We received a call from Adam Giambrone’s office tonight letting us know that the Toronto Parking Authority reversed their plans to buy the Matador building as they no longer had the support of the local councillor (Giambrone). The issue still must go back to full council to be officially reversed, but unless some strange shift in Space and Time occurs (like the one that caused this aberration of common sense in the first place), the city will not be tearing down the building for a parking lot. John Barber predicted as much in his Globe column today:
Councillor Kyle Rae, who sits on the parking authority board and opposed the Matador expropriation there – though not when the issue came to council – hopes to kill the proceedings behind closed doors this morning. He also hopes, perhaps vainly, to hold demonstrators at bay until the deed is done.
“I think the board needs to rethink,” he said. “I don’t think we need to be yelled at to do that.”
Even the local Business Improvement Area, which first prompted Mr. Giambrone into action, has backed away from the idea, according to Mr. Rae. Why it got as far as it did, he added, is a mystery. “We don’t go to this form of land acquisition without impetus,” he said. But it’s clearly going no further with the ward councillor now opposed. “It clearly seems unacceptable to have a parking lot,” Mr. Giambrone said. “We’ve expressed that we’re not supportive of tearing [it] down.”
The late-night set may still be sad as it’s unlikely the Matador will continue in its present form as an after-hours venue. The owners want to sell and the neighbourhood is far too gentrified for a similar new business to sneak its way into the Toronto scene at this location. Change like this in a city is inevitable. What we can best hope for is that an inventive and creative buyer will come along and find some kind of adaptive reuse for this unique dance hall. However, it is a victory from a civic perspective as our City is no longer going to replace a piece of the urban fabric with a parking lot as so many other self-immolating cities have done in the past and present.
File this saga under “You can fight City Hall.” As mentioned at the end of our first post on this issue, sometimes our honourable councillors — many of whom ran and continue to run on the unofficial Jane Jacobs platform — just need a little political encouragement to make the right decision.
Photo by Jason Michael
21 comments
Although he needed more convincing than I would have liked, in the end, Giambrone did the right thing and that’s what counts. So score one for community activism and one for a responsive councillor.
I want to thank all of you for your support and hard work. Preserving iconic buildings such as the Matador should not be this hard, but this result gives us hope.
Let us take this experience and work to improve our city and have our voices heard.
I would also like to thank Andrew, Erella, Gayle and Bryan for their incredible work and a special mention to Lucas Longman for his great poster which is available for download at http://www.savethematador.com
Simon
While I’m glad people got on side to fight this silly proposal, the focus on “Saving the Matador” for cultural reasons is weak argument and I’m glad Spacing never used it as a reason to oppose the lot. This fight was not won for what the Matador has to offer as a venue, but whether the City is following its own Official Plan which explicitly aims to reduce car dependency, reduce the amount of parking which encourages the use public transit.
I don’t mean to discredit those who voiced their disapproval on cultural grounds, as I’m sure they added to the groundswell of support. But this debate was more about environmental concerns, proper city-building, and an arm’s-length agency that is operating counter to the City’s stated objectives. There is little reason why ANY councillor would be swayed by the “let’s save the booze can where some great musicians performed.”
Lastly, savethematador.com is run by Giambrone’s main opponent Simon Wookey in the last city election. it should be noted that there was a a tinge of personal politics involved. Thus the self-congratulatory comment above, the misinformation on the web site about being bullied by the city and Giambrone, how Miller is to blame because there was no transparency in this (yes there was, we found out), etc.
I heard a “rumour”
Is it true that the Matador owed the city a crap load in back taxes?
Please confirm – if you can.
Yes to what Mickey said. The most outrageous part of this whole affair was that it was being expropriated and torn down to provide a parking lot, a (quasi)-permanent hole in the urban fabric. This would have gone against all sorts of official policies (including reducing car-dependence, and intensification of un- and underused properties), and could have set a precedent for other areas elsewhere in the city.
Giambrone is being quoted in the Star as saying he still wants to see what to do about providing more parking in the area. That shows to me that he interpreted the fight as being specifically about the Matador, not about the main issues above. Hopefully this is just a way for him to climb down reasonably gracefully.
This is fantastic!
I am really really happy that this turnaround happened.
We need to keep on it though, ensure that it really does happen.
It warms my wee cockles to see that people are starting to really care about the things/places we hold near and dear. It is what makes a city a real city with character and community. A parking lot just doesn’t do it.
Jackie Hooper
Although I am unsure of the genuine intention on some of the people involved, I’m really relieved that it’s not going to be another some concrete slab of nothing.
The CBC evening news report said the TPA would continue to seek other sites in the area for new parking.
I do hope all the folks who mobilized to stop this demolition would speak up again if the TPA tried to tear down some other building for a p-lot.
That will be the true test to see if this was just hipster nostalgia or a real commitment to Toronto.
