1. Heritage Toronto Walks - 2009 Season
Heritage Toronto

Heritage Toronto Walks, our free historic walking tours, cover all areas of Toronto. Held from April to October, Heritage Toronto Walks tell the stories behind the people, landscapes and historic buildings that bring Torontos neighbourhoods to life

In 2009, we're celebrating our 15th year, along with our City's 175th birthday! This year's program of Walks begins on Saturday, April 25th with a special self-guided tour entitled 1834 Toronto: Beating the Bounds.

Heritage Toronto and spacing magazine have partnered together on a walk that will take in the 1834 City boundaries in a one-of-a-kind modern"pilgrimage'. Participants can pick up a map between 1:00 and 2:30 pm at the start point and walk the route at their own pace. The map, which includes photos and 1834 historic facts, will also be available at the Heritage Toronto office after April 25th for people to do the tour at their own convenience.

Other new walks that are part of the schedule include: St. Clair West: Streetcars, Artists Colonies and More; A Symphony of Clay, Stone, Metal and Glass; Leslieville; Campus and Cosmos: Astronomy in Toronto and Thistletown.

Heritage Toronto Walks is a true community project. The tours are researched, designed and led by local historians, groups and professionals from across the City, who volunteer their time and energy. Walks are free and no reservations are required in order to attend.

This year's April to June schedule includes tours of:

Saturday, April 25 - 1834 Toronto: Beating the Bounds
Saturday, May 2 -Hidden Treasures in North Rosedale
Sunday, May 3 - West Toronto Junction
Saturday, May 9 -St. Clair West: Streetcars, Artists Colonies and More
Sunday, May 10 - Wellington Place Neighbourhood
Saturday, May 23 & Sunday, May 24 - Doors Open Toronto: Toronto-Dominion Centre - Penthouse View and Tour
Saturday, May 30 - Our Favourite Sands: Hanlans Point and the Lighthouse
Sunday, May 31 - Exploring Rural Willow Dale
Saturday, June 6 - The Howards of High Park
Sunday, June 7 - The Danforth
Saturday, June 13 - Riverdale Homes and People
Sunday, June 14 - A Symphony of Clay, Stone, Metal and Glass
Saturday, June 20 - Leslieville
Sunday, June 21 - Campus and Cosmos: Astronomy in Toronto
Saturday, June 27 - Thistletown
Saturday, June 27 - Winchester Street and the Necropolis
Sunday, June 28 - In the Footsteps of the Taylors

For full descriptions of Heritage Toronto Walks, please visit www.heritagetoronto.org or call the Heritage Toronto Information Line at 416 338-3886. The July through October walks schedule will be available in June.

The Heritage Toronto Walks Program is generously supported by TD Canada Trust and sponsored by spacing magazine.

2. Poor Answer from the Ontario Minister of Culture on Sharon Temple Funding
Hansard

Sharon Temple

Hansard, April 1 2009

http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house-proceedings/house_detail.do?Date=2009-04-01&Parl=39&Sess=1&locale=en#P346_104638
CULTURAL FUNDING
Mrs. Julia Munro: My question is to the Minister of Culture. Minister, Ontario is now a have-not province. You are running a huge deficit to pay for all of your programs. So why are you going to give $5 million to build a new museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba?

Hon. M. Aileen Carroll: Our budget has reinforced all of the initiatives that this government is taking to reinforce, to reinvigorate an economy that needs the kind of leadership and the kind of courage that this Premier and this finance minister have shown in the budget. I'm very proud of that portion of the budget that falls within the realm of culture. I'm very proud of what this government is doing: understanding the role of culture in this creative, knowledge-based economy. Everything the government is doing is exactly right, exactly what we should be doing in facing these difficult times.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary.
Mrs. Julia Munro: Well, instead of giving $5 million in the middle of a recession to another province, why don't you give it to projects in Ontario? The Sharon Temple in my riding is looking for $50,000 for renovations. Shouldn't you be providing money for Ontario's museums and heritage sites like the Sharon Temple, rather than money going outside the province?

Hon. M. Aileen Carroll: I'm really disappointed at my honourable colleague's approach in this regard. This government has an incredible track record in reinforcing heritage sites, museums, art galleries, TV and film production, and a great understanding of exactly what we should be doing as a government who gets it on the culture file.

The Sharon Temple is an excellent and a fabulous location of not just Ontario historical happenings but Canadian happenings. It is, indeed, a file that I'm very cognizant of. I've met with the people involved, and I look forward to hearing about future developments in your riding and on that project.

Holistically speaking, one could not ask more from a government on culture and the creative economy than one could ask of this government. Our response has received nothing but kudos from every sector of this economy-

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you, Minister.

