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In a recent post, I wrote about ruins in the historical, positive sense, where we get a glimpse of our traditions. Here is a terrible kind of ruin. Part of a building suddenly collapsed near Ryerson during lunch hour about two weeks ago. Fortunately, there were no injuries. The photo above shows the building on Gould Street. It also wraps around onto Yonge Street.
The building houses a Thai restaurant and a recently opened Japanese restaurant. I took this picture a couple of days ago. The whole section is closed, including the Thai restaurant, all losing a lot of business.
No one is making speculations on why the building collapsed. But, I will. I remember that building housing three stores, and not two. I think that during the renovation of the Japanese restaurant, the workers removed walls to increase the space inside, and destroyed some foundational structures. This is my guess. Well, Steve, who comments at the BlogTO post (third down in the comments list), says something similar to what I'm saying. Here is Steve's comment:
Crazy. Looking at the drywall and studs, it appears it was recently renovated. I wonder if they pushed the wall too hard when doing the renovation, compromising the structure.
It makes me think twice about projects involving drastic renovation of old buildings, which is sooo common is Toronto. You have to be careful to preserve the strength of the original building.My larger point is that heritage (or older) buildings like this are constantly being renovated or demolished for the sake of retail or resident space. With this reckless and constant construction work going on, I would think that it is easy to make mistakes. Money is more important than heritage.
