{"id":2296,"date":"2007-09-13T14:30:23","date_gmt":"2007-09-13T18:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=2296"},"modified":"2013-01-21T14:52:42","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T19:52:42","slug":"the-cn-tower-is-bigger-than-its-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/09\/13\/the-cn-tower-is-bigger-than-its-record\/","title":{"rendered":"The CN Tower is bigger than its record"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

This week’s Eye Weekly Stroll column<\/a> goes vertical and pokes around ideas of what the CN Tower (still) means to us now that its 30-plus-year run at the top of the world is over. Most interesting in researching this piece is how many times there were headlines over the last 30 years where some building somewhere threatened “our” title (like in 1978 when a tower for Expo ’84 in Tokyo was planned). It is remarkable that it didn’t happen sooner, even in the 1970s, when skyscraping was still in the tail-end of the post-war boom.<\/p>\n

Every time I walk down Ossington Avenue a block north of Bloor, I register the CN Tower in my peripheral vision — but when I turn to look at it I’m surprised each time because I’m not seeing the tower but rather the dome of the Ukranian Catholic Church of the Holy Protection on Leeds Street. Houses along this part of Ossington block the actual tower, but it’s such a landmark on all of our mental maps of Toronto that my brain replaces what is actually there with the CN Tower. Wherever we are in Toronto we can either see or sort of feel its position and proximity to us. It is the compass that lets us know where we are. <\/em><\/p>\n

The CN Tower has so penetrated our civic consciousness that it hardly matters that after nearly 32 years it’s about to lose its status as the world’s tallest freestanding structure to the Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower) in the United Arab Emirates. When our tower was built, its world-beating status was a matter of civic and national pride, transcending regionalism the way Expo ’67 or Wayne Gretzky and the rest of the 1980s Edmonton Oilers did. The CN Tower gave all Canadians bragging rights.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There was an article on the CBC site yesterday<\/a> that said in other Canadian cities “people dismissed the blow to Toronto’s ego with a laugh” with some anonymous Winnipegger quoted as saying: “I guess they’ll have to get a big box of Kleenex and get used to it.” This seems like such lazy journalism, and why I increasingly think the Toronto vs. Canada thing is mostly fed by middling J-school schmucks trying to drum up a fake story (though the CBC was probably doing it in jest, it’s part of a larger phenomenon). I don’t think the CN Tower losing the record is a blow to anybody here, nor do I think Canadians see it as an opportunity to Toronto-bash\/laugh-at — except when prompted by a reporter’s leading question. During 25 years of living in Windsor, a city with a major Western Alienation complex (bigger than Calgary’s!), I don’t recall ever hearing an ill or jealous word about “Toronto’s Tower” — it was “our tower.” I’m sort of glad the Dubai tower is taller, so now the CN Tower can be appreciated without the baggage of the record.<\/p>\n

It would be neat to hear about people’s favorite view of the tower. I’ve got a bunch, but some are at the farthest reaches of its sight-line. Once coming back from Orangeville we took dirt sideroads to avoid the Sunday night traffic and as we rolled over the last dark hill somewhere on the Oak Ridges Moraine (we were happily kind-of lost) the entire GTA was suddenly spread out before us with the tower marking the middle.<\/p>\n

Lightning photo by Sam Javanrouh<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s Eye Weekly Stroll column goes vertical and pokes around ideas of what the CN Tower (still) means to us now that its 30-plus-year run at the top of the world is over. Most interesting in researching this piece is how many times there were headlines over the last 30 years where some buildingContinue reading “The CN Tower is bigger than its record”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,20],"tags":[661,457,6733,307,686,380,6735,6732,4023,41,505,663,468,19,6736,625,6734,853],"class_list":["post-2296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-urban-design","tag-calgary","tag-canada","tag-catholic-church","tag-cbc","tag-cn-tower","tag-dubai","tag-dubai-tower","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-orangeville","tag-psychogeography","tag-reporter","tag-sam-javanrouh","tag-tokyo","tag-toronto","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-us-federal-reserve","tag-wayne-gretzky","tag-windsor"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe CN Tower is bigger than its record - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/09\/13\/the-cn-tower-is-bigger-than-its-record\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The CN Tower is bigger than its record - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This week’s Eye Weekly Stroll column goes vertical and pokes around ideas of what the CN Tower (still) means to us now that its 30-plus-year run at the top of the world is over. 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