Editor's Note:
This structure in my view is worthy of World Heritage Status, but gets NO Government support. As we speak the windows are being repaired using funds raised by the local community. Shame on Ontario, this is critical cultural infrastructure.

3. Call for Nomination-The 2009 Heritage Toronto Awards
Heritage Toronto

The Heritage Toronto Awards celebrate outstanding contributions - by professionals and volunteers - in the promotion and conservation of Toronto's history and heritage landmarks. Heritage Toronto asks you to consider some of the more significant achievements, especially during 2008, and invites you to submit a nomination for the 35th Annual Heritage Toronto Awards.

We would like to hear from you! The success of this program depends 100% on the participation of the community and you are encouraged to submit a nomination for any initiative you feel is worthy of recognition - be it a leadership role in conserving the heritage of a community, a residential renovation, the on-going conservation of a natural heritage site, a book or article or a large scale project incorporating technologies that extends the life of a structure.

This year, nominations will be accepted in the following categories:

William Greer Architectural Conservation and Craftsmanship - for excellence in the restoration or adaptive reuse of a building 40 years old or older. Projects of all sizes will be considered; from the restoration of the façade or front porch on a house to a major renovation of a commercial building.

Book - for a non-fiction book about Toronto's archaeological, built, cultural and/or natural heritage and history, published in 2008.

Media - for a non-fiction production about Toronto's archaeological, built, cultural and/or natural heritage and history. Projects such as films, websites, maps, newsletters and exhibits are eligible in this category.

Community Heritage Award - a cash prize awarded to one volunteer-based organization in each of the four Community Council areas for a significant activity that promotes or protects heritage within the Community Council area.

For details about eligibility standards and what should be included in nomination submissions, please see the nomination forms on the Heritage Toronto website www.heritagetoronto.org. The deadline for nominations is Monday, June 1, 2009. If you have any questions about the nomination process or the eligibility of projects, please contact Nancy Luno at nluno@toronto.ca or 416-338-2175.

The Awards will be presented in October 2009, in conjunction with the William Kilbourn Memorial Lecture at the Heritage Toronto Gala evening.

4. Toronto Star: Ex-mayor documents high cost of suburbia
Christopher Hume

'BURBS BY THE NUMBERS

Statistics from John Sewell's book on the history of suburbia:

1.5 metres
amount of road per person in Toronto's downtown

5.5 metres
amount of road per person in Toronto's suburbs

6.8 km
average daily car travel by a downtown resident (1995)

23.2 km
average daily car travel by a suburban resident (1995)

1 million
number of housing units built in GTA, 1940–2000

2.6:1
ratio of house price to income in 1953

6.4:1
ratio of house price to income in 2005

 

Recessions may not be fun, but they can be useful. In southern Ontario, the slowdown presents an ideal moment to stop and take a look at who controls growth, and to what end.

Since the 1950s, of course, the development industry has been in the driver's seat. It does what it does, and very well, but few would disagree that the sprawl it has left us has created more problems than it solved. And in the years ahead, those problems will grow worse.

In his highly informative new book, The Shape of the Suburbs: Understanding Toronto's Sprawl, former Toronto mayor John Sewell examines the local history of suburbia and includes facts and figures that in themselves tell a fascinating, if damning, tale.

His is a story of land-use policies so ineffective they have allowed developers to squander much of the most desirable real estate in the country.

Editor's Note:
Note: The book launch event at the Gladstone tomorrow night

Click here for Link

5. Treehugger: St. Thomas Railway Station
Lloyd Alter

A Visit To A Very Different Michigan Central Station

photo, Catherine Nasmith

Yesterday I wrote about the possible loss of Michigan Central Station in Detroit, which I considered a tragedy. Citizens of Detroit disagreed, saying that there was no money, there were other greater needs, and that it was too far gone to be saved. Coincidentally, last night I found myself 110 miles down the track in another abandoned and deteriorated Michigan Central Railroad Station, in another economically depressed town, St. Thomas, Ontario, that is following a very different trajectory.

Editor's Note:
go to the site for fantastic photos, and an interview on training people in restoration, and funding this project

Click here for Link

6. Toronto Star: Cemetery Protection
Jim Coyle

MPP looks from here to eternity

For better or worse, legislators are usually captive to the quick fix, slaves to the short-term imperatives of polls and squeaky wheels, their vision limited to horizons not much farther ahead than the next election.

Not Jim Brownell.

In a realm of the transient and fleeting – the daily question period, the weekly caucus meetings, the annual budgets – the eastern Ontario MPP is concerned with, well, the big picture, with eternity, with the sweet hereafter.

To that end, the backbench Liberal has sponsored a private member's bill to ensure inactive cemeteries scattered around Ontario are protected and preserved in their current locations, safeguarding the final resting places of those who have (presumably) long since cast their last ballot.

