Toronto Nathan Phillips Square + Spirit Garden | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto

They are not 'stubs'. They are vehicle barriers. Benches would block north-south circulation here. Maybe a few are warranted, (so that you don't block too much north-south movement) but there may be enough furniture in Nathan Phillips Square to satisfy typical demand when all is said and done. You don't know whether or not that will be the case yet, so it's a bit early to label it madness, stupid, and useless.

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interchange42 said:
They are not 'stubs'. They are vehicle barriers. Benches would block north-south circulation here. Maybe a few are warranted, (so that you don't block too much north-south movement) but there may be enough furniture in Nathan Phillips Square to satisfy typical demand when all is said and done. You don't know whether or not that will be the case yet, so it's a bit early to label it madness, stupid, and useless.

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Can we at least label them ugly?
 
raptor said:
How about putting a "No Stopping" or "No Parking" sign on Queen st?
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They are licensed to be there and that strip is zoned, it's not nearly as easy as that
 
Register123 said:
Can we at least label them ugly?
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Sure, you can. Not on my behalf though—I've only seen them in that one photo so far, and that's not enough to go on.

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I walked by here today and these look kinda strange to me. While they were taller than I expected, they are still too short to really be comfortable. (unless another portion goes on top) What I found really odd, was the placement of the stubs. Why are they placed almost in the middle of the main sidewalk? It leaves very little room for people to walk along the Queen Street sidewalk. They could have moved them a little closer to the metal grate and it wouldn't have blocked pedestrians, so I wonder why they placed them there. They are all spaced out, so people will not be able to sit in groups. I wonder how popular they will be. I'm very curious how this will evolve. Maybe there is some very good reason for this, so I'll wait and see what happens.
 
Torontovibe said:
I walked by here today and these look kinda strange to me. While they were taller than I expected, they are still too short to really be comfortable. (unless another portion goes on top) What I found really odd, was the placement of the stubs. Why are they placed almost in the middle of the main sidewalk? It leaves very little room for people to walk along the Queen Street sidewalk. They could have moved them a little closer to the metal grate and it wouldn't have blocked pedestrians, so I wonder why they placed them there. They are all spaced out, so people will not be able to sit in groups. I wonder how popular they will be. I'm very curious how this will evolve. Maybe there is some very good reason for this, so I'll wait and see what happens.
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I think it is important to remember that most people aren't going to be walking on this part of the sidewalk. As the renderings suggest, the foodtrucks are returning once this is all said and done. If anything these 'stubs' may be for the purposes of creating orderly and separated line-ups for these food trucks.

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Contract up for award this week:

BD208.4 Award of Tender 286-2014 to Struct-Con Construction Ltd. For a Bike Storage Facility for Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization Project, Toronto City Hall, 100 Queen Street West, Toronto (Ward 27)
 
vatche said:
Are they going to be planting new trees???
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On that note, a lot of vegetation has just been planted throughout the square, including a line of dozens of trees in the new Peace Garden. Nathan Philips Sq will come to life at the first hint of Spring next year.

I'm not too impressed with the way the Queen St forecourt is turning out though. They've kept the majority of the grass that has been shown season after season to turn into mud pits. The Plant Architect design was meant to improve flow into the square but the built alternative has retained the narrow entrances.

The materials used are also not that nice. There's too much concrete that will just look stained and cracked soon enough. This is one part of the city that deserved stone like granite. I've also noticed that some of the pavers are already uneven so we're likely to see trip hazards paved with asphalt. All in all, this doesn't look built to last. Terrible considering it's taken a decade to build.
 
Why should city hall be any different than the rest of the city? All that's missing is a hydro pole art installation.
 
Wasn't too pleased about the lack of changes for in the treed forecourt, but I am glad they stuck with concrete. It goes well with the materials using for the rest of the City Hall complex. Granite would look out of place here I think.

AoD
 
Wouldn't there be some heritage value to the use of concrete here (where's Adma)? This space is one of the great monuments of the age of concrete after all.
 
Tewder said:
Wouldn't there be some heritage value to the use of concrete here (where's Adma)? This space is one of the great monuments of the age of concrete after all.
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I think the operative word is deference - you really don't want to mess up an icon like the City Hall. All in all I think the NPS interventions are tastefully restrained (unlike some of the other competition schemes).

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
I think the operative word is deference - you really don't want to mess up an icon like the City Hall. All in all I think the NPS interventions are tastefully restrained (unlike some of the other competition schemes).

AoD
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Would have been nice if they didn't restrain on replacing all of the overhead walkways with new materials, like they did near the restaurant pavilion.
 
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