Cosmos At Play
by Marilyn Cornwell
Title
Cosmos At Play
Artist
Marilyn Cornwell
Medium
Photograph
Description
In the Urban Extractions Series. One of the whimsical scenes of intense colours and textures found at the abandoned Westwood Theatre in my Toronto neighbourhood. I think this has been demolished this past June 2013.
Toronto is so full of cranes building condos. A large tract of land like this is quite the scene with its eerie empty parking lot filled with weeds. The Bloor Street, Kipling Avenue and Dundas Street West interchanges and the Westwood Theatre lands are to be redeveloped by the Build Toronto agency, starting in 2014 into a mixed-use development.
There seems to have been many ideas in the past for Westwood. Here are a few from a Globe and Mail article:
The city initially bought the site in the 1960s to construct a subway train yard. That plan, like many others after it, fell through. Etobicoke wanted to build its city hall here in the 1980s before amalgamation. The site was once used as a snow dump, and firefighters used the theatre building to store donated toys for charity until it got too musty after a flood in the basement. In 2009, the province entered into an agreement with the city to build a courthouse here, but backed out because of a lack of funding.
Today, a $45-million infrastructure project which will be paid for through the city�s 10-year capital plan aims to transform the neighbourhood into a more pedestrian-friendly area with improved traffic flow, a redesigned network of roads, parks, residences and retail outlets. The city approved an environmental assessment in 2007 which recommended wider sidewalks and bike paths.
Uploaded
December 19th, 2013
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