Brownell (who previously sponsored legislation to preserve the gravesites of former Ontario premiers) plainly concurs with Benjamin Franklin, who said: "Show me your cemeteries and I will tell you what kind of people you have."

Cemeteries are more than the gravesites of individuals, he said during second reading debate on his bill. They are repositories of history, "a priceless, authentic historical record of the past."

Click here for Link

7. The Globe and Mail: Building the Dream
Isadore Sharp

My sister Edith had married Edmund Creed, son of Jack Creed, who owned Creeds, a highly fashionable clothing store. Eddie's best friend was Murray Koffler, a pharmacist whose father died, leaving him a drugstore. He now owned two and before long would own many more. I'd built a rental apartment over one drugstore for Murray, and since he and Eddie were always looking for ways to invest in real estate and we all lived in the same neighborhood, all three of us were soon talking frequently about building a motel. None of us, of course, knew anything about the hotel business, let alone the prospects for a motel within the city.

I approached Max Tanenbaum, of course; Max was everybody's financier. “You're crazy,” he said. “You know nothing about the hotel business. I do, and I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole.”

So when Murray read in Time magazine about a man named Mike Robinson, who ran a successful chain of motels, one of them in downtown Phoenix, I wrote him a letter. He invited us down, so Murray and I flew to Phoenix.

Finally I enlisted the help of a friend, real estate broker Andrew Csepely, a colourful refugee from Budapest whom I'd met when he came to me with a new concept for Canada – cooperative apartments, the precursor of condominiums – and in 1957 we built Toronto's first co-op on Avenue Road. Andrew brought a European sensibility to his view of future Toronto land values, which put him well ahead of his competitors, and he found us a good-sized piece of property on Jarvis Street in the center of the city. All three of us liked it. But almost everyone we talked to about it had the same reaction: “How could you think of building a motel or hotel on Jarvis Street! People will think it's a flophouse!” Jarvis was, at the turn of the century, a major thoroughfare of grand mansions for families such as the Masseys and the Seagrams. Since then, it had slowly gone downhill; it was now a hangout for gangsters, hookers, and street people, with many rooming houses on that street selling drugs or sex. But I believed in our courtyard concept and doubted that land in the center of a fast-growing city like Toronto could remain cheap.

Click here for Link

8. TreeHugger: Heritage is Green
Lloyd Alter

Richard Moe on "This Old Wasteful House"

 Richard Moe is the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He is concerned that many of our old buildings will be sacrificed on the altar of energy conservation. He writes an op-ed in the New York Times:

Before demolishing an old building to make way for a new one, consider the amount of energy required to manufacture, transport and assemble the pieces of that building. With the destruction of the building, all that energy is utterly wasted. Then think about the additional energy required for the demolition itself, not to mention for new construction. Preserving a building is the ultimate act of recycling.

The article is full of good ideas for fixing up old houses.

Click here for Link

9. Barrie Examiner: Future of historic hotel up in the air
Nicki Cruickshank

1880, from Town of Springwater website

Amanda Geist is no history buff, but she loves the historic elements and the quiet lifestyle her little village is known for.

So the Hillsdale resident says she's disgusted with the thought of a local landmark potentially being torn down in the near future.

"The building is designated as a heritage building, and it's important to Hillsdale and the surrounding areas because it's one of the only old hotels left in Simcoe County," said Geist, a seven-year resident. "It's been left in a terrible state of decay for many years, and it's becoming an eyesore. A lot of people don't see the potential of the building, but I do."

Three months ago, the Simcoe House Hotel (O'Neil Tavern) in Hillsdale was requested to be demolished by the owner of the private property, located at the corner of Penetanguishene Road and Mill Street.

That request is being considered by Springwater Township staff and council.

Click here for Link

10. Cambridge Now!: City Of Cambridge Preserves Mansion On The Hill As Potential Heritage Building
Thomas Hagey

The City of Cambridge took possession of an important cultural heritage property ensuring the house will be saved for future generations. To guarantee the city landmark is protected, City Council gave direction to spend $150,000 on the property located at 65 Concession Street .

This could easily become one of the finest homes in the city. Cambridge NOW visited the property and took a walk around the property with a video camera to give you a peek at what is there. It is oozing with potential, and once restored would be the envy of your house guests.

There is a private drive leading up to it off of Concession which offers the future owner total seclusion...which throws the whole concept of ownership into a new light.

Staff purchased the property with the intent to resell it and to have the new owner designate it under the Ontario Heritage Act, says Steven Fairweather , Commissioner of Corporate Services.

