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bay-adelaide at last!

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

On Friday I was stunned to see that the first part of the Bay-Adelaide centre has been built. The eternal project, dating to 1987, was real.

From the time I arrived in the city in 1995, the "centre" was really just a concrete stump meant to house the tower's elevators. It stayed that way for the entire ten year period during which I lived in the city (off and on). It was a landmark, of sorts, sitting on prime real estate and puzzling passers by as they darted between bank towers. And it set the tone for that stretch of Yonge St, the abandoned site sitting among a DMV building as well as novelty shops and other tourist dross.

There are many, many, new buildings in Toronto, but this was the one that really surprised me.