old boy
Senior Member
Let them eat cake.
Toronto Ontario Place | ?m | ?s | Infrastructure ON
- Thread starter vistaway
- Start date
generalcanada
Senior Member
Id love to make a comment on this thing but i went to the article with adblock on and saw this at the end:
That's actually hilarious, Literally just outright saying this was a paid press release acting as a news article
Parkdalian
Senior Member
I believe the term is "advertorial."
Coolibop
Active Member
T3G
Senior Member
That's not true - the sponsored tag means that it appears in the FB user's feed as a paid ad; the content creator paid FB to display the content to users who may not even follow the page. It has nothing to do whatsoever with whether the editorial content was sponsored or not.
Coolibop
Active Member
My point still stands.
adma
Superstar
But I think there's an element in my argument you overlooked...
Essentially, even if we weren't quite at the Soak City stage yet, you're still speaking from the POV of that "Kiddieland" era. Whereas I'm speaking from the POV of the "junior spectator" era.
I'm not saying I would have known who Zeidler was at so young an age. But I also wouldn't have viewed Children's Village et al, the "fun place to play", in a child-centric vacuum--as part of an implicitly "full" visit to Ontario Place, one might say that "getting there was half the fun", the sequence of entering via the pods, maybe a ritual Cinesphere "North Of Superior" visit, going around the grounds a bit, around the Forum, to the end of the long sunken-ship pier, up to the roof of the pods and down the fire-escape stairs when all that was free and open.
And ultimately, Children's Village (which in many ways, was at its best before they added the water attractions alongside--sort of like an open-ended, late-hippie-high-concept "come as you are, you don't need a bathing suit" vibe) as a sort of tantrically-sequenced kid-friendly cherry atop the sundae, rather than the whole shebang. You might say, it's like Children's Village was a high-concentration "micro" within a more holistically-defined "macro" sort of "children's village"--that is, Ontario Place itself, as intuitively, sequentially, sensually experienced by the child.
Like any park. Say, with High Park, there's the Jamie Bell Adventure Playground as a high-concentration "micro", and then there's the park at large as the "macro", replete with trails and paths and nooks and crannies to explore, nature to discover, experiences to discover that can open a child's eyes to the infinite diversity of the place.
Or the Ex as more than just the Midway--it's not like a kid is in a position to buy massage chairs or wicker air fresheners, but meandering through the grounds and the pavilions and "just watching", spectators onto that strange grownup world beyond us, made the visit all the more fascinating. (Heck, the fabled NFB documentary "Johnny At The Fair" celebrated that kind of child's eye in 1947--and the child grew up to be artist Charlie Pachter.)
A lot of that may have been "spectatorship", because we were in tow of our elders. But it's our elders that gave us the means to open our eyes--sometimes inadvertently, or by happenstance, or through ordinary activity (like, as I said, grocery shopping--just looking at the grocery products in the aisles and the sequence of going through the store can open a child's eyes).
So when it comes to Ontario Place, one might say I came to have an intuitive feel for that special something as a sort of *child's preliminary foundation* for eventually knowing more about Zeidler/Hough's vision.
Though actually, I'd say you *did* have a better deal with the pods than the young visitors of the 70s would have; because in reality, nobody in the 70s really figured out how to get said "educational exhibits" off the ground in any enduring way. Thus whatever the pods contained mostly played out as opaque enigmas to the visitor: grounds offices, restaurant/banquet space, maybe a few transient exhibits here and there, who knows what. It did pique a certain "mystery box" curiosity, though. (Though I'd like to know how much the 90s pod exhibits really expressed a "sense of setting" for the young visitor, as opposed to the container being incidental a la Little Canada--I suspect Lego might have done so most of all.)
The Preservationist
Active Member
Past its time, out of date, declining in popularity, needs major repairs and should be permanently closed down in 2026... I'm not talking about the OSC but our provincial leadership's agenda
Last edited:
mistersg1
Active Member
Essentially, even if we weren't quite at the Soak City stage yet, you're still speaking from the POV of that "Kiddieland" era. Whereas I'm speaking from the POV of the "junior spectator" era.
