art interceptor was infamously scrapped by the Diefenbaker government.

A well-known local developer has been trying to redevelop the Smye property, while city council, led by recently re-elected pro-heritage mayor Rob Burton, has been trying to shut him down.

To Mr. Burton, heritage is synonymous with Oakville. Last year, the Heritage Canada Foundation gave the city an award, its second recognition in as many years. In the coming term, council aims to marry much of its downtown into a single heritage district.

The mayor isn’t opposed to development. He just wants it on his – and council’s – terms.

Click here for Link

7. Toronto Star: Toronto-State of Heritage Report
Christopher Hume

Hume: Heritage report paints bleak picture

If good intentions were enough, heritage in Toronto would never have been in better shape. It’s not that we don’t all want to preserve our heritage, but we’d rather not have to pay for it.

That’s why a report released recently by Heritage Toronto and the Toronto Historical Association paints a picture of a city in which architectural preservation remains an iffy proposition.

“I think this city is horrible at recognizing the value of its heritage,” Heritage Toronto executive director Karen Carter says bluntly. “We don’t value who we are. The public has a love of heritage, but local decision-makers haven’t caught up. Heritage should be about the value citizens place upon the city’s history and their history.”

According to the report, city agencies are underfunded, legislation is weak and political will lukewarm at best. From a bureaucratic perspective, it is marooned and generally ignored until it’s too late.

The destruction of the old Empress Hotel building at Yonge and Gould Sts. last month was a painful example of the city’s inability to get on top of the situation. Instead, it is forever consigned to playing catch-up.

Even something as basic as a heritage inventory has been beyond the city’s capacity. To make matters worse, heritage is divided among three separate city departments, unable to make its presence felt.

“We don’t have anyone plugging away on an inventory of heritage buildings,” Carter admits. “There’s no one around to do it.”

In the words of the report, the city should “Integrate heritage conservation into the work of other City departments (especially Parks, Recreation and Forestry, and Economic Development).”

Former Toronto mayor David Crombie, who hosted the launch of the report last week, also worries about the state of heritage.

Click here for Link

8. Globe and Mail: Restoring E.J. Lennox at Queen and Bathurst
Michael Posner

Gentrification of Queen Street takes former Big Bop space from punk to funk

The gentrification vogue engulfing once-Bohemian Queen Street West will acquire new impetus this summer when the urban furniture store CB2 opens its trendy doors at the historic SE corner of Queen and Bathurst.

Former home of the legendary Big Bop – a trio of clubs (Kathedral, The Reverb and Holy Joe’s) catering to largely suburbanite, alt rock teenagers – the 13,000 square foot building at 651 Queen West is undergoing a $4 to $5-million renovation that will replace blare with flair and punk with funk.

The geek-goes-chic makeover is being overseen by Toronto developer Daniel Rumack, who bought the heritage venue in 2007. Until last year, he leased it to former owner and club manager Dominic Tassielli, while aggressively pursuing a new, triple-A-rated tenant. Mr. Tassielli has since relocated to Etobicoke under a new marquee, the Rockpile.

Mr. Rumack said he will spend about $2.5-million to restore the exterior to heritage preservation standards, including restoration roof cornices and the now bricked-in ground-level windows. CB2, a division of German-owned Crate and Barrel, is spending another $2-$3-million to redo the mechanical innards. This will be the Chicago-based retailer’s first Canadian location.

Editor's Note:
Showing my age I can say I was at the opening of the Big Bop nightclub in the 80's.....and I was a bit old for it then! Recently I was looking at the building and thinking no one would ever be able to see the potential beauty of this damage building. Thanks to Mr. Rumack, he'll be doing this work without any of the heritage incentives that would be available in Chicago.

Click here for Link

9. insidetoronto.com: Toronto' s heritage must be protected
JUSTIN SKINNER

Report offers suggestions on how to preserve city's past

If Toronto wants to be known as a world-class city in the future, it must do more to preserve its past.

That message was highlighted at a meeting of heritage and history aficionados at St. Lawrence Hall last week where Heritage Toronto released a new report outlining eight suggestions to help protect Toronto's stock of historical buildings. Many of those buildings are in peril given development pressures and the lack of resources given to those tasked with preserving the city's past.

