ANNOUNCEMENT(s)

Anger as historic home's features are hacked away

For those of you who are ardent about heritage preservation, you may be interested in the following article that appeared in the December 16 Toronto Star:

Contract workers smashed out windows with hammers and crowbars while about 10 dismayed residents watched from behind the home's old iron gates and a newly installed chain-link fence. There were some gasps and yelps from the spectators. "Oh my God, how can they do this?" one of them muttered.

Dyan Kirshenbaum, vice-president of the Casa Loma Residents Association, yelled out: "I hope you're prepared to pay for the damage!"

But they watched helplessly as the workers at 7 Austin Terrace demolished the architectural elements they say makes it worthy of consideration for historical preservation.

John Lyle, the architect who designed Union Station and the Royal Alexandra Theatre, designed the 100-year-old house and it was built for John Bayne Maclean, founder of Maclean's magazine. There are few surviving Lyle structures in the city.

Robert Levy of the Casa Loma Residents Association claimed Tuesday's demolition of the windows and the portal to the front door was 15 minutes of "targeted destruction."

"If they take out the historical elements, it makes it harder to designate." Levy said.

However, the owner of the property said the workers were securing the building for the winter and to prevent trespassing, which has been a problem in the past.

"Everything that was done today was in our rights as the property owner," said John Todd, president of 1626829 Ontario Limited. The company purchased the property for $2.3 million in October 2008. He said a city building inspector was on the scene and approved the work being done.

As a result of the foregoing, a protest rally initiated by the Casa Loma Residents Association will take place in front of 7 Austin Terrace on December 17 starting at 10:00 a.m.

This matter will come before City Council in the near future. Please watch and be prepared to show your support for heritage preservation.

 

SPECIAL REMINDER TO T.H.A. MEMBER GROUPS

As you know our Public Events Insurance Programme is now in place and available to all Groups in good standing.

This is a great feature to have available, whether your organization has existing liability coverage or not. You can access this benefit by requesting the Event Registration forms from the Treasurer.

In order not to deplete the T.H.A. resources, we have priced this service to be as reasonable as possible to all member groups so that the cost is only $ 15.00 per year.

For those members who have not contributed to the programme as yet, we'd like to urge you to forward your cheque to our post box address so that our first year's effort doesn't result in a deficit to the detriment of T.H.A.'s support for your organizations history and heritage endeavours.

Toronto Historical Association, P.O. Box 67, Toronto's First Post Office, 260 Adelaide Street East, Toronto, Ontario M5A 1N1 [ mark the cheque " insurance " ].

 

THA's new website is launched Feb 2008!  If any of THA's members would like their contact information added to the membership list, please EMail me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it