When the NCC first proposed the Fallen Firefighters Monument on Wellington Street at Lett (near the Mill Brew Pub) I predicted it would be a dreadful isolated lonely spot, a dead spot on Wellington: https://www.westsideaction.ca/dead-spot/
Since the monument was completed, I’ve made a point of cycling by it frequently often occasionally once in a while. It’s always … dead. Except once, I actually saw signs that someone might have visited:
Notice that the visitor seems to be a fan of the 100 m diet; and also that the bench has a divider on it designed to prevent someone from lying down on it. Don’t get too comfortable here.
I vaguely recall that another grim memorial, this time to Communism and other dreadful Totalitarian Governments, is planned just east of the Fallen site.
And now the Feds are proposing to compound these dreadful dead spots on Wellington by … building another monument to death, on the opposite side of the street, in the shadow of the War Museum: the Holocaust Memorial.
Yea citizens, tread not into the valley of death.
Despite the Citizen’s editorial insisting that government ownership and control of the redevelopment of the Chaudiere Islands is essential, I am firmly in the camp that says Windmill Developments is likely to do a much better job than we have seen Government do here so far.
I wonder if Windmill would put another sombre, staid “memorial” on their lands as part of their efforts to revitalize and energize the Flats and bring it back to life?
Or might they consider this square:
hint: it’s in Vienna. And this isn’t the only restaurant on the square, there are several others, very nice ones, with offices/residences in the stories above:
And there in the centre of the Judenplatz square is the memorial to the 65,000 Austrian Jews deported to death camps:
Yup, people gather round Rachel Whiteread’s Holocaust Memorial to eat a nice meal. Or sit on the surrounding steps to eat a sandwich or an ice cream, while the children laugh and play on the steps, and under your feet or derrière are lists of the recently-dead.
That old man at the table next to you, what did he do during the last war?
I must confess to very mixed emotions in the square, and eventually we did not eat here, viewing the monument to dead in the centre of a lively square in downtown Vienna. But, truth be told, that was more because all the tables were taken than by some inarticulate moral angst.
What if, instead of putting another occupied-once-a-year-for-solemn-memorial-services monument to death on LeBreton Flats, we toss the project to Windmill and ask them to design a memorial, and let them use the current site for something a bit livelier?
Or maybe we could relocate the solemn concrete blocks that will inevitably constitute a bureaucratic memorial; putting them in a line, like those “druid” lines in Europe, but right up Sparks Street Mall. That might enliven the mall, and give complacent office workers some pause as they push forward the grinding wheels of government.
If these suggestions don’t appeal, then at least build a children’s playground or beer garden on the same Memorial site so it will be used, enjoyed, and life will continue.
But of the four choices I think we should assign the whole project to Windmill and let them integrate a Memorial function into a more lively place.
I think the problem is, is that the site for the firefighters memorial was dead to begin with. The Peacekeepers memorial has activity, because it’s on Sussex, next to shops and attractions, ditto the Human Rights memorial on Elgin. Aside from the occasional dogwalker (Yo!) nobody was in the neighbourhood before they built the memorial, and nobody is there now. The fact that there’s another firefighter memorial next to City Hall can’t help matters either. I think Doug Coupland’s first sculpture deserves better
I completely agree. Monuments – like all other public, ceremonial “tools” are most effective when they are PART of public life – not detached from it like graveyards. Another recent (and shockingly gaudy) example is the Naval Monument on Richmond Landing. You know, that odd white slab of marble with the giant gilded Christmas ornament hanging off the side? You can add that to the Valley of Death because it will be part of the same “cordon noir” of bleak, death-oriented – and public space killing – monuments across the North End of Lebreton Flats.
Re: Chaudière Falls and the NCC etc.
“Despite the Citizen’s editorial insisting that government ownership and control of the redevelopment of the Chaudiere Islands is essential, I am firmly in the camp that says Windmill Developments is likely to do a much better job than we have seen Government do here so far.”
I agree with you that *Windmill Developments* is likely to do a much better job than any government… but we could have ended up with any of the other developers acquiring it, few if any of whom have as much vision as Windmill.
So the Citizen’s more general point of the governments dropping the ball remains, but in this case we’re probably lucky they did but *only* because it was Windmill who ended up getting the properties.