"The stadium, also known as the CNE Grandstand, is steeped in
local lore, but never designated as architecturally important."
Joe Pantalone, Exhibition Place Chair
(SourceTorStar)
Please Help Restore the dignity of The Canadian National
Exhibition.The existing buildings and structures are part of the
collective memory of Canada.The demolition of the Grandstand will
lead to the demise of the rest of the vintage 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950,
and 1960's buildings that have been part of the Canadian National
Exhibition for so long.Instead of tearing down our glorious past, we
should re-build our past for the future.
NORTH ELEVATION: CNE Grandstand
Stadium, (Photo: 1998)
City Council Voted
to demolish the Stadium on July 30, 1998.
THE
VOTE: Check How Your Councillor and Mayor Voted!
Demolition
Mania? Joe Pantalone, Councillor and
chair of the CNE Board of Governors was feverishly lobbying other
councillors to vote in favour of demolition.
Mr. Pantalone's main argument
was, to use his words, that it was "an obsolete" stadium, and costs
one-hundred thousand dollars a year to maintain.
Why have you Mr. Pantalone
allowed this facility to become in your words, "obsolete"? Why have
you as chair of the Board not found creative and money-making avenues
for this facility? The CNE is your responsibility. In our view it is
not the stadium that is obsolete!
What is needed is new ideas,
new blood at the CNE Board of Governors.
WHAT THE PUBLIC IS
SAYING:
"Christopher Hume, in his
Saturday Star article on the CNE Grandstand, says it might be
demolished in three months and that its demise won't provoke any
"outpouring of emotion". The seats are hard, the pissoirs dingy, and
the roof unretractable, he says. Ony diehard sports fans want to
suffer under those conditions.
I am fat, fifty, and female. I
don't suppose anyone would call me the sporty type. But I'm
definitely the wonderful-family-entertainment-on-a-budget type. I
remember so many happy starry summer nights when my best friends and
I would run up the ramp to the Grandstand after work with a picnic
basket and a baby carrier. We saved up our Dominion store coupons and
got in to the Jays' game for $2 each (baby Ben for free). The cheap
seats were the good seats, because they were shaded from the sun,
under the non-retractable roof, but also open to the fresh air. The
seats are blue plastic fold-down seats, rather like the ones at
Skydome, only double digits cheaper to sit in.
Baby Ben's carrier fitted
nicely under the seats while he was sleeping. Then when he awoke, he
was pleased to hear all the neighbours cheering and clappimg, and
especially pleased when someone nearby rang a big cowbell every time
George Bell came up to bat.
Now that I have looked at the
Urbanism Website Mr. Hume mentioned, I'm going to take Ben to the old
ballpark in honour of his birthday. Not only to show him a wonderful
part of his own history, but a part of our province's history. The
Website shows a picture of a fossil actually embedded in the
limestone on the Grandsatnd facade. Apparently, the limestone is full
of these fossils. We're going to go down and search for traces of
that archaeology and we're going to take a new look at the
architecture too.
Outpouring of emotion? You bet,
and the emotion is anger. My next letter is to Mayor Lastman to ask
him to find a more creative way to redevelop our wonderful park, one
that doesn't involve tearing down any more historic buildings at the
CNE. Before the July 29th deadline for a decision, let the city
councillors look to the four Rs - Reduce, reuse, recycle...and
RESPECT."
Elissa Pane, Toronto Star Aug. 1,
1998.
The Magic of The Canadian
National Exhibition, circa 1970
"Little do you know that your
panoramic shot of the Ex (c. 1970) is so powerfull for me. George
Robb, Architect not only was the architect for the Shell Tower, but
his first employment out of University was with Marani & Morris.
I can recall George talking about those early days (I believe
1948-1950) when, as a draftsmam, he was responsible for the
documentation for the freight elevators at the Grandstand.This was
the only "employment" in his career; from then on he was
self-employed, occassionally in partnership, but never again an
employee.
I gave up my Blue Jay season
tickets after one year in the Dome. The initial interest in the
structure wore thin for me. The Blue Jays and, especially the Argos,
should play in the elements as God Himself intended. Gate receipts
are not part of God's plan.
We struggle now to preserve our
heritage structures; those that are 150 to 200 years old. If we
percieve that our more contemporary built environment has an
economical life expectancy of only 40 to 50 years, what will we leave
for future generations. If this building is lost, future generations
will be less likely to create an accurate interpretation of the
significance of that event. Let me know what I can do!"
Peter Stewart b.arch OAA
MRAIC
HOW THE MEDIA IS REPORTING
ON THIS STORY:
"Exhibition Stadium was always
an eyesore and, as Toronto's major sporting venue, a civic
embarrassment. Waterfront vistas will be enhanced no end by the
demolition, soon to begin, of the ugly old
slum."
