Toronto The Bentway (was Under Gardiner) | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

What should be the permanent name for the park under the Gardiner?

  • The Artery

    Votes: 13 6.8%

  • The Bentway

    Votes: 84 43.8%

  • Under Gardiner

    Votes: 52 27.1%

  • None of the above

    Votes: 43 22.4%
  • Total voters
    192
I have added a poll to this thread, which asks the same question that Waterfront Toronto is asking in their runoff… it's just that in our poll you get a third option, and a fourth. Please vote!

42
 
Who cares what it's called? What matters is how well it is used, how well it functions, and how well it is designed. The name should be the least of our worries.
 
What's going on with the naming contest? It's been almost a week since the contest ended. How hard can it be to tabulate a winner? It's an online contest with immediate numbers. Now, they're running a Twitter contest.

If I were to guess, they messed up again and will choose a winner based on tweet popularity.

I seriously hope that Council just scraps the name contest and asks them to hire a marketing agency to do it.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
This isn't a council thing - and besides do you really trust them to name anything?

AoD
Click to expand...

It is in fact a council thing. Waterfront Toronto has said that the chosen name has to go to City Council for approval in July. Some councillors have privately said that they hated the 4 names and would veto any of them. It's not by any means unanimous but this isn't a contentious issue. Overall, public opinion on the naming contest was negative on tv, radio and online. If a bunch of councillors raise objections, it won't be hard for the rest to follow and do their favourite thing: defer and refer back.

There are just too many irregularities with this process and somehow the panel chose the absolutely least inspiring names they could have possibly chosen, despite over 800 names having been submitted. Is this the same city that named the SkyDome? The same organization that named HTO Park and Sugar Beach? What happened?
 
I think Council has to sign off on the final choice, but they have nothing directly to do with the contest itself (so it's not for them to scrap anything).

Both HtO and Sugar Beach is taken from the proposal from the winning firm I think. And can you imagine the current council coming up with anything good? The ones who brought us the John A Macdonald mess?

AoD
 
Yeah, I would hope that council wouldn't try to name it itself. They're most likely to refer it back to Waterfront Toronto. From there, the right thing to do is send it to a marketing agency to come up with a brand.
 
I've never heard of such difficulty naming a simple park. Waterfront TO has even had votes for park names before that went off without issue.
 
I think that this happened as a result of their inability to adjust when they made a mistake. The public overwhelmingly told them that the short list sucked. It was a unanimous negative reaction in all forms of media.

Yet, they failed to realize that maybe their choices only seemed like a good idea to them because they had to appease every member of the panel and they were content with finding a compromise even though they produced what turned out to be a text book case of design by commitee.

The public doesn't care about that. All everybody saw were 4 horrible name choices. They didn't listen and people pushed back.

The appropriate solution to that would have been to acknowledge the public's reaction and adjust: "Hey we heard you. You don't like the names that we shortlisted. Here are 10 other names from the 800+ that you submitted. Let's have a ranked ballot."

If it turns out that the second time around was also compromised, I hope that they just call the naming contest off, disband the panel who proved inept in marketing and couldn't pick a popular name and then go back and let WaterfrontTO name the thing privately with its own resources.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
I think Council has to sign off on the final choice, but they have nothing directly to do with the contest itself (so it's not for them to scrap anything).
Click to expand...
I was told very specifically by someone associated with the creation of the park that Council can turn down the name, and that those opposed to the choices contact the Councillors in the area (Layton, Cressy), and/or their own Councillor, and/or the Mayor, to let them know that they are dissatisfied with the name.

Personally, with Under Gardiner clearly leading our unscientific poll, and with the amount of brand recognition tied upon it already (the website is "undergardiner.com" and the Twitter handle is @undergardiner), I don't think there's any other realistic option.

So, if you're on board with Under Gardiner, tweet, email, phone those above. If you're not, don't bother, as you'll never get enough traction for yet another name.

42
 
Waterfront Toronto just tweeted that The Bentway just "won".

Time to heap some scorn.

42
 
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