Toronto Elbows Up to protect local economy

American tariffs and the President's call to make Canada the 51st State has put pressure on Toronto City Council who have vowed to protect the local economy during this trade war. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow created an Economic Action Plan (10 actions) in response to the tariffs which has now been approved by City Council. You can see the love LOCAL sign in Nathan Phillips Square in the photo at top.

The strategy seeks to protect local businesses, workers and residents against the rapidly evolving slew of on and off again policy changes by the U.S. and includes preferring Canadian suppliers in procurement contracts. America tariffs on all steel and aluminum began in March and the further blanket 25% tariffs on Canadian products (10% on energy) is expected to begin on April 2, 2025.

Mayor Olivia Chow says, “Facing a senseless and harmful trade war, Toronto’s Economic Action Plan will protect businesses and workers with targeted support. As part of a Team Canada approach, I am encouraging all Torontonians to stand together and support local businesses by shopping local and buying Canadian whenever possible. Like SARS, the 2008 financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic, we will face this crisis and emerge stronger and more resilient than ever before."

Some of the actions also include a property tax deferral program, support of the manufacturing sector with a media campaign showcase, partnership with regional municipalities and others to expand global markets beyond America, buy local where feasible and begin the Love Local campaign encouraging shopping locally.

Forlorn Toronto Gray Coach Terminal

The terminal closed in 2021 after the final buses moved to Union Station and the depressed Art Deco building sits near Bay and Dundas waiting for something different. I liked the bus stations colourful platform number signage and decided to look into the fascinating history of the structure and its associated transportation companies.

Luckily the internets has plenty of information on just about anything and Wikipedia and the City of Toronto's own website tell the tale of the empty terminal. I have mostly known of the terminal as a Greyhound bus terminal, a private company. It was a Toronto TTC company before that when the City took over some competition in the bus business way back in 1927 and built the Gray Coach Terminal in 1931 (which also was used by other lines).

Looking into the bus platform terminals

From the City's website, "Consequently, in 1927, the TTC incorporated a subsidiary business called Gray Coach Lines, Ltd. to provide interurban motor coach services and sightseeing operations. Routes covered much of central Ontario, and included Buffalo, where passengers could transfer to other US destinations. Gray Coach Lines also operated several extra-fare special motor coach services in Toronto and motor launch sightseeing tours of the lagoons at Toronto Island."

The view from Bay Street

Public notices on the doors

TTC funding issues and the introduction of GO Transit which duplicated many of the GTA routes contributed to the sale of Gray Coach Lines in 1990. The other companies operated the terminal, leased from the City, until operations ended in 2021 and the building was locked up and the bus platforms fenced off.

Toronto has big plans for the site and will reuse parts of the heritage listed building which will make the building happy again.

Toronto Sign before the skating rink

The Toronto Sign is so nice at night and I managed to drop by before the cold weather turned the concrete pond into a municipal skating rink.

New Toronto Sign wrap unveiled in time for Indigenous Legacy Gathering

Rekindle is the new wrap unveiled by Mayor John Tory on September 28 recognizing UNESCO's International Decade of Indigenous Languages. The Mayor was joined by artist Joseph Sagaj, who designed the wrap, along with Elder Dorothy Peters and singer Zeegwon Shilling at Nathan Phillips Square.

Mayor John Tory passes the Toronto Sign

From the City's media release, "Sagaj’s design, Rekindle, was selected by a community jury in May. Rekindle offers a glimpse into how languages are vital to identity, voice and expression. Sagaj is Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) of the Sturgeon Clan and is from the remote community of Neskantaga in Northern Ontario. Throughout his career, Sagaj has felt honoured to share his Anishinaabe ancestry and heritage through art, featuring Indigenous knowledge, culture and teachings on numerous private and public commissions designing logos, murals, illustrations and painting projects for various organizations and different governments. Rekindle will remain on the Toronto Sign until the fall of 2023."

The City of Toronto will host the Indigenous Legacy Gathering at Nathan Phillips Square from September 29-30, 2022 where the City and the Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre will honour the residential school survivors. Indigenous cultures, traditions and languages will be celebrated through education, media and entertainment. On the day before the gathering begins work crews were busy raising tipis in the square.