The meeting was hosted by former Toronto mayor David Crombie and featured presentations and a question-and-answer period with Paul Litt, Toronto Historical Association president; Karen Carter, Heritage Toronto executive director; and Geoff Kettel of the North York Preservation Panel.

Crombie noted the report "both celebrates and sets off alarms" concerning Toronto's heritage inventory. He added a book examining regional politics in Italy suggested those communities that were able to draw on their history were the most likely to flourish.

The report places a spotlight on the a lack of city resources toward planning. With one staff historian designated to look into heritage matters, there is a backlog of roughly 100 properties awaiting heritage assessment. That number, Kettel said, consists largely of properties where a development has been proposed.

"Those 100 are the tip of the iceberg, the emergencies," he said. "We really don't know what our true inventory (of heritage buildings) is."

Click here for Link

10. Globe and Mail: Yonge St: Gerrard to Dundas - Land Assembly and Redevelopment
John Lorinc

Ryerson president wants developer to join project

A major shopping mall developer that has been quietly assembling land on Yonge Street between Dundas and Gerrard is steering clear of an ambitious effort by the local councillor to create a high-minded plan for a rundown retail strip where fire destroyed a landmark heritage building last month.

Primaris Retail REIT, which manages and develops enclosed shopping malls across Canada and generated $275-million in revenues in 2009, owns about 60 per cent of the east side of Yonge between Gould and Gerrard, as well as land on the west side.

An aide to Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam (Toronto Centre) confirmed that Primaris has not yet been invited to participate in a privately funded working group that recently retained planner Ken Greenberg and architect Marianne McKenna to study the area’s future growth.

Click here for Link

11. Inside Toronto: Preserving Gardener's Cottage, Etobicoke

Century-old Lakeshore cottage demolition decision deferred

Etobicoke-York Community Council to review building's heritage value

Demolition application. The Gardener’s Cottage on the old Lynne Lodge Estate (2669 Lake Shore Blvd. West) has been granted a three-month reprieve from possible demolition, after Etobicoke York Community Council voted to defer an application to tear it down until the May 25 meeting. The one-storey, Queen Anne style building, circa 1899, was recently nominated for heritage property designation.

Etobicoke York Community Council (EYCC) this week decided to defer until May a decision on whether or not to permit the demolition of what neighbours have called an 'enchanting tumbledown cottage' on Lake Shore Boulevard West.

An application to tear down the Gardener's Cottage on the old Lynne Lodge Estate at 2669-2673 Lake Shore Blvd. W. was first received by the city in January, with its owner stating their intention to demolish the one-storey single family dwelling before it becomes a safety hazard.

Click here for Link

12. National Post: 7 Austin Terrace
Chris Selley

The impotence of a heritage designation

It’s reasonable to assume that John Bayne Maclean, founder of such Canadian institutions as Maclean’s magazine and the Financial Post, would not approve of what’s happened to his home, just west of Casa Loma, in the 60 years since his death.

Bad enough the 1910 property, designed by John M. Lyle — architect of Union Station and the Royal Alexandra Theatre — has been carved up into apartments. Bad enough it’s now vacant, boarded up, with many of its architecturally relevant external features hacked off. Bad enough the developer owner wants to tear it down and replace it with eight ersatz-Georgian townhouses and a six-unit apartment building.

But as a noted advocate of efficient government, what Maclean might object to most is the three years of Byzantine legal, bureaucratic and procedural wrangling over his home. Nobody’s lived at 7 Austin Terrace since 2008, and we’re scarcely closer to any positive outcome today.

On Wednesday, Toronto and East York Community Council recommended that a demolition permit for John B. Maclean House be refused on two separate grounds: under Section 34 of the Ontario Heritage Act (because it’s a designated heritage building), and under Section 111 of the City of Toronto Act, which concerns the demolition of rental properties.

Click here for Link

13. National Trust Forum: Heritage Preservation and Jobs Creation
Anna Klosterman forwarded by Richard Unterman

Preservation = Jobs: Findings from the Groundbreaking Rutgers Report

By  | From Forum News | May 2010 | Vol. 16, No. 9

Go to http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/community-revitalization/jobs

to download the report.