Constructed in the 1880s of grey granite in the Italianate style of architecture, the house was originally built for Frederick G. Allenby, one of Galts first solicitors. Later it was owned by William Philip, son-in-law to Allenby, who was the President of Gore Mutual Insurance Company. Philip is best known for being the first chair of both the Grand River Conservation Commission (1938) and the Grand River Conservation Authority (1948). Subsequently, the house became part of the Hilltop Manor Nursing Home owned by peopleCare Inc.

In late October of 2007, peopleCare submitted an application with the City to demolish the stone residential structure. A permit for demolition was requested by the firm in June 2008.

Editor's Note: story contains some excellent photos and a short video clip.

Click here for Link

11. Georgina Advocate.com: Preserving local culture earns award
Amanda Persico

Leslie Oliver recently received the Ontario Heritage Award for lifetime achievement for promoting the preservation of Aurora's cultural heritage for more than 40 years.

History and culture fit hand in hand.

"History is the driving force that shapes what we think and do," says Leslie Oliver, one of the founders of the Aurora Historical Society. "Culture is expression of thought. Realizing culture is evidential to understanding our times."

Mr. Oliver, 80, recently received the Lieutenant Governor's Ontario Heritage Award for lifetime achievement for promoting the preservation of Aurora's cultural heritage for more than 40 years.

As the first chairperson of the Aurora heritage committee, Mr. Oliver led the creation of the first inventory of the town's heritage buildings.

He was also instrumental in starting the Aurora Historical Society in 1963 and setting up the society's first museum in Doan Hall.

http://www.georginaadvocate.com/News/Aurora/article/90267

Click here for Link

12. Gravenhurst Banner: Township council designates heritage properties
Karen Longwell

Preserving the past for future generations brought two former schoolhouses in Muskoka Lakes into the spotlight recently.

Council recently approved heritage designations for the former Port Carling schoolhouse, which now houses the municipal office on Bailey Street, and the former Glen Orchard schoolhouse and cemetery on West Whites Road.

The township,s strategic plan states council should investigate and designate two heritage properties each year, said David Pink, senior planner for the township.

Liz Lundell, heritage consultant for the municipality, investigated both properties and determined the buildings are of architectural and historical interest, said Pink.

Click here for Link

13. Innisfil Journal.com: Farmstead falls in demolition
Bruce Hain

History vanishes. A century-old house on the 6th Line of Innisfil near Sideroad 20 was quickly demolished last week.

from the Innisfill Journal

Another one of Innisfil's old farmsteads has fallen to the wrecker's ball.

A two-storey house at 1438 6th Line, just east of the 20th Sideroad came down in a matter of hours last Thursday.

The structure had not been designated as a heritage property but did appear on the Potential Inventory List of Heritage Sites prepared by the Innisfil Historical Society last April.

The Town of Innisfil issued a demolition permit for the house on Oct. 15, 2008.

Click here for Link

14. London Free Press: Antiquities Shoppe's days numbered
Jonathan Sher

The Wellington Street landmark needs a champion, advocates say

photo, London Free Press

Londoners have 90 days to spare the 136-year-old Antiquities Shoppe from the wrecking ball fate that has felled so many area heritage buildings.

The owner of the bright red building on Wellington Street has agreed to delay a request for a demolition permit in the hope those who would like it saved will volunteer their efforts and donate money needed to preserve a structure that engineers say is in danger of collapse.

Owner Dixon Winder wants to save the building, too. His family built the structure in 1873 as a grocery store and homestead at a time when that neighbourhood was growing to house workers hired by what was then a thriving oil business in east London.

But engineers say to save it, the entire building that leans to the north must be lifted off the ground so its crumbling foundation can be replaced.

Click here for Link

15. newsdurhamregion.com: Genosha sold - Clean-up to start within a week, construction within three months
Jillian Follert

OSHAWA -- The sale has closed on the Genosha Hotel and a local developer says clean-up will begin within a week.

The deal closed March 18, marking the second time in five years that the downtown landmark has changed hands. But Rick Summers says this time will be nothing like the last, when plans quickly fell through.

He plans to sink $6.1 million into the building, restoring its heritage features and creating 103 student residence units on the upper floors and high-end commercial space on the ground level. . . .

Built in 1929 at King and Mary streets, the Genosha was Oshawa's first luxury hotel, enjoying years of high-profile success. The stately building fell on hard times in recent decades, with the upper floors used for a rooming house and a strip club operating in the basement until 2003.

Click here for Link

16. Niagara Advance: $150,000 Trillium grant for Willowbank means summer work for studentS
Penny Coles

This summer Willowbank will launch a documentation program for historic places at risk, thanks to a $150,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

The program will build up an inventory of critical information about Niagara's rich historic architectural and landscape heritage. It will target properties that are proposed for demolition, or that are deteriorating through vandalism, neglect or inappropriate use, says Shelley Huson, school administrator at Willowbank.