Also underway at the east side of Nathan Phillips Square is the construction of the Spirit Garden due to be completed in 2023 which will honour the residential school survivors with a permanent structure.

Mayor John Tory said “The Indigenous Legacy Gathering celebrates and honours the resilience of residential school survivors and their families and is an important form of reconciliation. The City is proud to collaborate with Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre on this vital event at Nathan Phillips Square. I invite Torontonians to visit Nathan Phillips Square to honour survivors and their families, while exploring, learning about and participating in Indigenous activities.”

Andrea Chrisjohn, Board Designate, Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre stated that “Council Fire is proud to host this year’s Indigenous Legacy Gathering once again, following a 20-month lockdown and recent discoveries of those unmarked gravesites. This gathering will serve as an opportunity to bring our families, friends, and supporters together in a setting that celebrates the resilience of residential school survivors who continue to embrace their national identities through their voice, language and practices, denied to them in these institutions.”

No more Stolen Sisters - stickers in Yonge-Dundas Square

Large stickers of ladies are posted on the columns of Yonge-Dundas Square with signs that say "No more Stolen Sisters". The pieces are a protest in support of Indigenous women in Canada.

Amnesty International website says, "Stolen Sisters: A human rights response to discrimination and violence against Indigenous women in Canada. Violence against women, and certainly violence against Indigenous women, is rarely understood as a human rights issue. To the extent that governments, media and the general public do consider concerns about violence against women, it is more frequent for it to be described as a criminal concern or a social issue. It is both of those things of course. But it is also very much a human rights issue."

Out with the old Toronto Sign

The old Toronto Sign at City Hall has been removed and the installation of the new sign is underway. Removal of the old, temporary sign started on September 10th, 2020 and the area around the sign is barricaded off as workers start to get the area ready for the new letters.

The new sign is much like the old sign

Panorama of Nathan Phillips Square with the new sign

Here is the City's media release regarding the changes.

"Today, Mayor John Tory announced that the installation of the City of Toronto’s new, more durable Toronto Sign on Nathan Phillips Square has begun. An iconic Toronto attraction, the Toronto Sign has been a popular spot for selfies and group photos among residents and visitors alike.

The removal of the temporary sign, installation of the new sign and the wrap application will take approximately one week. The new Toronto Sign will be unveiled in the coming days.

The original sign was installed as a temporary structure in July 2015 for the Toronto Pan American and Parapan American Games. Although it was only built to last a few weeks, in response to the sign’s popularity, the City extended its presence on the square indefinitely and it has become a Toronto landmark.

After more than five years, the original sign is showing significant wear and tear and ongoing repairs and enhancements have been required to keep it working. Rather than paying for further, ongoing repairs and maintenance of the temporary structure, in September 2019 the City began the process of procuring a new more durable sign.

In December 2019, after an open and competitive process, the City awarded a contract for the design, construction, installation and ongoing maintenance for a new Toronto Sign to Unit 11, a Toronto-based custom design and fabrication supplier for the television, film, entertainment, and marketing industry.

The new and improved Toronto Sign will be easier to clean, waterproof, and will have augmented lighting capacity and other creative features to support public engagement and interaction.

The City will retain the sign’s maple leaf, which was installed in 2017 to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday, and the medicine wheel, which was installed on June 21, 2018, in consultation with the Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre to honour National Indigenous Peoples Day.

Since then, the Toronto Sign has become symbolic of Toronto. According to a Destination Toronto visitor survey, the Toronto sign was one of the top three most visited attractions in the city and it is consistently ranked as one of the most Instagram-worthy spots. The image of the sign is captured daily by local media and it has been a visual backdrop for international media coverage of major events from the 2015 Toronto Pan American and Parapan American Games and the 2017 Invictus Games to the 2019 Toronto Raptors’ NBA championship. The sign has also been illuminated and dimmed for hundreds of charities, community festivals, days of significance and times of mourning for the city and its residents.