I'm not saying I would have known who Zeidler was at so young an age. But I also wouldn't have viewed Children's Village et al, the "fun place to play", in a child-centric vacuum--as part of an implicitly "full" visit to Ontario Place, one might say that "getting there was half the fun", the sequence of entering via the pods, maybe a ritual Cinesphere "North Of Superior" visit, going around the grounds a bit, around the Forum, to the end of the long sunken-ship pier, up to the roof of the pods and down the fire-escape stairs when all that was free and open.
And ultimately, Children's Village (which in many ways, was at its best before they added the water attractions alongside--sort of like an open-ended, late-hippie-high-concept "come as you are, you don't need a bathing suit" vibe) as a sort of tantrically-sequenced kid-friendly cherry atop the sundae, rather than the whole shebang. You might say, it's like Children's Village was a high-concentration "micro" within a more holistically-defined "macro" sort of "children's village"--that is, Ontario Place itself, as intuitively, sequentially, sensually experienced by the child.
Like any park. Say, with High Park, there's the Jamie Bell Adventure Playground as a high-concentration "micro", and then there's the park at large as the "macro", replete with trails and paths and nooks and crannies to explore, nature to discover, experiences to discover that can open a child's eyes to the infinite diversity of the place.
Or the Ex as more than just the Midway--it's not like a kid is in a position to buy massage chairs or wicker air fresheners, but meandering through the grounds and the pavilions and "just watching", spectators onto that strange grownup world beyond us, made the visit all the more fascinating. (Heck, the fabled NFB documentary "Johnny At The Fair" celebrated that kind of child's eye in 1947--and the child grew up to be artist Charlie Pachter.)
A lot of that may have been "spectatorship", because we were in tow of our elders. But it's our elders that gave us the means to open our eyes--sometimes inadvertently, or by happenstance, or through ordinary activity (like, as I said, grocery shopping--just looking at the grocery products in the aisles and the sequence of going through the store can open a child's eyes).
So when it comes to Ontario Place, one might say I came to have an intuitive feel for that special something as a sort of *child's preliminary foundation* for eventually knowing more about Zeidler/Hough's vision.
Though actually, I'd say you *did* have a better deal with the pods than the young visitors of the 70s would have; because in reality, nobody in the 70s really figured out how to get said "educational exhibits" off the ground in any enduring way. Thus whatever the pods contained mostly played out as opaque enigmas to the visitor: grounds offices, restaurant/banquet space, maybe a few transient exhibits here and there, who knows what. It did pique a certain "mystery box" curiosity, though. (Though I'd like to know how much the 90s pod exhibits really expressed a "sense of setting" for the young visitor, as opposed to the container being incidental a la Little Canada--I suspect Lego might have done so most of all.)
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, I’ll apologize if I sounded rude the first time responding to you.
When we speak of the “junior spectator” eyes, it makes me question, in that era, where did the attractiveness of wanting to visit Ontario Place come from. Was it something the parents wanted to do and just brang the kids along, was it meant to be an enjoyable family day together, or was it a place that the kid explicitly wanted to go?
In the eyes of a child, did you know what the Children’s Village was at first? Or did you do that whole walk around the islands subsequent times you visited. In my opinion, when you were in the Children’s Village actively playing, your parents had to sit and watch to make sure you were ok. So even back then, long before the kiddie land era, there were attractions within spaces that were significantly designed for the child in mind.
I grew up in Brampton and experienced much of what you’re saying, following parents in grocery stores, (who can’t forget Miracle Mart) stores like Canadian Tire, or even the Bramalea City Centre. We had Canada’s Wonderland season passes growing up, but it’s not like I kicked and screamed wanting to go there, it was just a place we went to where I got to have some enjoyment on rides.