Credit: National Trust Community Investment Corporation
Preservation not only protects what matters to America—it puts Americans to work.

Rutgers University has released a comprehensive new report that analyzes the economic impact of the federal Historic Tax Credit since its inception in 1976. This report, The First Annual Report on the Economic Impact of the Federal Historic Tax Credit, has the potential to become a powerful tool for preservation strategy and advocacy in these times of barren budgets.

During a recent visit to Charlotte, N.C., President Obama said in reference to the 8.2 million jobs lost since 2008 that what the government can do is “help to create the conditions” for job creation. The report’s key finding—that historic rehabilitation has created 1.8 million jobs over the past 30 years—suggests that the federal historic tax credit is one government program that does just that. With much of the nation’s attention focused on either jobs or the deficit, this well-timed report attests to the urgent need to increase historic preservation activity to stimulate the economy.

The study was commissioned by the Historic Tax Credit Coalition (HTCC), led by its chairman, John Leith-Tetrault, also president of the National Trust Community Investment Corporation (NTCIC). Similar studies previously conducted on state tax credits, such as those by Donovan Rypkema of the Washington, D.C.–based firm PlaceEconomics, had produced positive findings at the state level, but this type of study had never been conducted at the federal level. Leith-Tetrault wanted to show Congress that preservation funding could be a part of a jobs agenda, and knew that a report with a national scope might make the case. The report was also conducted with the hope that its findings would support pending federal legislation, the Community Restoration and Revitalization Act (HR 3715) that modernizes the federal historic tax credit.

Editor's Note:
This article is nearly a year old now, but its stats are very relevant.

Click here for Link

14. No Mean City: Todd Saunders
Alex Boskovic

A chat with a rising architecture star, the Norway-based Canadian Todd Saunders, who's coming to Toronto for a talk next week. He tells about struggling with the landscape, his plans to build in cities, and his pleasure when his architecture makes people say "holy sh-t" in 15 languages.

Click here for Link

15. torontoist.com: The Maclean House Quandary
Steve Kupferman

The Maclean House, at 7 Austin Terrace, isn't looking so good these days. Its windows have been ripped out and replaced with sheets of plywood. The columns and arched pediment that used to frame the main entrance have been removed, seemingly with a sledgehammer. All that's left is a gap in the house's stucco cladding. A long wire juts out, connected to nothing.

Wednesday, the Toronto and East York Community Council approved a demolition permit for this ramshackle wreck. "Good," you may be thinking.

Except the building won't be demolished for a very long time, in all likelihood. And this is where things get interesting.

The Maclean House was originally built in 1910, and has been a fixture down the street from Casa Loma ever since. It gets its name from its original occupant: John B. Maclean, a Torontonian reporter, editor, and publisher, whose last name lives on as the title of a little news magazine you may have heard of. His company published it.

Click here for Link

16. therecord.com: Original St. Clement school demolished in old Preston
Kevin Swayze

David Bebee/Record staff: School falls Demolition of the old St. Clement Catholic Secondary School on Duke St. in Cambridge.

CAMBRIDGE — Nearly a century of history came crashing down Wednesday in the heart of old Preston.

Demolition workers knocked down the brick walls of the one-time St. Clement Catholic school at Westminster Drive and William Street.

“I’m really sorry to see it go. My great grandfather donated money to help build it” in 1913, Greg Pautler, a member of St. Clement’s church, said as he took photos.

His grandparents, parents and brother learned their ABCs and multiplication tables there, although Pautler attended St. Michael Catholic school on Concession Road.

Pautler is disgusted at the lack of care it received from the Waterloo Region Catholic School Board, since the school became vacant five years ago.

The church purchased the old building from the school board in September for $375,000 — after donating it to the board decades earlier.

Click here for Link

17. Stratford Beacon Herald: CNR Shops - Heritage advocates at odds over property
DONAL OCONNOR

Thor Dingman, an architect and an executive member of the Stratford Perth chapter of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, would like to see the heritage committee take a position on the heritage merits of the building as a first step

Heritage advocates at odds over property

Heritage Stratford has yet to take a position on preservation of the former CNR shops on the Cooper site and won’t take a stand until consultant Christopher Borgal completes his heritage review of the 1908 structure.

