A Sign of the Times

At last London City Hall plans to clamp down on "Farhi" signs. It's about time. I've been wondering for months why it was necessary for a big-time downtown landlord to let us know just how much of the city centre he owns by way of giant banners on all his properties. Sure Mr. Farhi has the right to advertise. It's just that a) many Londoners already suspect he owns nearly everything, b) he could use a little more subtlety, and c) his signs don't exactly add to the charisma of heritage buildings like Wright Lithographing. Interestingly, the banners contravene a city bylaw, but politicians have preferred looking the other way to taking on someone as apparently big and daunting as Mr. F. Trouble is, every way you look downtown there's a Farhi sign and they're getting harder to disregard.

A Dundas Renovation

Sharon Hassan, who's co-ordinating the renovation of 142 Dundas Street, has discovered heritage is pretty neat after all. According to an October 13 Ian Gillespie column, "Hassan admits she used to drive down Dundas and wonder why somebody didn't tear down some of the old, decrepit buildings dotting the street like rotten teeth."

But since her renovation began, such items as an 1884 fashion magazine and an old box of promissory notes have been found. Now, apparently, the London lawyer has decided heritage has merit. "Lives were lived here and stories were told...And you can't just tear that down."

Perhaps if we took some land developers and city councillors on a tour of our older buildings, we could make a few more converts?

Update: Sharon and Hamoody Hassan received a heritage award at the ACO-HLF 8th Annual Heritage Awards on February 19, 2015. The award recognizes their work in preserving this historic building on Dundas Street and providing an example for the future restoration of downtown London.

Doors Open Highlights 4: The End of the Adventure

Three more places I managed to get to at Doors Open: Brainworks, St. Luke's in the Garden Chapel and Woodland Cemetery.

Brainworks, a former home at 79 Ridout St. S., I wasn't expecting to get all that excited about. I'd never heard it was one of London's more spectacular century-old houses. But I'll go in any old house if the owners will let me so in I went. Well, it turns out Brainworks is an excellent example of how an old house can be converted into office space while saving historical details. Built in 1910, the red brick building still has attractive double verandahs, a Romanesque arch around its door, stained glass and magnificent wood panelling.

Then off to Byron. St. Luke's in the Garden is located in the former Beck Memorial Sanatorium, now CPRI. A picturesque building surrounded by lovely gardens, it also has appropriately divine stained glass windows, featuring individuals like St. Luke himself and Florence Nightingale. Less impressive is the state of a white frame building closer to the road, formerly the residence of the Medical Superintendent. Deteriorating since it stopped being used in 1990, the once-attractive Priority 1 building is yet another example of demolition by neglect.

By the time I made it to Woodland, they were out of their self-guided tour booklets. Which shows just how popular a cemetery can be - people are just dying to get in (groan). I visited the monument erected in memory of railway workers killed in the line of duty (see photo above) just because I remembered it from a previous visit. The choo-choo train at top manages to be both droll and heart-rending at the same time. And the Victorian epitaph below is guaranteed to make most modern people snigger - yet wipe their eyes. On a more macabre note, I then joined the Crematorium tour, which proved there's definitely such a thing as too much information...

No Soap

One of London's lesser-known heritage monuments is this reminder of the London Soap and Cosmetic Company at Clarence and South streets. The factory, here from 1875 to 1984, burned in April 1985, at which time it was the oldest surviving soap factory in Canada. These machines were taken from the ruins and made into a monument by the Ontario Society for Industrial Archaeology. Pretty cool, eh? It's tributes like these that add interest and entertainment value to our streets, especially when people come across them unexpectedly.

Doors Open Highlights 2010: Inside Antiquities

Doors Open also provided a chance to look inside the Antiquities Building. I had the shock of my life in there. This simple frame building from 1872 has an almost posh interior. Magnificent wainscoting, corner closets in upstairs bedrooms, a back staircase for the maids, wallpapered ceilings. But with horsehair insulation, no central heating and a crumbling foundation, much will have to be done to this building to bring it to modern standards. I'm just glad I had a chance to see it the way it is now, truly a monument to another time.

Doors Open Highlights 2010: Banting Bliss

My second stop on Doors Open was Banting House National Historic Site. Now the embarassing thing is, I've lived in London 26 years and never been there. (Probably for the same reason New Yorkers have never been to the Statue of Liberty or Parisians up the Eiffel Tower - but I digress.)

I found out Sunday morning what a wonderful little museum this is. It commemorates one of the most important medical breakthroughs of the 20th century, when Frederick Banting came up with the idea that led to the discovery of insulin. His upstairs bedroom is filled with emotional tributes left by visitors, many of whom wouldn't be alive without his research. Down the hall there's a room full of his artwork. Turns out he could also paint and in the style of the Group of Seven - maybe it should have been the Group of Eight! Truly a great site dedicated to one of our all-time greatest Canadians.

London, Strut Your "Stuff"

An Ian Gillespie article in the London Free Press this past week highlights one of this city's long-term heritage problems. The article discusses former fire chief Jim Fitzgerald's collection of firefighting memorabilia, some of which dates back to the 1840s. The artifacts include photos, posters, helmets, hoses, alarms, masks, coats, etc. Every item tells a tale about brave firefighters of London's past. 

Jim's collection was recently on display at City Hall lobby. Which is nice because normally no one would get to see it. Though he's tried for years to get the city to establish a firefighting museum, the city's just not interested. "I can't get to first base," he was quoted as saying. "It's sad." He adds: "It's a damn shame this stuff isn't in a permanent home." Well, they are of course. Jim's home. 

Of course, it's not just firefighting "stuff" that doesn't have a permanent home in London. Witness the recent closure of the Guy Lombardo Museum near the former Wonderland Gardens and the wrangling over ownership of the music legend's speedboat. Then there are the various London museums in crowded, inappropriate quarters - like the First Hussars Museum in an Ontario cottage behind the Old Courthouse. Or the ones in out-of-the way places - like the Secrets of Radar Museum somewhere behind Parkwood Hospital. (I know, veterans will find it there - but who else?) 

What this city needs is a real historical museum (by "real" I mean not like Museum London which is mainly empty space) with sections devoted to: the founding of the city at the Forks, the First Hussars, the Western Fair, Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians, the Medical Hall of Fame, Royal Canadian Regiment and the Secrets of Radar. There would be room for firefighting artifacts. Throw in a section on London's role as a refuge for fugitive slaves before the Civil War. Have a special display on our worst disaster, the Victoria riverboat capsizing. The role of the railway in developing the city. 

I could go on but you get the point. Most of our heritage should be under one roof, not scattered throughout the city. And we don't even need to build new. There's an unused library on Queens Avenue with a lobby that's (probably) large enough to hold Engine 86 (although the current owner of the building apparently prefers to let it fall down). There are dozens of underutilized spaces on Dundas Street. There's an empty Normal School in Wortley Village. If we build it - and make it worth visiting - they, the visitors, will come. Even pay. And Jim could get all that "stuff" out of his basement.

Update, 2016: The Normal School has now been taken over by the YMCA of Western Ontario, which is a wonderful reuse of this historic building in Wortley Village.