MetroMan
Senior Member
Those signs need to go back on Yonge. Elsewhere they won't have the same effect. Their importance is linked to Yonge St. Hopefully they'll be placed in the atrium of the SLC and visible from the outside.
Toronto Ryerson Student Learning Centre | 50.59m | 8s | Ryerson University | Zeidler
- Thread starter Bogtrotter
- Start date
UrbanFervour
Active Member
For heaven's sake. Why not just throw in an historic neon "bud light" sign in there as well. I don't understand how that sign belongs anytwhere near whatever this new building is. Mabe Snohetta could have an LED facade or something that evokes the old presence bright over the top signage on Yonge, but that sign was for a record store. Not a stuudent centre. Silliness. It should go in a museum with other fetishized objects if people feel so attached to it.
Red October
Senior Member
It was as much a part of Yonge St as anything else. It needs to go back on Yonge. I don't care if this isn't a record store, it replaced the iconic store without attempting any facadism at all, despite how iconic the signage was on the street and in the city, and they should at least honour what they replaced.
MetroMan
Senior Member
You don't get it and that's fine but an iconic part of Yonge was taken down with a promise that it would be reinstalled. It should be.
The spinning neons records on their own aren't important. It's their place on Yonge st. that is. If Toronto Life Square (or whatever it's called now) wants to use them, great, but if Ryerson can't find a new owner for them in the immediate vicinity, it's their responsibility to integrate them onto the new building, facing Yonge.
UrbanFervour
Active Member
"Iconic store"? Iconic to whom? It was a grubby dump that sold things people don't buy and nobody shopped there. That's why it folded.
Zanzibar and the Brass Rail are "as much a part of Yonge Street as anything else" too... as much as I love their signage, should their facades be incorporated into the buildings that will eventually replace them? No. Of course not.
How about Future Shop, Pizza Pizza, the head shop up the street or the scientology sign? How about the countless nail salons? Should their signage be preserved? NO!
The idea that signage promoting for-profit businesses deserves to be "honoured" by an institution of higher learning is, to me, absurd.
If the sign is 'incorporated' into the new building at all, I hope it will be hung on a wall as an objet d'art, & nothing more. I certainly hope that the new building's design will not be constrained and limited by this groan-worthy stipulation.
ponyboy
Active Member
sorry off topic -- anyone know what the holdup is for the building on the corner of Gould and Yonge that nearly collapsed this summer? I hope that building is not lost. Is the owner dragging this out with litigation? It has certainly had a big cost on traffic in the area, and the loss of Salad King.
Red October
Senior Member
This entire post is ridiculous. Sam the Record Man is iconic to TRUE TORONTONIANS. And people who had good taste bought stuff there, it went out of business for the same reason that MusicWorld (which sold your definition of what people buy) did, HMV moved in and took all the business.. It had NOTHING to do with what it sold. It is the same reason why Midas takes the business of local muffler shops.
Zanzibar is a strip club, Sam the Record Man is an iconic record store. No comparison whatsoever.
These Future Shop and Pizza Pizza examples are ridiculous. They aren't even worthy of a response.
The idea of a for-profit business signage being honoured may not be realistic IF IT WERE STILL FOR-PROFIT. Keeping signage that is as much a part of Toronto and Yonge St as anything else being preserved is not absurd, your destructivist thinking is.
I think as the people tearing down the ICONIC store and sign, they should feel obligated to preserve it.
picard102
Senior Member
You're really not helping yourself here.
Zanzibar is an iconic strip club. Just because Sam sold records for the "people with taste" doesn't make it iconic, and any other similarly gaudy building not so.
Red October
Senior Member
I don't care. It's true.
Alright, and I would be completely fine with someone keeping the Zanzibar facade then. I'm just saying they are different types of businesses.
Dan416
Senior Member
I couldn't care less if they incorporate the old Sam's sign into the new development or not. If they can do it and make it look good, great. If not, no biggie, put it in a museum.
UrbanFervour
Active Member
"True Torontonians"? Who would those be in your estimation? People who agree with you and your opinions? Who look like you? Who have the same taste and shopping habits as you?