As previously announced, the City is using reserve funds to pay for the new sign and existing operational budgets to cover the ongoing cost of maintenance and vinyl wraps. The cost of the design and construction of the new sign is $490,000 net applicable taxes. Removal of the old sign, installation of the new sign, wraps, a three-year maintenance contract, contingency and optional enhancements bring the total cost to $761,842 net applicable taxes. The City is open to philanthropic support to be able to enhance the features of the sign. Interested donors are requested to contact the Toronto Office of Partnerships at 416-392-6121, top@toronto.ca or donations.toronto.ca/.

Photographs of the Toronto Sign can be shared with the hashtag #xoTO and #TOsign. More information about the sign is available at toronto.ca/TorontoSign.

A newlywed couple poses for photos in the new Toronto sign

Quotes:

“As we embark upon the work to rebuild our city from the significant impacts of the covid-19 pandemic, it is fitting that installation of the new, more durable Toronto Sign is underway. I know when we get through this, Toronto will shine brighter, just like the sign itself. Like our iconic Toronto Sign, together, I am confident that we will rebuild a Toronto that is inclusive, dynamic and resilient.”
– Mayor John Tory

“I don’t think anyone can imagine Nathan Phillips Square without the now iconic Toronto Sign. It has brought our city together to celebrate our achievements, mark occasions and raise awareness, all while providing a spectacular selfie back drop.”
– Deputy Mayor Michael Thompson (Ward 21 Scarborough Centre), Chair of the Economic and Community Development Committee

You Are Loved in the Distillery District

New art installations are in the historic Distillery District with signs that are under the monster spider and other places along with a row of tree stumps painted in white with words and symbols. Many of the old favourites are still in the fun bricky neighbourhood with tourists still venturing to the destination even during the times of Covid.

LOCAL under the Gooderham & Worts Limited overhead crossing

You are loved and others on do not enter signs

Believe, Dream and Relax on stop signs

The row of art trees

And some of the existing artworks that remain.

Kiss blocks

The peace symbol with sunflower decorations

Toronto Neon Pop-up Gallery

Orphaned neon signs are on display at Junction House - free for the weekend. The Junction location is at 2720 Dundas Street West and the hours are Friday to Sunday, April 12 to 14, 2019 from 11am to 9pm.

The temporary home is awaiting a permanent museum to host the growing exhibition.

Items include the Hard Rock Cafe sign and guitar,  a Lucky sign and a big RUDE sign.

See more neon after the jump. Posted by Ann and James

Sam the Record Man sign back in the air

When people slowly stopped walking into record stores, video stores and book stores they started to rip the signs down, clear out the merchandise and re-purpose the stores. Along Yonge Street is Toronto's blazing corridor of light and advertisements, our Times Square, and some of the stores, buildings and signs became iconic of life in the city. Sam the Record Man's twin spinning records was one of those signs and when Ryerson University took over the block the signs were one of the first things to go. They promised the signs would be saved and put up again sometime in the future and that time has come.

Sam the Record Man sign in Yonge-Dundas Square

The sign finally went up overlooking Yonge-Dundas Square with a louvered background to let the winds flow through the sign and reduce the size of the supporting structure. Without the solid dark circle behind the neon lights which made it really look like a vinyl record, the overall impact to the sign is greatly diminished. The iconic sign has been made blah.

The original installation

Ryerson University has Sunset Neon restore and place the sign at its new home at 277 Victoria Street. "We are very pleased to announce the iconic Sam the Record Man signs, with their spinning neon discs, will once again illuminate downtown Toronto," said Ryerson President and Vice-Chancellor Mohamed Lachemi. "We're very thankful to the City of Toronto and the Sniderman family for their ongoing support and patience. We are all looking forward to the signs lighting up Toronto later this year."

The Sniderman Family issued the following statement "On behalf of every person who remembers purchasing their first record at or who ever worked in a Sam the Record Man store, Jason and Bobby Sniderman, the sons of Sam Sniderman, want to sincerely thank Ryerson university and the City of Toronto for having fulfilled their commitment to reinstall the iconic "Sam the Record Man" signs. The relocation to Yonge-Dundas square is the perfect "home" for them and it should be known that our first record store in downtown Torontoopened on the east side of Yonge Street just south of Dundas; so our signs will now be mounted above and shining down on the original location.

In the square

Honest Ed's was another sign taken down in Toronto, one of the large panels will be saved and placed in front of the Ed Mirvish Theatre