“ We haven’t taken a definitive stand on it,” said Allan O’Neill, who chairs the nine-member Heritage Stratford committee whose mandate includes advocacy and promotion of heritage conservation.

“ I’m hoping there will be some information there ( in the Borgal report) that will give our committee a chance to look at that site and then make some recommendations.”

In an interview Friday, O’Neill rejected the notion that the committee should focus on the heritage value of the building and site and leave issues such as possible reuse and associated costs for future discussion and decisionmaking.

O’Neill said the committee has two mandates and one of them is a responsibility to recommend to council something that has a chance of working.

Click here for Link

18. Montreal Gazette: Saving Redpath Mansion, a little, very late
Linda Gyulai

Zoning unclear in Redpath plan

MONTREAL – The city’s change of heart over the fate of the 125-year-old Redpath Mansion downtown is a victory for heritage activists, but the fact the project got as far as it did reveals a kind of institutional amnesia when it comes to the generation-old urban planning battles that led the city to adopt height restrictions around the mountain, Heritage Montreal policy director Dinu Bumbaru says.

On Friday, city councillor Sammy Forcillo announced on behalf of Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay that the city was withdrawing its support for a developer’s plan to demolish the remains of the du Musée Ave. mansion and build a seven-storey condominium building in its place. It was just a few days before the Ville Marie borough council, headed by Tremblay, was to approve the third and final reading of the project Monday night.

“Of course we’re content with the decision, but we have to work so that we can prevent this kind of thing in the future,” Bumbaru said of the controversy that surrounded the project.

The Tremblay administration, with the backing of the borough’s urban planning department, was prepared to grant Redpath owner Amos Sochaczevski a nine-metre – or two-floor – height derogation despite resistance from Heritage Montreal and the project’s neighbours. Last-minute pressure from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts provoked the change of heart, Bumbaru noted.

By Bumbaru’s reckoning, the fact the Redpath project got as far as it did shows that city urban planners and politicians have forgotten the context that brought about the height restrictions.

The Queen Anne-style Redpath Mansion was built in 1886 for the Redpath family, on a slope overlooking Sherbrooke St. W. The Square Mile, as the area is known, was a neighbourhood of houses and estates before unregulated development in the 1960s and 1970s ripped most of them down.

The Redpath Mansion’s demolition was started in 1986 when members of the Sochaczevski family bought it, but Heritage Montreal obtained a court injunction to halt the razing.

Following the 1986 Redpath battle, Montreal created its first city-wide master plan in 1992. It was revised in 2004. And because of the master plan, du Musée Ave. hasn’t been taken over by towers, Bumbaru said.

“These discussions took place almost a generation ago, and many of the people who are now in charge just know the numbers,” Bumbaru said. “They don’t know the spirit, the reason why these are the numbers. Then you end up with politicians who ... say they want to stop ‘immobilisme,’ so they’ll authorize anything.”

Click here for Link

19. Green Real Estate Law Journal: OMB "Green(wash?) doesn't trump Planning"
Stephen Del Percio

In Toronto, Ontario Municipal Board Rejects Request for LEED-Based Project Variance

We’re happy to be back here at GRELJ after an extended winter holiday- I hope 2011 is treating you well so far.

Last month, the Ontario Municipal Board considered a variance dispute in Toronto’s Kingsway neighborhood. Specifically, the Board considered arguments from the applicants that the “modernist” design for their proposed 3-story home at 7 Ashwood Crescent - for which they intended to seek LEED certification and would replace an existing bungalow – qualified for a variance to Toronto’s Official Plan and the Ontario Planning Act on the basis that its proposed green features and third-party certification constituted “extenuating circumstances.”

In its decision rejecting the applicants’ request, the Board noted that their case “opened with emphasis on LEED. The architect’s letter called LEED ‘the best guarantee with respect to the quality’” of the project and that “environmental sustainability will be promoted.” (As you review the decision, note that the Board did not provide any overt criticism or critique of LEED, nor did it point to any authority addressing LEED or other green building performance issues).

