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About two years ago, I noticed a building with June lilacs blooming in its garden, perfectly bringing out the grey/black colors of the building and enhancing its simple, yet elegant architecture.
I took a picture of the building with the lilac bush, and drew a rendition of it in pastel and charcoal.
About year later, I was shocked to find that the building had been demolished (in a matter of weeks, I'm sure, since I often walk by it). I predicted that a condominium would go up, in a post ironically titled "Preserving Memory."
A high rise did go up, but as a housing center for the nearby Ryerson students. I've written about the Ryerson expansion, and my skepticism about this long-term project here.
As I walk through or around the campus to get to subways and street cars, what strikes me each time is the over-abundance of "South Asians", hijab-wearing women, and Arabic language spoken loudly and belligerently.
This is the student body that Ryerson is pulling all its stops for, buying nearby buildings, building new ones on available campus land, acquiring funds from the government and generous private funds.
I wonder how many of them will use the engineering department, or other technical departments to reek havoc around campus and around the city? Previous terrorist networks have made great use of the various cities' technological infrastructure, what's to stop them using the readily available university ones?
In their quest for naive universality and utopia, Canadian leaders have put their land on the block, for sale (or destruction) to the nearest bidder.