Jim
Proudfoot, Sports Columnist
(Source:TorStar)
"Exhibition Stadium still has
some friends left. While the waterfront facility has long been
abandoned by sports teams and concert promoters, some city
councillors don't want to spend $2.5 million to tear it down. "I'd
rather take $2.5 million and put it into something more useful," said
Councillor Judy Sgro (North York Humber). "It seems to me to be a
tremendous waste of money." But Sgro's request to leave the structure
standing was defeated in a 5-5 tie vote of city council's urban
environment and development committee. Tie votes are considered
defeated. However, another motion to demolish also lost on a tie,
meaning it's up to council to decide when it meets July 29."
Toronto Star July 14,
1998
"An ongoing embarrassment has
been Exhibition Stadium, that Mistake by the Lake, former home to the
Blue Jays, Argos and many a Grey Cup contest. Now that it has fallen
into disuse, even the historical board did not designate this
building a place worthy of a special place in our heritage. Yet some
citizens want it preserved. This is the same stadium that's been
called Excretion Stadium, Execution Stadium, Excruciation Stadium,
Exasperation Stadium and other unflattering names. A quick death,
followed by a proper burial of this derelict, is the appropriate
action." Rayson James, Toronto
Star, July 29, 1998.
This is not journalism Mr.
James! You embarrass yourself and your profession.
"You had to be tough to feel
confortable at Exhibition Stadium. It never let you forget where you
lived and with whom. In its heyday, it was one of the city's great
levellers, one that deserves better than to be levelled."
Christopher Hume, Architecture
Critic, Toronto Star, July 25, 1998
"Baseball is played in parks,
not in stadiums...You built a ball-park that looks like a giant
bidet. You build a ball-park that you cannot see the line drive off
the bat. You cannot hear the crack of the ball. And people came there
originally, but then they realised you can't see a ball game in The
Big O". You
put a ball-park down. You make it acoustically good. You put in good
beer. Good peanuts. Good fans, and I guarantee they'll come back.
Baseball is played in Parks, not in
stadiums.
You sacrifice Christians to the lions in
stadiums."
Bill Lee (former Expos
pitcher) comments on Montreal's plans for a real
ball-park.
Heard on CBC, Metro Morning
98/10/01.
"He also quoted Joni Mitchell,
about they've paved paradise and put up a parking lot, and many
people here in Toronto are starting to echo the same arguments.Who
wants to go watch baseball in an airport hangar? Which is what the
SkyDome is."
Bruce Dowbiggin (CBC Sports)
reacting to Bill Lee's comments. 98/10/01
"Perhaps you're tempted to feel
nostalgic. After all, that's the standard reaction whenever creaky
edifices housing cherished memories are razed. In their heydays,
these buildings (along with the
soon-to-be-vacated-and-let's-face-it-eventually-demolished Maple Leaf
Gardens) were the city's sports and entertainment cathedrals....But
as sterile and frankly repulsive as the Skydome is, who woudn't
prefer it to sitting outside in twenty centimetres of melting snow,
observing a spectacle that will come to be known as the "Mud
Bowl"...Unless you have a fondness for buttocks-numbing aluminum
seats (Grandstand Stadium) or trough-style urinals (Varsity), its
hard to shed a tear over the eminent destruction of these stadia.
Grandstand Stadium had the worst baseball sight lines imaginable and
was widely regarded as the coldest, ugliest sports facility on the
planet. And the dilapidated Varsity Stadium has essentially stood
empty for a couple of decades, save for the occasional Canadian
soccer team humiliation or Varsity Blues football game played before
a few hundred fans sitting on cracked, peeling bleachers. In an era
when outdated sports facilities are closing on an almost daily basis,
a cottage industry has sprung up among sportswriters keen on creating
soft-focus elegies for lost athletic landmaks. Save your tears. These
landmarks died a long time ago."
Greig Dymond, Toronto Life,
December 1998.
Urbanism's Response to Mr.
Dymond and Toronto Life Magazine!
Geez what a grouch! The Ice
Queen Cometh. What is your problem Mr. Dymond? Did you eat arsenic
for breakfast? The poison you spewed in your Grandstand/Varsity
Stadiums Obit demonstrated one thing, that you are a man with a large
agenda chip on your shoulder. What ever happened to enlightened
journalism? In your discriminating view, history, memory,
civilisation mean NOTHING! Money, vulgarity and the cult of the new
mean everything!
Truth, beauty, craftsmanship
and the efforts and sensibility of an entire generation are reduced
to an ignorant, pompous rant. The worst kind of empty boosterism. It
is shameful that a magazine that is supposed to celebrate Toronto
negates and diminishes its own city and its environment.
Toronto
Death, perhaps would be a better
title for your magazine.
By the media's silence, and
when they do speak by their ignorance, the media has contributed to
the destruction of this once urbane city.Your piece demonstrates once
again that we will never be a "world class city" and that we are not
the hip sophisticated urban creatures we think we are. Pathetic
really! Urbanism, December,
1998.
"One of the great spectacles of
the annual Warrior's Day Parade at the CNE is the finale, as proud
veterans march in from the West Entrance of the Stadium and past the
reviewing stand, to the strains of military music and the applause of
thousands in the stands...Another tradition would become a casualty
of progress." Frank Betts,
East York
(Source: Letters to
Editor/Toronto Star)