My personal experience with Ontario Place, as my parents didn’t venture often downtown was rather a unique way how I got to know the place, it was something that I sort of followed along as a Junior spectator but in a different kind of scenario, I’ll post it in a further post after I get clarification of the concept spectatorship
UtakataNoAnnex
Senior Member
Yeah...some ideas and views and those that spout them are not worth their heritage status even if they're pre-Jurassic. >.<
adma
Superstar
In the beginning, the "attractiveness" was, from a mutual family perspective, in the permanent-World's-Fairish notion of OP being new and novel and, I guess, "Ontario's pride". And remember that in the first season, Children's Village didn't even *exist* yet--so if there was any star "destination attraction" for the young, it would have been the immersiveness of Cinesphere and "North Of Superior", which was likewise more "all-ages" than kid-specific.
Also, don't discount the likelihood that in that "junior spectatorship" era, kids could actually *like* or even *want* to go on shopping trips with the parents, because it was "an experience". Or, in a way, a trip to Ontario Place was like a trip to...Sherway Gardens? (To take another opened-in-1971 example.)
It was maybe an era where things *weren't* so hyper-ergonomically "child-programmed" as they subsequently became, when the bigger world around us was "child-compatable" largely by happenstance or by proxy. Or like an era before networks like YTV or Nickelodeon or Disney when summer-break kids might be witness to Dialing For Dollars or Hollywood Squares instead, and be none the worse for it.
But ultimately, I will admit this: in practice, one could only go so far w/a "passive" OP visit before asking. "is this it?". Which, together with the unresolved programming issues, is how OP wound up (with parallels to the post-Expo Man & His World in Montreal; that is, the "permanent World's Fair" conundrum) falling short of expectations or even wearing out its welcome by the mid-70s. And why for all too many later visits became so necessarily frontloaded onto something hyperspecific like Children's Village--or, if you were somewhat older, specific Forum shows. Otherwise, OP was just too insular and self-conscious to offer itself to repeat visits--and in a very 70s way, that World's Fair-derived high-minded futuristic idealism came to seem ironically "dated". (By contrast, that other governmentally-sponsored 70s Toronto attraction--the federally-sponsored Harbourfront--turned out to be a sleeper *success*, largely by taking a less-is-more, programming-oriented, making-the-most-of-what-was-already-there and in some ways practically ad hoc/extemporaneous approach that knitted quite well into the grassroots cultural ferment of Jane Jacobs-era Toronto. And in *its* own right, in a not-child-incompatible way--though its version of a "Children's Village" hypernode might not be the sort that'd pass muster today
https://www.blogto.com/city/2017/09/adventure-playground-toronto-history/ )
==========================
Parenthetically, when it comes to the "childhood experience", maybe Toronto Island ought to be mentioned--and also as proof of how even in the "junior spectator" era, something more squarely, even "blinkeredly", child-geared could thrive, largely through typical family visits being, even (especially?) in the 60s/70s, heavily frontloaded onto Centre Island and Centreville and whatever-lies-beyond being largely terra incognita. Which in some ways, was the happenstance of the kind of 50s/60s clearcutting that turned most of the Islands into sterile parkland, thus turning Centreville into an insular kiddie node and diminishing the incentive to "go beyond". (And ironically, *subsequent* perception of the Islands, which threw light on the existing community at Ward's and all, provided more fuel for the spectatorship impulse--it's hard for me to imagine kids being bored at Wards the way they'd be in the fields of grass surrounding Centreville.)
adma
Superstar
Oh, and when it comes to childhood perceptions of Ontario Place in the 70s: one other thing I forgot about that is that in the early years, virtually *all* access and egress to OP was done by way of the pods. So when it came to going to Children's Village, the rest, nay, the heart of OP was an "unavoidable condition", convoluted as it may have been--the eastern entrance, which was a convenience to visitors more squarely focussed upon Children's Village and Forum shows (and put less crowd pressure on the pods), came later...
