Art at Maple Leaf Gardens

John Sewell, one time Toronto mayor, wants Maple Leaf Gardens returned to its roots as a downtown ice palace.He argues in a local paper that it's time to open up the rink to anyone who wants to lace on the skates and carve a few circles where Darryl Sittler, Borje Salming and many other Leafs once toiled. Well, yeah, but why not try something different? Something, dare I say, rather less all-Canadian. Why not follow what the British and French did with a pair of their heritage buildings? The British turned the Bankside Power Station in southeast London into Tate Modern, a public art gallery that's been an exceptional success since it opened for business in 2000. Same thing at La Musée d'Orsay in Paris, which began welcoming the public in 1986 following the conversion of the former train station and hotel into an outstanding public art gallery in a city full of them. And if those two examples are too heady for everyone, there are a couple of others here at home. The old Toronto Stock Exchange on Bay Street became the the Design Exchange and the former streetcar barns on Christie Street have been turned into a live/work space for artists, a community gathering place and an all round positive addition to a neighbourhood that badly needed some texture.

So why not turn Maple Leaf Gardens into an art venue? It could be a gallery or a collection of free form learning spaces or a combination of both. After all, the building has been closed for a decade; plans to renovate the place as one retail venture or another have come to nothing so far, and Church and Carlton, where the Gardens sit, is one of the scuzziest intersections east of Yonge. A converted Gardens would improve that part of town immeasurably, and public transit is practically on its doorstep. Of course, the city, the province, the feds or a really, really rich Canadian would have to buy the building back from Loblaws, assuming the company would sell it. And there would be all sorts of architectural and other issues to resolve, but conversions have already been done here on a small scale and the British and French have shown us how to do it up big.

How fitting would it be for the Gardens, opened in 1931 and built at a time of economic crisis and make work projects, if the site were to get some stimulus money to turn it into an arts venue at a time of economic crisis and make work projects.