Nominees named for 44th annual Heritage Toronto Awards

TORONTO – The 53 nominees for the 2018 Heritage Toronto Awards have been announced.

This will be the 44th annual event for the longest running heritage awards in Canada. They will be presented Oct. 29 at the Carlu in Toronto.

Nominees are being recognized for their contributions to Toronto’s heritage in five categories: Community Heritage, Public History, Historical Writing: Short Publication, Historical Writing: Book; and William Greer Architectural Conservation and Craftsmanship.

Five volunteer-based organizations are nominated for the Community Heritage Award which features a $1,000 cash prize. The group includes Ireland Park Foundation, recognized for its commemorative public space dedicated to the Irish famine migrants of 1847; and RISE UP! A Feminist Archive, a digital archive dedicated to fostering research and inter-generational conversations as well as inspiring activism for future social change, states a release issued by the City of Toronto.

According to the release, among the 18 Public History Award nominees are Berczy Park, the site of razed historical buildings that was first converted into parking and now serves as a public space for evolving community needs; Historica Canada’s first animated Heritage Minute on Kensington Market that captures the newcomer-centered history in the downtown core; and Driftscape, a free mobile application that uses content from arts and cultural groups to produce place-based experiences in a new collaborative multimedia approach.

Short Publication Award nominees explore the history of Toronto’s iconic music venue and its planned multi-year renovations in the pamphlet Massey Hall – Shine a Light; the enduring symbolic appeal of the maple leaf to Canadian identity in the exhibit catalogue Maple Leaf Forever; and the accusation of communist allegiance against one of Canada’s most powerful media moguls in the article Historicist: Ted Rogers, Communist?

Highlighted among the five projects in the William Greer Architectural Conservation and Craftsmanship category are the adaptive reuse of Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital’s administrative building into Humber College’s new Centre for Entrepreneurship; the restoration of glass work in the Keg Mansion restaurant, formerly the stately home of one of Canada’s most famous families; and the conversion of a rare Chicago School-style building in Toronto that housed a succession of furniture stores into the WE Global Learning Centre.

The 18 nominees in the Book category range from Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer, an illustrated history of how individuals and community networks transformed Toronto from a conservative place into a city that has led the way in activism; to Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness, a collection of conversations with political candidates from across Toronto on how they energize their communities to address local issues of poverty, violence, racism and drugs, adds the release.

The Heritage Toronto Board will also present a Special Achievement Award and a Heritage Toronto Volunteer Service Award with recipients to be announced in September.