TO Steve
New Member
Great analysis @adma. I think you hit the nail on the head in your paragraph discussing the "is this it?" sensation. As someone who visited OP as a child in the 70s, the Forum in the 90s and then with my own kids in the 00s, there was always this feeling of "is this it". Even the children's village didn't do it for me. I was a bit of a weakling and scaredy-cat as a child and I had very mixed feelings about the children's village. I was usually done with it within an hour and the programming at the cinesphere and the pods wasn't ever really what kids wanted. I remember when my parents would combine our visit to OP with the CNE, there was always this sense crossing the bridge that the fun part of our day was over.
Maybe its time just to let go of OP, or at least the part of it that Therme Spa and Live Nation want. Hand it over and make the east island into a great park. Maybe take the lessons learned from the eventual failure of OP and create a great park blossoming out from the east island and into the surrounding lands. There is a lot of green space in the triangular area bordered by the Argonaut Rowing Club to the west, Garrison Common to the north and the eastern extent of Coronation Park. Most of the parkland is often under utilized, lacking programming and attractions and disconnected by parking lots. It seems there is a good amount of waterfront land just sitting there waiting to be made into the signature park that everybody wants for Toronto.
Maybe its time just to let go of OP, or at least the part of it that Therme Spa and Live Nation want. Hand it over and make the east island into a great park. Maybe take the lessons learned from the eventual failure of OP and create a great park blossoming out from the east island and into the surrounding lands. There is a lot of green space in the triangular area bordered by the Argonaut Rowing Club to the west, Garrison Common to the north and the eastern extent of Coronation Park. Most of the parkland is often under utilized, lacking programming and attractions and disconnected by parking lots. It seems there is a good amount of waterfront land just sitting there waiting to be made into the signature park that everybody wants for Toronto.
adma
Superstar
Well, I'm speaking of the "is this it?" situation *originally*--but not in the sense that it needed to be *terminally*. Because even though OP had the misfortune of a more isolated location and configuration (and a lot of its woes oddly symbiotic with the post-1970 struggling-with-a-new-era sagas of the CNE as well), one might argue that it could have learned lessons from the comparative "community-oriented" success of Harbourfront (or something like Granville Island in Vancouver).Or stuff subsequent like the Bentway. There's even hints of that in OP's post-closure "community utilization". And one might say that original OP features like the restaurant kiosks--which in the early years mostly housed the default of coke-and-fries or beer-garden banality--make more sense in our age of food trucks or Stackt-type marketplaces. In "repurposing" Ontario Place, it might well turn out that less is more.
And the more I think of it, my raising the "sequentiality" of the original, "classic" OP visit (not unlike how visitors typically experienced the Ontario Science Centre before they closed the bridge) really *is* critical to understand how a young Children's Village-bound visitor could channel that Zeidler/Houghness anyway--that is, en route, you were enveloped by the indelible presence of the pods and Cinesphere, and then you'd witness the marina and boardwalk area w/its refreshment clusters, them you'd meander around the coves and mounds and maybe the Forum and *then* you'd arrive at Children's Village. So, you'd already be immersed in the full architectural vision simply through the act of traversing it all. Whereas approaching the Children's Villagey stuff by way of the E entrance had a way of turning all that Zeidlerian stuff into nothing more than a remote side show (even if you had to traverse it in order to get to the flume ride in the former Ontario North Now facility at the W end). And another noteworthy point about the main pod entrance vs the E entrance: it was more directly accessible to the "city" listener (i.e. those coming by way of the Ex grounds from Dufferin Gate or the Ex Loop), whereas the E entrance was scaled more to the suburban auto commuter coming by way of the Lakeshore...
lenaitch
Senior Member
I worked at OP for one summer in the mid-1980s. HMCS Haida was also co-located but, as I recall, a separate venue. There was also the rental motorized innertube things in the same basin. Daytime was steadily busy; moreso when the Ex opened, but the nights were quite busy centred around the Forum and the bars. Depending on the act that was booked, attendance ranged from significant to extreme, both in numbers and behavior. Another major impact was Argo game night. Crowds came across the bridge headed for the bars and many were already well into their cups.