The Construction Record Podcast – Episode 188 – Toronto’s Queer Spaces with Joel Leon and Kurtis Chen

This week on the Construction Record podcast, digital media editor Warren Frey speaks with Toronto Society of Architects program director Joel Leon and executive member Kurtis Chen about historic queer spaces in Toronto that have a special significance to the city’s LGBTQ community.

Leon and Chen detailed how they participated in Toronto’s recent Pride Parade and other events and raised awareness of the city’s queer architectural history and also explained the historical significance of several Toronto buildings from its earliest taverns to the purpose-built Friends of Ruby transitional building for 2SLGBTQIA+ youth in downtown Toronto.

Chen and Leon also recently spoke to Daily Commercial News staff writer Angela Gismondi and information and history of many queer spaces is available via the Toronto Society of Architects social media channels.

You can listen to The Construction Record and TCR Express on the Daily Commercial News and Journal of Commerce websites as well as on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music’s podcast, and you can listen to the previous podcast featuring City of Vancouver director of special projects Matt Shilito about Vancouver’s Broadway Plan here. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next week.