Heritage Demolition: Say it isn't so.
"National Historic Site to be Dismantled or Demolished for Island Airport Tunnel." Say
it isn't so.
TPA chairman Mark McQueen seems to have earned his bona fides as someone truly interested in local history. Through Mr. McQueen's initiative, the island airport was renamed the Billy Bishop Toronto Centre Airport to honour WWI flying ace Billy Bishop even though Owen Sound named their airport after Billy Bishop first. Then, Mr. McQueen delighted in naming the airport's newest ferry after Marilyn Bell, the Toronto teenager who was the first to swim Lake Ontario.
Now, however, Chairman McQueen appears to be pronouncing out the other side of his mouth. Not content with connecting the island to the city, thus relegating its historical relationship with the city from a water-access-only entity to one that can be reached by elevators and movators. Chairman McQueen, it seems, must do something with that pesky national historic monument, the Port George VI Airport Administration Building, an edifice that the
Historic Sites and Monument Board of Canada saw fit to designate as a National Historic Site of Canada on November 17, 1989, under the federal government's Historic Sites and Monuments Act, the very same one that is listed in Parks Canada's urban Toronto walk.
http://www.pc.gc.ca/culture/proj/urbain/cartes-maps/index_e.asp?mapid=4&buildingid=32#tphp
In either dismantling or demolishing this nationally recognized building, it would seem that Chairman McQueen's historical horizon is limited to its usefulness in making a buck.
Say it isn't so.
Bob Kotyk
TPA chairman Mark McQueen seems to have earned his bona fides as someone truly interested in local history. Through Mr. McQueen's initiative, the island airport was renamed the Billy Bishop Toronto Centre Airport to honour WWI flying ace Billy Bishop even though Owen Sound named their airport after Billy Bishop first. Then, Mr. McQueen delighted in naming the airport's newest ferry after Marilyn Bell, the Toronto teenager who was the first to swim Lake Ontario.
Now, however, Chairman McQueen appears to be pronouncing out the other side of his mouth. Not content with connecting the island to the city, thus relegating its historical relationship with the city from a water-access-only entity to one that can be reached by elevators and movators. Chairman McQueen, it seems, must do something with that pesky national historic monument, the Port George VI Airport Administration Building, an edifice that the
Historic Sites and Monument Board of Canada saw fit to designate as a National Historic Site of Canada on November 17, 1989, under the federal government's Historic Sites and Monuments Act, the very same one that is listed in Parks Canada's urban Toronto walk.
http://www.pc.gc.ca/culture/
In either dismantling or demolishing this nationally recognized building, it would seem that Chairman McQueen's historical horizon is limited to its usefulness in making a buck.
Say it isn't so.
Bob Kotyk
Comments