Where to relocate Our Lady of York?

Despite the heat and humidity, about 90 people came out on Saturday afternoon for the Heritage Toronto "Faces on Places" walking tour downtown.
I discussed (and showed pictures of) the former York County Registry Office at 60 Richmond Street East, with its sculptures by Jacobine Jones of a woman and the County of York coat of arms, which I've written about here before. It was demolished last year and the sculptures are in storage, awaiting relocation, possibly to the new building that is going up on the site.
I referred the walkers to a really informative comment I thought had been left on one of those earlier posts - but discovered when I arrived home that the comment had been sent to me in an e-mail. I had intended to post it at the time (in April), but failed to.
So here it is now, hoping it's better late than never - but apologies for the delay to Stanley Dantowitz who was a former employee of the Registry Office of the East and West Ridings of the County of York, who provided the information.
"I had wondered what had happened to (the sculptures) in the recent demolition," he wrote. " I agree that they should be on display to the public outside a building, not inside. If they are not suitable to affix to the outside of the new building at 60 Richmond St East, I suggest that they be located in a nearby public park."
The County Registry Office was at Berti and Richmond from 1946 until the mid 1960's when it moved to the current Toronto City Hall, which also housed the City of Toronto Registry Office.
"Prior to the 1960's the City of Toronto and Land Titles Offices occupied a building just about where the south-west corner of the current Toronto City Hall is now. Between the south-west corner of the current Toronto City Hall and Osgoode Hall is a strip of lawn. In the centre of the lawn is a children's playground," Stanley said.
"Perhaps the sculptures could be located on the lawn south of the children's playground?" he suggested. "They would be almost on top of the site of the former City of Toronto and Land Titles Offices. A suitable plaque could describe the three former offices."
Stanley included Toronto Community Housing's Leslie Gash on the e-mail, and she replied after talking to Sherry Pedersen in the Heritage Section of the City Planning Department.
"We spoke last summer about the fate of the sculptures," Leslie said. " I have sent her your email Stanley as well as the link to your website Terry and the renderings of the new building. They are willing to look at other alternatives for the sculptures. We still have lots of time on this but it was good to get the discussion started."

That is very encouraging, especially because all too often, sculptures from demolished buildings are either lost, or place inside the new buildings, where they aren't seen by the public.



Stanley also provided some information on the "Deeds Speak" motto that appears on the County of York coat of arms. He cited an article by Carl Benn (PhD) in last summer in The Fife and Drum, the newsletter of the Friends of Fort York and Garrison Common.
Benn, who is chief curator of the City of Toronto Museums and Heritage Services, attributed it to the Rev. John Strachan while he was rector of the Town of York, who used the phrase in praise of the York Militia in the capture of Detroit during the War of 1812.

I'll stay on top of this, and will post news of further developments in a more timely manner.

Our Lady of York (aka Deeds Speak), cont'd

Leslie Gash from Toronto Housing kindly sent me this picture (courtesy of Bird Construction), showing the two sculptures from the old 60 Richmond Street East building safely in storage.
The pieces—of the County of York coat of arms, with its motto "Deeds Speak," and a woman holding a building and a scroll and standing atop the coat of arms (I've named her "Our Lady of York")—were created by Jacobine Jones, a prominent Canadian sculptor of the mid-20th century. Jones was the sculptor behind several other bits of architectural decoration in Toronto—notably some of those on Kerr Hall on the Ryerson campus, and the four figures in high relief on the Canadiana Building, across Queen's Park Crescent West from Queen's Park.

Our Lady of York (aka Deeds Speak)

Last Monday, the sculpture of the woman (let's call her Our Lady of York) was taken down from the 60 Richmond Street East building. I was able to document how half of the job was done.

When I arrived at the site, wearing my new steel-toed boots and hard hat, the Lady had been freed from her surrounding brick and was bundled up to protect her from potentially damaging bumps on the way down.
(The relief is about 4 inches, but she was mounted on another piece of concrete, so that her total weight is probably about a ton.The County of York coat of arms, with its "Deeds Speak" motto, had been taken down several days before.)
The guys from Bird Construction began sloooowly lowering her ... and then found the board they'd propped up to ease her down wouldn't work. So they scrambled to find a new board ... which worked just fine.

But as she got nearer the ground, it became apparent that the chain holding her from the top wasn't long enough.
So the guys took a break, sent for a longer chain... and I had to go to my real job. The Lady hung there until she was taken down either later that day or on Tuesday.
I wasn't able to get back to the site to see the complete removal, so I don't know what the next steps would have been: how they'd get all 1,000 pounds of her from an upright position to the horizontal (presumably) to move her to a storage facility.
Where she will end up is a bit uncertain. I talked to Leslie Gash at Toronto Housing, and she'd like to see Our Lady put on the the new building. But the building's design doesn't look like the right style for Our Lady. See renderings of the new building included in this Globe and Mail story by John Bentley Mays.
Leslie said she supposed Our Lady could go inside the building, but she thought the sculpture really ought to be out where it can be seen.
That's my feeling exactly. It drives me nuts when these pieces, executed by some of our leading sculptors, are removed when a building is remodeled - and then put inside, where no one but indifferent employees can see them. The Rogers building at 333 Bloor Street East (a part of the complex where I work) is probably the worst offender, for reasons I outline in Faces on Places.
And that involved a Jacobine Jones sculpture too.

Deeds speak, the saga continues

This is just a quick, pictureless update on the 60 Richmond Street East building. The County of York coat of arms has already been taken down and I'll be notified when the sculpture of the woman is removed so I can photograph her descent and - I hope - her standing next to a man of normal height, just to show off the sculpture's 7.5-foot height.
I'm getting information about how these pieces are going to be reused, and also the fate of the heritage plaque that was mounted on the Berti Street side of the building. There's been too much going on in my other life (my day job) to post much here, but I will gather all that information and update, with pictures, on the weekend.
Again, please stand by.

Deeds speak

Faces on Places was released in June 2006, and a month later, one of the 65 buildings in the book was torn down. It was the 12-storey National Building on Bay Street which I included because of the griffins over the front door. The capitals were modelled by Merle Foster, whose biography I am writing, so I had hoped to return to photograph those details. In its place, the Bay-Adelaide Centre (with its highest tower at 50-odd storeys, the oddness depending on what you read) is going up, and will have a facade of the National Building pasted onto one corner of the new building's gleaming glass. Take a look here to see how ridiculous this will look.

Now I see that another building is coming down. The 60 Richmond Street East building is a fairly nondescript two-storey red brick building that started life in 1946 as the York County Registry Office. Since then, it has been a variety of municipal buildings, and most recently was a combination drop-in/shelter for men. It is going to become a 12-storey, 85-unit community housing building, with most of the units replacing Regent Park Housing.


I don't think the building itself is such a loss, but I was concerned about the sculptures—the County of York coat of arms with its "Deeds Speak" motto (above) on the Berti Street side and a woman standing atop the coat of arms on the Richmond side, both of which were sculpted by Jacobine Jones.
The foreman on the site said they're being salvaged for the city. I thought that might be the case when I saw bricks missing from around the coat of arms.

I've been trying to find out who in which City of Toronto department I need to contact to find out where the sculptures are going.


Watch this space.