Toronto Pan Am Village in the West Don Lands | ?m | ?s | DundeeKilmer | KPMB

A quick moderator question: As the Pan Am Games are over, does it still make sense to refer to this area as "Pan Am Village", and not West Don Lands? Especially as any future development won't be part of the actual "Pam Am Village"?
 
Tulse said:
A quick moderator question: As the Pan Am Games are over, does it still make sense to refer to this area as "Pan Am Village", and not West Don Lands? Especially as any future development won't be part of the actual "Pam Am Village"?
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I suspect that we will not add new buildings to this thread, but that new ones will get their own. These can be remembered as having been built initially for the Pan Am Games.

Meanwhile, in regards to the term West Don Lands, it remains to be seen over the next several years whether it or The Canary District takes hold as the area's name. West Don Lands is more of a planning term than it is a neighbourhood name, while The Canary District is more of a marketing term than a neighbourhood name. It may have more of a chance if and when the Canary Restaurant reopens.

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interchange42 said:
I suspect that we will not add new buildings to this thread, but that new ones will get their own. These can be remembered as having been built initially for the Pan Am Games.

Meanwhile, in regards to the term West Don Lands, it remains to be seen over the next several years whether it or The Canary District takes hold as the area's name. West Don Lands is more of a planning term than it is a neighbourhood name, while The Canary District is more of a marketing term than a neighbourhood name. It may have more of a chance if and when the Canary Restaurant reopens.

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West Don Lands sounds generic and Canary District, I agree, is just a marketing term, which is why I prefer to call it the Pan-Am Village, which at least refers to something tangible, that occurred in the area. The Pan-Am Games was a major event and a part of the district's history and not just a superficial marketing term.
 
A (temporary?) splash of colour

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Here's hoping they paid for a few of those wraps for each column, so they can be replaced when they fade or get torn. The area's gray slate is perfect for dabs of colour like that.

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This fountain? water feature? is perhaps my favourite part of this neighbourhood. It is quite a delight to watch kids running through it, or to watch dogs play in the jets, and as the photos show it is quite lovely at night. I like both the whimsy and the dynamism it adds.

Unfortunately, it seems to be turned off somewhat frequently, and some of the jets don't seem to always work properly. I hope these issues are just teething pains, and not an indication of problems with the system's reliability.
 
Tulse said:
This fountain? water feature? is perhaps my favourite part of this neighbourhood. It is quite a delight to watch kids running through it, or to watch dogs play in the jets, and as the photos show it is quite lovely at night. I like both the whimsy and the dynamism it adds.

Unfortunately, it seems to be turned off somewhat frequently, and some of the jets don't seem to always work properly. I hope these issues are just teething pains, and not an indication of problems with the system's reliability.
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Not just "kids running through it", adults babysitting kids also run through them gleefully, which I can personally attest to :) I visited this spot for the first and so-far only time during a trip to Toronto in June and was thoroughly impressed! There are also other amazing installments of public art just to the east of this installment, followed by another public park that leads to a walk path that crosses the Don Valley Parkway beneath it (didn't have time to check it out, was babysitting). What a fantastic legacy from the Pan Am games!

But I share your worry about maintaining things in Toronto; for some unknown reason, it just seems that impressive things get built but not necessarily maintained to its maximum potential. I was just in Toronto last weekend for a quick visit and was thoroughly disappointed to see the light canopy art feature of the Maple Leaf Gardens complex COMPLETELY turned off. What happened? If this were in the U.S., it would had been fixed, especially since the complex does not seem to be experiencing financial distress (it's a different story if a complex is in financial hardship). The same with some of the strips of light toward the top of the "box" on that "PwC" building across the street. And whatever happened to the lighting of the exterior "x" braces that went up the sides of the "Telus" building? And the tail and head of the "T" in "Telus" were also flickering as if about to go out. And this is all in South Core, the new pride of the pack.
 
The Fan Village for the World Cup of Hockey nears completion - it takes up the entire block south of Mill Street from Cherry to Corktown Common. It's free with the exception of the 2 big concerts

The Killers play a concert there tomorrow night and Green Day play next Friday night

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