The program is designed for young people, who will be invited to participate as a summer employment opportunity.

It will be open to students in high school, college or university or to those in the work force or currently unemployed.

After an intensive training session in documentation techniques at Willowbank's National Historic Site estate, the participants will record key information about buildings, structures and landscapes through research, photographs, drawings, and interpretive mapping.

Click here for Link

17. Niagara Advance: Councillors take first step toward third party heritage designation of Laura Secord
Penny Coles

photo from Niagara Advance

Council is backing the request of the Queenston Residents Association to designate Laura Secord Memorial School an historic building at least at this stage of the process.

The residents association hopes to prevent inappropriate development on the property, and wants the building and the site protected by heritage designation.

The town has never carried out a third-party designation, preferring instead to have property owner's consent, however council-initiated designations have occurred elsewhere in the province, a planning report states.

Editor's Note:
It is amazing that after the precedent setting Ontario Divisional Court decision on the Lakeshore Churches which overturned the Municipality's failure to designate an historic building because the owner was hostile that there are still municipalities who don't appreciate that it is not necessary to have the owner in favour. Simply put the Lakeshore decision said that if we only designated when an owner was in favour we would not need the Ontario Heritage Act. It is there to protect Ontario's heritage not property owners who seek to destroy it.

Click here for Link

18. Orillia Sun Times: Closing of the Huronial Regional Centre
Frank Matys

HRC memories rich: Sherry Lawson

Sherry Lawson, whose late mother worked as a nurse at the Huronia Regional Centre, said goodbye to the facility on March 31, the day of its closure.

Sherry Lawson gazed east, down the sloping hill topped with winter-worn grass toward the beach where a community had gathered in summer.

“It is a day to say goodbye to this place,” Lawson said as she surveyed the grounds of the Huronia Regional Centre.

The final few residents had been moved from the provincial facility days before, the result of a government mandate that calls for supervised community placement over institutional living.

For many, it was the only home they’d ever known, having lived at the site since childhood.

“I hope it doesn’t go to wrack and ruin,” said Lawson, who came to know the HRC through her mother, Margaret ‘Peggy’ Douglas, a nurse who died at age 42.
“If she was still alive, she would have come to say goodbye.”

Click here for Link

19. Owen Sound Sun Times: City, Catholic board heading for hearing
Denis Langlois

Owen Sound and the Catholic school board are heading for a full-blown conservation board hearing over the protection of St. Mary's High School's oldest wing

Owen Sound and the Catholic school board are heading for a full-blown conservation board hearing over the protection of St. Mary's High School's oldest wing.

City manager Jim Harrold said the provincial Conservation Review Board has scheduled the hearing for June 15 and 16.

The Bruce-Grey Catholic District School Board planned to knock down the school's 1891 wing after building a two-storey addition. The board received $3.7 million for the addition but no money to repair the original section, deemed cost prohibitive to repair.

City council is trying to designate the old section under the Ontario Heritage Act, which would ban its demolition without council consent. An objection to designation filed by the school board led to the conservation review board hearing.

Board officials have said they will be faced with no choice but to board up the old building and leave it in its current state if the demolition is blocked.

The Conservation Review Board will make a non-binding recommendation to city council at the end of the June hearing.

Council will make the final decision, which the school board can still appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board. If the OMB's make a ruling it will be binding.

Click here for Link

20. Owne Sound Sun Times: Heritage debate follows Curtis in Alberta
Denis Langlois

Former Owen Sound city manager Craig Curtis is again embroiled in a debate over the impending demolition of an historic downtown inn, a situation reminiscent of the 2006 Queens Hotel saga

Former Owen Sound city manager Craig Curtis is again embroiled in a debate over the impending demolition of an historic downtown inn, a situation reminiscent of the 2006 Queen's Hotel saga.

Council in Red Deer, Alta., where Curtis is city manager, is being criticized for not taking sufficient steps to preserve the 110-year-old Arlington Inn in the city's downtown.

Reached Thursday, Curtis said the Queen's Hotel and Arlington Inn situations are totally different.

Unlike the Queen's Hotel, the Arlington is city-owned, has little historical value and was purchased so the building could be demolished and its property redeveloped, Curtis said.

They're totally different situations, like any historical building. The one (in Owen Sound) was a private ownership. Here it's a public initiative where there is no historical merit and there, there was significant historical merit, Curtis said.

But Tim Lasiuta, who presented council with a 375-signature petition to stop the inn's demolition, said the Red Deer council is ignoring evidence that the building is structurally sound and historically significant.

