Friday 10 June 2011

Mural update

The Toronto Sun's mindset these days is puzzling.

Not a single word in the Sun all week about the removal of the mural founding publisher Doug Creighton commissioned with great pride in 1991 - a magnet for tourists and historians since it was unveiled in 1993.

No Sun words in print or online from the new owners of 333, Sun employees, city historians etc. Pathetic, really. 

But finally, our old friend Al "Nosey Parker" Parker wrote about the mural's demise in his torontosun.com blog on Thursday.

The former newsroom vet, who continued writing his Nosey Park blog after taking a buyout a few years ago, doesn't seem too disappointed with yet another slice of Sun history being erased. 

"There seems to be a certain amount of gnashing of teeth over the mural’s destruction," he writes. "I have a hard time building up that level of intensity: I miss it more because I love the history of Toronto than I do because of any nostalgia for what it represented about the 'old' Sun and its place in the fabric of the city.

"Surprisingly, I seem to be in the company of the artist, John Hood, who designed and painted the mural between 1991 and 1993 with his sister Alexandra: 'I don’t blame the new owners, that’s their right. To put a positive spin on this, it lasted 20 years. That’s a good lifespan for a mural,' John told torontoist.com’s Mark Kay."

But wait . . . 

More interesting is Al's photos of a slab of mural still intact and partially covered by a blue tarp. 

Dare we hope the new owners, First Gulf Development Corporation, plan to donate the surviving slice of history to the city for placement elsewhere?

Or, perhaps, they plan to work it into the exterior renovations at 333. 

Whatever, we remain puzzled by the Sun's reluctance to tell readers about the mural's fate. 

Why has torontoist.com beaten the Sun to its own story?

1 comment:

  1. The last couple of lines in the torontoist article sums it up:

    Don't expect the Sun to sponsor another project to replace it though.
    "That was a different time," said Power.

    How true, how true.

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