Descriptive Transcript: 20 Years of Placemaking
This is a descriptive transcript for Video: 20 Years of Placemaking
[DESCRIPTION:
Text on screen, 20 Years of Placemaking, interview with Bob Fung.]
[DESCRIPTION:
Bob Fung sits by a window and speaks. Text on screen: Bob Fung, Chair of the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Task Force.]
[AUDIO: Bob Fung speaking]
I was in my office just doing my thing, the phone rang late in the evening.
[Bob Fung imitating the person on the phone:] Bob is that you?
[Bob Fung:] I said yeah and you know,
[Bob Fung imitating the person on the phone:] the Premier would like to speak with you.
[DESCRIPTION:
Photos of former Ontario Premier, Mike Harris.]
[AUDIO: Bob Fung:] Mike got on the phone and he said, I hear you know something about numbers. And then then he asked me to come up to his office. I came in here, there was really nothing outside, it was just a building – it was a warehouse building sitting on the waterfront.
[DESCRIPTION:
Photo of a large concrete building next to a parking lot by the lake.]
[AUDIO:] The question I was really asked was, was it possible to hold the Olympics in the Toronto downtown space and what sort of numbers would be involved.
[DESCRIPTION:
Aerial photographs of the Toronto waterfront in the 1990s, showing mostly empty surface parking lots. Text on screen: Toronto was one of five short-listed bids for the 2008 Olympic Games. Then Bob speaking.]
[AUDIO:] So that's what really Mike asked me to do and then casually he said well you know Mel is going to pay for part of this, why don't you go down and speak to Mel.
[DESCRIPTION:
Photos of Mel Lastman, Mayor of Toronto. Bob Fung speaking]
[AUDIO:]
Mel Lastman was the mayor at the time. No one really had an idea of what it is other than we wanted to try to get the Olympics here. That's how this whole thing started. The real fun of this entire project, and it really was fun, the fun of this entire project wasn't really the Olympic Games.
[DESCRIPTION:
Promotional image for the Toronto Olympic Bid. Text on screen: Expect the World. Toronto 2008. Toronto – the City of Nations. With equivalent text in French.]
[AUDIO:] What became interesting was actually using the Olympic Games as the nucleus to try to do something that the City of Toronto had been trying to do for well over 100 years.
[DESCRIPTION:
Aerial view of the Toronto waterfront in the 1990s, seen from the east. It is mostly empty space and industrial buildings, next to the elevated highway. Large tanker ships on the shore of Toronto. Another aerial view of the waterfront showing the elevated highway and industrial port uses.]
[AUDIO:]
The cities on the great lakes systems used the Great Lakes as a transportation corridor, and so cities were all built to look inland and what in essence you had were really the worst parts of the city; the docks of the city along the waterfront. Modern cities whether it's...the city we often refer to is Chicago, had actually began turning this city looking towards the lake.
[DESCRIPTION:
People sitting by the water, looking out towards the Toronto Islands. People walking on a boardwalk and sitting on benches between the lake and some tallships, and a park.]
[AUDIO:]
And that was the challenge. The City of Toronto had to be reoriented to the lake.
[DESCRIPTION:
Aerial view of Toronto’s East Bayfront Neighbourhood in 2019. It shows mixed-use buildings, a park, and tree-lined water’s edge promenade.]
[AUDIO:]
And that orientation to the lake had to be done, not by the developers, but it had to be led. This entity which we talked about as the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation could be put in place which will drive a federal agenda and the federal agenda was the new Canada. I felt at the time that Canada was trying to find its place in the world. everyone was driving and they knew - the millennium, the new technologies, the new sustainability issues, but these questions had not come to the fore. I looked at all of these and I thought, you know we could pull something off here which would be the envy of the world. And one of the big issues in Canada, as we all know, is it is very difficult - it's the limited number of times when you can actually get the federal government the provincial government and the municipal government to work together.
[DESCRIPTION:
Jean Chretien, former Prime Minister of Canada, surrounded by reporters and pointing. Mike Harris, former Premier of Ontario surrounded by microphones. Mel Lastman, former Mayor of Toronto in front of a microphone.]
[AUDIO:]
That was my personal challenge.
[DESCRIPTION:
Jean Chretien shaking hands with Mike Harris.]
[AUDIO:]
Trying to convince the governments to put on the table 1.5 billion dollars is not an easy thing to do. I wouldn't call it opposition, but the government doesn't like spending this kind of money on something that was brand-new.
[DESCRIPTION:
Cover of the Task Force Report. Text on screen: Our Toronto, Gateway to the New Canada, Waterfront.]
[AUDIO:]
The title of the task force report was the Toronto Waterfront, the gateway to the new Canada. By the time the taskforce report went out to Prime Minister Chretien to Premier Mike Harris and to Mayor Mel Lastman, the people in the City of Toronto was already on board.
[DESCRIPTION:
Prime Minister Chretien, on the left, points at Mayor Mel Lastman on the right, standing in front of a podium. Between them, Premier Harris smiles into the distance. The CN tower is in the background.]
[AUDIO:]
We fought for it. The waterfront corporation was put in place to do something very specific.
[DESCRIPTION:
An empty plot of land next to the water. The next photo shows the land as a beach with trees, pink umbrellas and Muskoka chairs.]
[AUDIO:]
It was to drive an economic model through an urban development process.
[DESCRIPTION:
A surface parking lot full of cars. The next photo shows the same area as a beach full of people sitting on the Muskoka chairs under the umbrellas. A splashpad has bright coloured lights illuminating water being spouted in front of the beach.]
[AUDIO:]
That entity creates - let me call it value, whether it's economic value or whether it's quality of life value, and I think that's exactly what the waterfront corporation is doing.
[DESCRIPTION:
A fence running along the water’s edge next to a derelict industrial building. The next photo shows the same area with a tree-lined water’s edge promenade featuring a maple-leaf mosaic. An overgrown empty space underneath an elevated highway. The next photo shows the same area with new landscaping, lighting, and children’s play structures.]
[AUDIO:]
It's creating value, well in excess of the sum of its parts. It's hard to envision today what, let me call it Spadina Avenue to the bottom of let's say, the Redpath, what that looked like before.
[DESCRIPTION:
A narrow sidewalk next to the lake. The next photo shows the same area with an undulating boardwalk and bench seating. A narrow sidewalk between a road and the Redpath Sugar Factory and buildings under construction. The next photo shows the same area full of people walking and biking on a multi-use trail next to a complete residential building and the Redpath factory.]
[AUDIO:]
and I think all of us who started this can look back with a terrific amount of pride in terms of what has been accomplished, what we started, what our vision was.
[DESCRIPTION:
A narrow sidewalk next to a 4 lane road and the water’s edge. The next photo shows the same area with a wide undulating boardwalk and many people enjoying a walk in the sunny weather.]
[AUDIO:]
We have the ability to build what in essence is the first truly sustainable community, environmentally sustainable community in the world.
[DESCRIPTION:
An empty plot of land between railway tracks and an elevated highway. The next photo shows the same area with a huge park and mixed-use residential buildings.]
[AUDIO:]
And if we can do that Toronto will become a truly first tier destination. And that is in the hands of the waterfront corporation today.
[DESCRIPTION:
An animation showing cartoon kayaks, plants, fish, bicycles, shovels, umbrellas and various shapes in shades of blue and green. Text on screen: 20 Years of Placemaking. Waterfrontoronto.ca]