TORONTO, October 15, 2003 -- York scholars Bob Hanke and Jody Berland will be among a group of citizens to be honored at the 29th annual Heritage Toronto awards dinner being held on October 20. The self-described "participant activists" are members of a local community group - Friends of a New Park - that successfully lobbied for the preservation of the Wychwood Car Barns as a public urban park facility in mid-town Toronto.
Hanke and Berland turned their work on the organization’s steering committee into a "real-time" study of the public process of creating new park space from the former Toronto Transit Commission streetcar repair site. Their 27-page study, Signs of a New Park, published in Public 26, also formed part of their group’s submission to Toronto City Council that led to council voting to preserve the buildings.
The Heritage Toronto award recognizes the group’s efforts in communicating the case for preservation to the community through a web site, flyers, brochures and media relations. In addition to their study, the pair also contributed articles and participated fully in the debate over whether to preserve the barns as historically significant to the community’s urban history or turn the entire site into a traditional green space.
Hanke is a professor of social science with York’s Faculty of Arts. Berland is professor of humanities in the School of Arts and Letters, Atkinson Faculty.
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For further information, please contact:
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David Fuller |
YU/107/03