However, the Board did state that it “must be cautious . . . concerning ’sustainability’ and various trademarks for ‘green building’ – not for fear of overextending the cause of environmental innovation but, on the contrary, of trivializing it. The Board takes notice that, with so many reported attempts by all and sundry to oversell environmental benefits (notably to expedite approvals), a new word was coined in North America – ‘greenwashing.’ It also applies to construction.” The Board also pointed out that razing the existing bungalow “in the name of environmental sustainability” would “surprise at least some observers.”

Editor's Note:
Interesting article, thanks to Lloyd Alter who forwarded. Lloyd has been pounding away at the argument that demolition is emphatically not green....the message seems to be getting out.

Click here for Link

20. Globe and Mail: The exponential power of public squares
John Allemang

The Mall, Washington

Revolutions need space. All across the Middle East Friday, hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets and took ownership of the vast public places where democracy feels most at home. Merely by their very presence, massed together out in the open, the exuberant protesters have loosened the grip of the cabals and clans and backroom boys who thought they held control.

The fight for democracy is a public event where numbers really matter. Social networks are only a starting point: It’s not about the likes of MySpace but more about Our Space. Twitter’s intimacy implies the presence of a like-minded crowd, but technology’s quick connections can’t compare with the noisy, unpredictable volume of human flesh crammed together in the pungent open air. Dictators have to take notice of what’s going on outside their walls – because something so palpably physical and dangerously dynamic can’t just be ignored.

Western societies like ours tilt toward a more private and personal view of social life. Where computer networks and consumer comforts suppress outbreaks of dissent, and where protests marginalize into staged and stylized flash mobs, it’s easy to forget the public realm’s political possibilities.

The city square is the original social medium, the place where power is openly asserted and contested. It’s not in itself a generator of democracy, any more than a social-media instrument like Facebook is intrinsically good or evil. But just by being vast and visible, the living embodiment of the networks’ electronic claims, these meeting places can make democracy’s aspirations more real.

The square evolved as the middle ground between public and private life – in Renaissance Florence it could showcase wealth and taste, in papal Rome it radiated the power of the Church, in revolutionary Paris it hosted public executions (part entertainment, part intimidation, part political pep rally), in Moscow it could be transformed via Communism from public marketplace to a showcase for state power and military might. Tiananmen Square in Beijing may now be a byword for heavy-handed oppression, but that underlines the ambiguous nature of public space – it, too, was once a place of the people, the spot where festive democracy-seekers flocked to find a common cause. Before the tanks rolled in, it behaved more like the Woodstock of China’s pro-democracy movement.

Editor's Note:
I can't help but wonder if any of these great public spaces are marred by condominiums towering over the great public buildings.....not in Washington for sure, but soon to be at Queen's Park. Anyone in the streets in any of those countries would literally kill to have what Canadians just take for granted.

Click here for Link

21. City of Toronto - Employment Opportunity- Preservation Officer Position and Preservation Assistant Position

Please use the link below to view two job postings at the City of Toronto, Heritage Preservation Services:


Preservation Officer - File Reference #: X11CSB21001

Preservation Assistant - File Reference #: X11CSB20956

http://wx.toronto.ca/inter/hr/jobs.nsf/current+opportunities 


To apply for these positions, please submit a resume and cover letter to www.toronto.ca/employment (Current Opportunities). Please do not send
duplicates.

Applications must be received by February 24, 2011.
 

22. What Happened to CHPIF Wind Up Report?
Catherine Nasmith

The National Trust piece on the economic impact of heritage tax credits in the U.S. reminded me that there was to be a  wrap up report on the CHPIF program released in 2010?

The Commercial Heritage Properties Incentive Program made the difference between saving or losing several heritage properties in Canada but was cancelled by the incoming Harper government.

The Alton Mill in Ontario, http://www.altonmill.ca would not have happened without CHPIF. Its economic impact in Alton has been huge, bringing synergy to the adjacent Millcroft Inn, and encouraging the purchase and renewal of several other heritage properties on the main street.

Did that report get finished, is it public?

Was it buried by the government that was so dumb as to kill the best potential job creation program they could invent?

BHN would be happy to receive unmarked brown envelopes with draft stats if they are out there! or direction to a website where the report has been posted.