They've decided to sacrifice the building for the sake of the future, totally ignoring the fact that a building that's 110 years old now, in 50 years will be 160 years old and a 160-year-old building is a heck of a lot better attraction than a 50-year-old office tower, Lasiuta said Wednesday.

The City of Red Deer purchased the inn last fall for $1.2 million. The city and province both concluded the inn is not historically significant enough to save.

Click here for Link

21. Peterborough Examiner: Former rooming house converted to loft condos
FIONA ISAACSON

A 126-year-old George Street building is getting a facelift to give it a modern look, while maintaining its old world charm, said the building's owner.

Up until about a year ago 760 George Street, just south of Barnardo Avenue, was a 24-unit rooming house bought by Craig Larmer in September 2005.

Since August, it's undergone extensive renovations to turn it into seven loft-style condominiums with exposed brick.

Larmer, who has relatives in Peterborough, said he originally purchased the building for rental income, but thought about turning it into condos.

Construction began in August.

Lofts range in size and price, from 790 to 1,776 square feet, and $164,900 to $259,900.

Click here for Link

22. St. Catharines Standard: OMB review could open"whole can of worms"
Marlene Bergsma

If Ontario Municipal Board chair Marie Hubbard agrees the decision to approve the Port Place tower should be reviewed, it's possible the whole OMB process could be back at square one.

On such a complicated matter as this, we could well be looking at a whole new hearing, said Tom Richardson, lawyer for developer Port Dalhousie Vitalization Corp. That is opening the whole can of worms.

Citizens' group PROUD (Port Realizing Our Unique Distinction), land-use activist John Bacher and Jeff Loucks have each paid $125 to ask that the February decision of OMB vicechair Susan Campbell be reviewed. (Loucks said his request was filed on behalf of a group of about 20 people who originally appealed St. Catharines city council's June 2006 decision to approve the controversial development.)

Click here for Link

23. The Grand Cornice-and-Pediment Tour
CONSTANCE ROSENBLUM

AIA Guide to New York City, which is scheduled to appear in its fifth incarnation in the spring of 2010.

NORVAL WHITE, one of the great figures of New York architecture, was cruising around Long Island City a couple of months ago when he came upon an unexpected sight. On Jackson Avenue, in this still scrappy-looking section of Queens, stood a newish co-op sheathed in luminous squares of blue glass. Its designer, Robert Scarano Jr., is one of the less beloved figures among the city's architectural cognoscenti, and much to Mr. White's amazement, he didn't actually hate the thing.

It's definitely a cut above his other stuff, Mr. White, his lean, 6-foot-5 frame tucked into the front seat of a gray Subaru Forester, acknowledged in his plummy baritone. It has some quality. We'll have to include Scarano in the guide.

On this matter, Mr. White, 82, got no argument from his companion on this expedition, a Yale-educated professor of architecture named Francis Leadon, who at roughly half Mr. White's age represents the new generation in the field.

Holy moley, Mr. Leadon murmured as the car in which they were traveling rounded a corner, offering an even more dazzling view of the building. It is a phrase he uses a lot.

The guide in question, as anyone with affection for the five boroughs would know, is the AIA Guide to New York City, which is scheduled to appear in its fifth incarnation in the spring of 2010. The work, being published by Oxford University Press, will comprise 1,100 pages and include entries for nearly 6,000 buildings, Mr. Scarano's icy blue co-op likely among them.

Over its more than four decades of existence, the guide has evolved into a New York institution, as much a city fixture among a certain crowd as Fourth of July fireworks over the East River. Born during an era in which such guidebooks were a rarity, the publication splashed onto the scene in 1967, when Mr. White and another young architect named Elliot Willensky (W & W, some people called them) produced it for conventioneers at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Architects, held that year in New York.

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24. Waterloo Record: Hespeler makeover
forwarded by Brian Dietrich

Nestled along the banks of the Speed River, the community of Hespeler boasts one of the finest natural settings in southern Ontario. And if an ambitious development proceeds in an old riverbank factory later this year, Hespeler will make better use of this setting than it has in years.

In September, the JG Group of Companies plans to transform Hespeler's old American Standard plant and create 120 lofts in buildings that once housed a grist mill, a cotton mill, a distillery, gas house and bathtub factory.

Click here for Link

25. Windsor Star: Lakewood withdraws demolition application
Gary Rennie

The Lakewood Golf Course building in Tecumseh is pictured on Wednesday May 23, 2007.Photograph by: Tyler Brownbridge, The Windsor StarTECUMSEH - The owners of Lakewood Golf Course have withdrawn their application for a demolition permit in the wake of the town's decision not to put a precedent-setting heritage designation on the course.

