Below is my article for the Ryerson University journalism website, Life in the City. Click here for the link to my article.
The Future of Toronto Heritage Museums
With many Toronto heritage sites being demolished, is there a future for heritage museums in the city?
Image: Mackenzie House Museum
Hidden among a line of homes on Bond Street, Mackenzie House, a heritage home in Toronto, stands with brick walls and black shutters.
“I think this is the house? Honey, it’s here,” says a middle-aged woman to her husband. They double-check the heritage plaque on the walkway, which states that Mackenzie House once belonged to William Lyon Mackenzie, a Scottish immigrant who became Toronto’s first mayor in 1834.
This couple is the only visitors at Mackenzie House on this rainy Friday afternoon in November. An older woman in a pioneer dress, complete with a white bonnet, greets them. They decline a tour as they are on the road to a birthday party.
Mackenzie House is rare because most buildings of its age have been demolished. According to Heritage Canada, over the last 30 years, Canada has lost 20 per cent of its pre-1920s heritage buildings due to demolition.
The Heritage Canada Foundation released its 2008 worst losses list, which includes two Toronto buildings: the Bata Shoe Headquarters and Walnut Hall. The later is a row of Georgian townhouses from 1856 that was neglected on Shuter Street for 35 years. The townhouses were demolished last year.
Alex Sawa, a Mackenzie House employee, worries about the future of heritage home museums in Toronto. “One of the things I worry about is funding. Everything is about money,” he said. “Also, there’s the social-cultural aspect where some people are so caught up in their lifestyle that they don’t spend the time to visit museums.”
“In the past, people were rooted,” said Sawa. “Today, people don’t have much time to look back.”
According to museum administrator Karen Edwards, City of Toronto museums are financially stable as they receive provincial funding and federal grants. Edwards represents three Toronto heritage homes: Mackenzie House, Spadina House, and Colborne Lodge.
“We all need to feel that where we live or visit, there is something below the surface,” said Edwards, “We need to value our past. We have lost a lot of our history in Toronto, but there are still places to go.”
Pioneers and Immigrants
One of those places to visit is Spadina House. Unlike the other two heritage museums, Spadina House has an authentic collection of household items.
The items belonged to the original owners of the house, the Austin family. The family was Irish immigrants who had two members involved in the First World War. The museum runs a program on the war, life in the 1920s, and tells visitors stories of the Austin family.
The summer is a busy time for museums in Toronto, with children off school and tourists visiting while on vacation. In August, Black Creek Pioneer Village is packed with smiling visitors having hot dogs and listening to bands performing at the band shell.
An excited family enters Daniel Strong’s First Home, a small log house from 1816. The son eagerly asks his father about the household items and a male volunteer dressed in 1800s clothing steps in, answering the boy’s endless questions with equal enthusiasm.
The house remains in the same location that it was built on, thanks to restorations in 1957 and 1958 by Black Creek Pioneer Village, one of Toronto’s museums that preserve historic homes.
Marty Brent, general manager of the pioneer village, said “every building was at risk, including the original buildings of the site. All of the buildings were at risk, either from time or neglect.”
The museum restored these buildings to allow visitors to see the past of Toronto, however many Toronto buildings are gone.
Brent said, “the number of buildings standing compared to what was originally here is a fraction.” She said, “by 1950 there were tons of buildings but today there are very few.” Marty Brent blames neglect as the chief reason for the disappearance of heritage homes.
Brent said, “the most exciting cities of the world recognize their heritage, which brings tourists. Cities like London, Greece, and San Francisco; cities that embrace their heritage and associate it with their culture. Toronto is a city that has really devolved its heritage and it is a constant fight. Toronto doesn’t have that sense of appreciation for its heritage.”
Regarding Toronto’s heritage, Karen Black, manager of museum and heritage services for the City of Toronto, said it “gives the city a soul beyond just being a functional place, beyond just where people live and work.”
Black thinks the future is bright for Toronto’s heritage. She said, “there is an emerging younger population that understands the sights and landscapes as being important to the city.”