On a related topic… I remember seeing an episode of The Monkees on TV waaaay back. The “bad guy” in that episode was trying to turn the whole city into parking lots.
More about that episode:
http://monkeestv3.tripod.com/season2/mayor.html
Of course, The Monkees saved the day and sang some songs or something.
Cheers,
Vic
…..can’t believe I admit to watching that
So… If there are so many people who love this place, why not band together, form a co-op or something, and buy it from the current owners… ?
Just a thought…
I am thinking an intrepid bar owner will buy the Matador, maintain the current feel of the place while converting into a regular hours drinking establishment…get ready for retro cool!
I can only wish for the same fate for 48 Abell Street in the Queen West triangle. If drinkers can save the Matador, can the artists save Queen West? What is the next stage in this battle? Is it all over?
If a Jeff Stober type of character buys The Matador and turns it into a Drake-like faux hipster venue you’ll all be complaining about gentrification.
Let them complain, but who is “you’ll all”? It’s an angry minotiry complaining about the Drake. The ones who wish it was still flea-bag.
Malcolm. I don’t think it was drinkers who stopped this — if it wasn’t an awful idea for the city to tear itself down for parking, just drinker nostalgia would not have stopped it.
48 Abell is a different case, it isn’t being torn down for a lot, something else is being built. I went to a thing there a few weeks ago, it looks like it was falling apart. I suspect everybody would need to be evacuated to bring it up to code anyway. So, much differnt things.
I would hardly call Giambrone a responsive or responsible councillor…he tried to slide one past the community to turn a historic monument into parking spaces the YMCA went on record saying they did not want or need…
It was the work of the community which was responsible for saving the Matador…Councillor Giambrone initiated the heavyhanded expropriation, so thanking him for reversing this potential damage is a bit backward.
I agree with Judy.
I once did the lighting for a rave in the basement of the Stardust (now the Drake) and no sensible person would retain that dungeon our of fear of gentrification. Equally, one would be be foolish to think that the neighbourhood around the Dovercourt YMCA isn’t already firmly on the middle class road. For heaven’s sake, it’s a hop, skip and a jump from Little Italy which isn’t exactly an impoverished community in need of protecting.
The Matador seems like a perfect opportunity, in an ideal location for a Drake-style reinvention. If I had the money (my way of saying: “If I didn’t work in theatre…haha) I’d love to make that happen. It couldn’t have stayed a booze can forever and indeed it seems like that time has already passed.
As for 48 Abell, the artists have a much tougher enemy in the developers and the OMB than the Facebook crowd had with the TPA on The Matador issue. The die was cast against 48 Abell before anyone even knew there was something to fight. It’s a tragedy of civic planning, a symbol of absent leadership and when the wrecking ball comes, I hope 48 Abell will serve as a martyr and a rallying cry for the remainder of West Queen West and it’s neighbour, the extremely fragile Parkdale.
Josh, with that in mind, I would argue that something like the Drake made that particular building more accessible to more people. Most people, poor or middle class, don’t want to go into dungeons, and most don’t go to raves. Places like the Matador, as is, are for the narrow group of folks who like to be in dive bars late into the night. Which is fine — bless them and give them an aspirin perhaps — but when people rant that the Drake pushed people out, it likely welcomed more people in than before (poor artists included who maybe can drink one less beer because it’s more expensive, but they see art-events that aren’t charged a fee for the space by the Drake — Spacing included).
Of course, they’re the “wrong kind of people” and “faux hipsters” or whatever other judgments people level on people they don’t know.
Oh god..
Stardust Raves..
I remember those..
I still laugh when I pass by.
They WERE fun though.
Except when the toilets overflowed.
This is great news but……what about the TPA plan to knock down a building to expand a surface parking lot in the Gerrard/Broadview area? Does anybody care about that?
Hi there,
My involvement in the Save The Matador issue was simple. I think that expropriation is an extreme measure that should only be considered when other solutions could not be found.
The owners of the Matador do not have outstanding tax bills, so that rumour should be put to rest.
I could not imagine how I would feel to hear news that Ann Dunn did, that the issue had passed council approval. That this was done in the past tense was an issue for me.
What if it wasn’t a music venue?
What if the place that neighbours wanted expropriated was a bath house, a rehab clinic, I don’t know what…?
The only person on the Parking-Lot-Instead-of-the-Matador committee owns a store that puts big stereos into cars. He needs more parking, the YMCA does not. Sure they would be happy to have it, but they weren’t driving this initiative.
The fact that it was the Matador made it easier to oppose.I have had great times in that space. I want historical buildings like this to preserved.
I am not interested in living in a place with just condos and parking. That is what we tear out farm land for. I would live in the “new communities” (suburbs) if I wanted that.
No need to question my “genuine intention”.
I am indeed thrilled that there was a lot of support at the TPA meeting. It was very exciting to be present at that and very grateful that I was not alone.
Erella