The Lakewood course at the foot of Manning Road has opened for the 2009 season with some golfers already out Monday for a few rounds, said owner David Ublansky.

But the long-running and expensive battle over residential development of the 91-acre course isn't over.

Alan Patton, London, Ont., lawyer for Sumatara Investments Ltd., said official plan and zoning changes would be sought from the Ontario Municipal Board for development of the course for single family and multiple-unit residential buildings.

Click here for Link

26. Winnipeg Free Press: Met makeover about to begin From historic theatre to supper club
Murray McNeill

The curtain is about to rise on the long-awaited restoration and redevelopment of the historic Metropolitan Theatre.

The Canad Inns corporation plans to launch the first phase of the project within the next two months, company president and chairman Leo Ledohowski said in an interview.

"We'll start as soon as the weather breaks," Ledohowski said, adding the plan is to work on the exterior of the Donald Street landmark first, then tackle the interior.

Canad Inns plans to convert the 90-year-old movie theatre into what Ledohowski described as "a super supper club" featuring food and beverages and entertainment. It will also cater to special events such as high school graduation dinners and corporate functions. One night a week it may also operate as a nightclub.

"We're not finished with all of the plans yet," he said. "But it will be the finest establishment of its kind in the city."

Because some details still need to be worked out, it's unclear how long it will take to complete the project. Ledohowski said the hope is to complete it either this year or in 2010.

Asked how much the company plans to spend, he said, "I would be surprised if $10 million covers it."

CentreVenture Development Corp., the city's downtown development agency, has been trying for more than four years to breathe new life into the former Famous Players movie palace, which has been vacant since 1987.

Click here for Link

27. Canmore Leader: Historic building lost in the backcountry (a second time!)
Hamish MacLean

The first hut built by the Alpine Club of Canada burned to the ground early this month.

Lawrence White, president of the Alpine Club, said that the loss was a tragedy. The first Fay Hut was built in Prospector's Valley in 1927, it was burned down in 2003 and then an army of volunteers rebuilt on the site of the original log hut in 2005.

We've got a long history in that valley and just to see that first facility burn down through an act of god, really, brought our club and community together to see something resurrected "so to speak " to say it's a loss to the club is probably an understatement, it's a huge blow to the morale of rebuilding something that was so dear to us.

The national club, with about 10,000 members, will have to wait until a May 2 board meeting to know what happened to the hut and what will become of the new hut, or whether a new incarnation of the Fay Hut will be pursued at all.

The original facility stood in the valley for nearly 80 years and now in the span of six years it has been destroyed twice.

There's nothing left, he said. There was a group that left on April 2 and a group that arrived on April 4.

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28. CTV Montreal: What should happen to the site of the Quebec City Armoury?
ctvmontreal.ca staff

from Canadian Forces website

A year to the day after the historic Quebec City Armoury burned down, the federal government says it is ready to hear ideas for the future of the burned out shell.

On Saturday, the minister responsible for Quebec City, Josee Verner, said public consultations will start in May with a website that will allow anyone who wants to submit an idea via the web to do so. Snail mail submissions are welcome also.

In fact, part of the reason they have officially opened the process is because people have already been sending ideas, according to Isabelle Pelletier, a spokesperson for the minister.

Some ideas include constructing a Big Top, creating a stage behind the building, making an official entrance to the Plains of Abraham.

According to Pelletier, about half of the submissions are calls for rebuilding the historic Armory.

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29. Halifax Chronicle-Herald: URB decision saves heritage buildings
Staff

THE UTILITY and Review Board's decision to reverse Halifax regional council and allow Armour Group's Waterfront Place development to proceed is a win-win ruling for the economy and the heritage of downtown Halifax.

The URB is not just allowing a nine-storey office and retail building to go forward at a time when the city needs the space and the construction activity. It's also saving the four registered heritage buildings, whose restored facades will be incorporated into the complex, from the wrecking ball.

The "overwhelming evidence," says the URB, indicates these buildings would be torn down by November if council's rejection of the project, which subsidizes the heritage work, were allowed to stand.
 

Editor's Note:
Editor's Note: A disappointing decision. Canada's courts seem to come down consistently on the side of over-development, and compromise for our heritage.

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30. NovaNewsNow.com and The Annapolis County Spectator: Residents rescue Canadas oldest Baptist Church building - Goat Island Baptist Church
Geoff Agombar

The Goat Island Baptist Church in Upper Clements is Canada's oldest surviving Baptist church, and the Goat Island Church Preservation Society is hard at work to keep it that way.

The Society hopes to re-open the building to the public this summer for the first time since 2006, when the one-exit structure, lit by kerosene lamp chandelier and candles, heated by wood stoves was deemed an untenable fire hazard.

