SPADINA EXPRESSWAY AFFAIR
exhibit runs from March 3 to July 8
Market Gallery, South St. Lawrence Market, 95 Front St. E.
Opening reception Saturday March 3, 1-3pm. Remarks at 1:30
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We’re happy to announce the opening of The Spadina Expressway Affair, an exhibit curated by Spacing contributor Tim Whalley and sponsored by the City of Toronto and Spacing.
One of the most contentious episodes in Toronto’s recent history — the Spadina Expressway affair — revolved around a stretch of highway. From the late 1960s until its cancellation on June 3rd, 1971, Torontonians fiercely debated the impact of a highway designed to link the suburbs with downtown and surrounding communities. The exhibit explores the competing interests, public demonstrations and community activism that surrounded the Spadina Expressway.
Rendering of Casa Loma, Spadina and Davenport from Toronto Archives, Research hall Library, Transportation Records, “Functional Design South from Eglinton Aveneue; William R. Allen Expressway and Rapid Transit Line,” by Metro Toronto Roads & Traffic Dept, February 1970.
3 comments
Jeez, I’d love to go to the opening reception, but I can’t say no to The Searchers at Cinematheque.
I dropped by this exhibit after my morning shopping at the market and before the official reception and schoozefest.
Occasions like this, looking at what might have been and the arrogance of the era that produced it, explain why I have a less than generous attitude to road engineers who are so loathe to give up an inch, literally, to transit.
We came very close to destroying Toronto, and some of us have long memories.
Yes, and fast forward 37 years, and we have yet another excessway struggle, the Front St. Expenseway and the related Gardiner/Lakeshore mess where the auto-centric assumptions still hold sway. Are there some transit options available here instead of a road?