You've offered no argument for why Sam the Record Man's sign is "iconic" and worthy of being "honoured" except for that "people with good taste" (taste of course being subjective) shopped there. You've also given no argument for why a strip club is ANY less relevant than a record shop (it's not, in my opinion) or why we don't go around preserving the signage of all the muffler shops that have closed down except for that these answers are obvious and should be self-evident. They aren't, using your fuzzy logic.
Objectively I like the Sam sign too. It is cool. It's retro. That doesn't mean it belongs tacked onto the face of a student learning centre because people like you and I like it.
I want the student learning centre to be a GOOD building. It has a good client and an excellent architect. I have high hopes for its design. I don't want to see its design dumbed so a crass neon billboard advertisement, can be "incorporated" into it. I have no idea what you mean when you say "destructivist thinking". Support putting it up on that blank walled box at Dundas Square, fine. It's a much more appropriate place to celebrate Toronto's history of consumerism... but don't insist on f***ing up what could be a great building with some half-baked misguided attempt at "preserving" something that's already gone.
Sam's, and the spinning record neon signs, were famous destinations on Yonge Street for decades. The store had a grim end, but back in the day, the ramshackle compiled buildings that made up the huge store made for an always interesting search for what you were looking for. No one had anywhere near the selection that Sam's did, so if you wanted anything out of the ordinary you came for miles to get it here. Boxing Day sales here were legendary, and I don't use that word lightly. People would be lined up outside before opening for hours waiting to get their hands on the cut-price goodies.
Anyone who doesn't know about the above either wasn't here during Sam'e heyday, or they have a short memory.
The records were the best neon signs in the city, and it would be sad to lose them, or have them installed in a thoughtless way. There's just about no building in town that I - and I am sure many of you - are more curious to see to see renderings of, and to see how they plan to handle the signs. Snohetta have built some great buildings; I am trusting them to pull another one out of the hat here.
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Anyone who doesn't know about the above either wasn't here during Sam'e heyday, or they have a short memory.
The records were the best neon signs in the city, and it would be sad to lose them, or have them installed in a thoughtless way. There's just about no building in town that I - and I am sure many of you - are more curious to see to see renderings of, and to see how they plan to handle the signs. Snohetta have built some great buildings; I am trusting them to pull another one out of the hat here.
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Mongo
Senior Member
The Sam the Record Man spinning records were among the most famous "icons" of Toronto during the 1960s, 1970s and into the 1980s. I grew up thousands of miles from Toronto, yet I knew about that sign, it represented the entire Yonge street strip to most of Canada. I would go so far as to say that it was -- and still is -- far more well known outside Toronto than many more traditionally "cultural" images of the city, such as Casa Loma or the O'Keefe Centre.
If that sign is not considered worthy of being displayed on Yonge Street, then I will officially lose hope for this city.
If that sign is not considered worthy of being displayed on Yonge Street, then I will officially lose hope for this city.
Parkdalian
Senior Member
Maybe the street isn't worthy for the sign.
I like the sign. I don't really need it on the street. Put it in a museum. Put it in a wacky dance club. Put it on the waterfront. It's a sign, not the ineffable soul of Toronto.
UrbanFervour
Active Member
Pretty much anything is "worthy" of being displayed on Yonge. It may not be the longest street in the world, but it just might have a rightful claim to having the longest continuous strip of crappy retail signage in Canada. So I don't think the issue is whether or not the sign is worthy of being displayed there or anywhere, but if a new & potentially transformative new building ought to be designed with a piece of defunct signage as its central, defining feature? Will we insist upon designing a grand instituional building around HMV's big pink letters when iTunes eventually puts IT out of business? It gets runs on boxing day too.
I don't mean to be disrespectful to those who feel strongly about their experiences shopping at Sam's - but it's is gone. Snohetta is a brilliant firm that could produce something amazing here. I support the creation of great architecture in the centre of the city and value it more highly than ensuring a big neon sign remains on that site when it could just as easily be put up in Dundas Sq. where it might help develop a sense of history and gravitas.