Much work remains, but the dedication and TLC of the Society is pulling this heritage building back from the brink, and will soon return it to its rightful place as a social magnet for the area.

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31. Saint John Telegraph-Journal: Family says it's in no-win situation
ANDREW MCGILLIGAN

ROTHESAY - The family involved in a struggle with the town of Rothesay over the Dexter home says it is in a no-win situation.

The Murphy family wants to remove this home from Rothesay's heritage preservation area so it can be demolished. The family calls the home an environmental disaster. The Murphy family wants to tear down the stone house at 37 Gondola Point Rd. and clean up the thousands of litres of oil that seeped into the soil after storage tanks in the basement leaked in 2002.

However, because the home is in the town's heritage preservation area, simply swinging a wrecking ball into the house is easier said than done. In order to tear it down, the Murphys must list the residence for sale at fair market value. The heritage preservation board and the Murphys would have to agree on the listing price, something the two sides have not been able to do.

In addition to complying with town bylaws, the family is also facing a cleanup order for the property issued by the provincial Department of Environment. The order was issued April 2 and the Murphys have 90 days to comply.

Steve Murphy, the son of the owners of the home Dennis and June Murphy, said his family can't comply with the bylaws and the cleanup order.

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32. The Packet (Clarenville, NF): Editorial - Preserving history
Barbara Dean-Simmons

There is a simple solution to the issue surrounding the fate of the old railway station in Clarenville.

It lies in the hands of the town council.

The solution is posed, in fact, in a letter written by the council in 1996 to the Clarenville Shrine Club.

After a year of negotiations, the Shrine Club convinced the town council to sell them the old railway station for the sum of one dollar.

The Shriners intended to turn the building into a museum and meeting place.

It was a good idea, and still is. For a town which got its start as a service centre thanks to the arrival of the railway, there is, today, sadly not much here to remind residents or visitors of that local industrial revolution.

In fact, until the Shriners put the idea to the town, no one seemed interested in preservation of the town's past. And until the formation of the Clarenville Heritage Society a few years ago, nothing was done to try to collect, maintain and preserve local artifacts or historic sites.

Most citizens probably figured it was the town's responsibility to entertain the idea of cultural and historical preservation. Yet history was not often a matter of discussion around the council table.

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33. Times Colonist: Historic city Morley's building will be turned into nine live-work condominiums
Carla Wilson

photo from Times Colonist

The saga of the rotting and derelict 125-year-old Morley's Soda Water Factory enters a new chapter when work starts in a few weeks to create entry-level condominiums in the high-profile historic building.

This nine-month project saves an important Victoria old town building at 1315-1317 Waddington Alley, and creates nine new live-work condos at a time when many other developers are stalled during the global economic downturn.

Owner Chris Le Fevre, developer of several prominent heritage and contemporary buildings, said

Morley's units go on the market this weekend.

Le Fevre became the two-storey, brick building's white knight by buying it last year from longtime owner Clara Beatrice Kramer, who was at odds with city hall.

After the building had sat vacant for decades, its roof had collapsed. The city wanted to inspect it, along with other historic downtown buildings owned by Kramer.

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34. Smithsonian: Preserving Isfahan, Iran
Stephen Kinzer

Isfahan: Iran's Hidden Jewel

One shot from photo gallery on Smithsonian website

Once the dazzling capital of ancient Persia, Isfahan fell victim to neglect, but a new generation hopes to restore its lost luster

The courtyard is coated in a fine brown dust, the surrounding walls are crumbling and the flaking plaster is the same monotonous khaki color as the ground. This decrepit house in a decaying maze of narrow alleys in Isfahan, Iran, betrays little of the old capital's glory days in the 17th century. Suddenly, a paint-splattered worker picking at a nearby wall shouts, waves his steel trowel and points. Underneath a coarse layer of straw and mud, a faded but distinct array of blue, green and yellow abstract patterns emerges—a hint of the dazzling shapes and colors that once made this courtyard dance in the shimmering sun.

I crowd up to the wall with Hamid Mazaheri and Mehrdad Moslemzadeh, the two Iranian artist-entrepreneurs who are restoring this private residence to its former splendor. When these mosaics were still vibrant, Isfahan was larger than London, more cosmopolitan than Paris, and grander, by some accounts, than even storied Istanbul. Elegant bridges crossed its modest river, lavishly outfitted polo players dashed across the world's largest square and hundreds of domes and minarets punctuated the skyline. Europeans, Turks, Indians and Chinese flocked to the glittering Persian court, the center of a vast empire stretching from the Euphrates River in what is today Iraq to the Oxus River in Afghanistan. In the 17th century, the city's wealth and grandeur inspired the rhyming proverb, Isfahan nesf-e jahan, or "Isfahan is half the world."

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