thecharioteer
Senior Member
True, and usually the argument went that the example in the other city was better than our local version, i.e. in the discussion over the proposed demolition of the Old City Hall, Richardson's Allegheny County Courthouse was always used as an example of a superior version of Romanesque Revival, so why save ours?
The other argument that doomed a number of buildings was the issue of Memory, namely bad memories. Howard's Provincial Lunatic Asylum never stood a chance because of that (the Don Jail almost faced the same fate).
Finally, we presently operate under a dysfunctional system in which Preservation Services is part of the Planning Department and is so chronically under-staffed that even basic "listing" functions don't occur (i.e. 81 Wellesley East). Heritage Toronto (the former Toronto Historical Board) is no longer part of the development process. When this gets combined with political indifference, we get cases like the recent demolition of Hungarian House at 836 St. Clair West, the original Shaarei Shomayim Synagogue designed by Kaplan & Sprachman in 1948. The indifference of Councillor Joe Mihevic, combined with the ambivalence of Preservation Services resulted in the demolition by Urbancorp for some unspecified future use.
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