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Toronto Sketches 6 p. 173 states that the McLaughlin Building was the first car showroom on Bay Street, on a stretch which later became known as "Auto Row" for the number of showrooms. On p. 172 (and I think this can be found mentioned elsewhere), it is stated that the McLaughlin building was also the last car showroom to remain open in this area. This may have been part of the reason the building was considered notable enough for heritage listing and preservation, that it was both the first such building constructed in the area and the last remaining building of this type. Perhaps further sources can be found to verify this. It's also worth knowing that the documents preserved by the city make it clear that the historic parts of the building were retained, as required by the heritage listing. The reason some parts were not required to be preserved was that they were not part of the original 1925 structure. As usually happens, parts of the building were modified or replaced during its 82 years as a car showroom. Jack N. Stock ( talk) 21:20, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
It has been proposed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Burano (building) that McLaughlin Motor Car Showroom be merged into Burano (building), assuming the latter article is kept. I think that the content in the McLaughlin Motor Car Showroom article can easily be explained in the context of Burano (building), and the Burano (building) article is of a reasonable size that the merging of McLaughlin Motor Car Showroom will not cause any problems as far as article size or undue weight is concerned. Jack N. Stock ( talk) 02:08, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
I will withdraw this WP:AfD, if all of you ( Geo Swan, Jacknstock and doncram) agree not to attempt to merge or move either of these two buildings ( Burano (building) and McLaughlin Motor Car Showroom) into one article and you also agree not to submit McLaughlin Motor Car Showroom to WP:AfD. If that condition is met, I in turn will also promise not to initiate a merge, move or AfD on either article. Can we agree? And also, that Jacknstock removes the merger proposal he just put up.
Jacknstock At first, based on what I had been reading from you and other commentators, I thought only the facade was kept. However, further digging, I discovered last night that it appears this went above and beyond simple facadism (and the pics--I believe posted by you post--seemed to confim that far more than the facade appeared to have been preserved). From this April 8, 2008 report from City Planning:
The revised strategy also proposes that the southern part of the building be demolished and the decorative interior elements be reconstructed (from moulds and survey drawings) within the new building. The structure of the new building has been adjusted to locate the columns of the correct octagonal section to permit an accurate reconstruction of the interior features.
This certainly sounds like they went further and planned to reconstruct some of the historic interior elements as well. This example goes beyond the kind of poor facadism you see in these examples.
That report was incorporated into the materials presented to the City Council on May 26, 2008 and approved May 26-27, 2008 here. That approved item include (this has been edited down):
-- David Tornheim ( talk) 03:08, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
@ Anne Delong: Thanks for your interest in this article and recent edits. I hope you agree with me that this would make a good article separate from the Burano (building). I wanted to let you know that a couple of things are incorrect in the article, and I haven't had time to correct them.
As mentioned above, it is not just the facade that was restored, but additionally other historically significant elements. This is actually a big deal in historic preservation if you are not familiar with it. Not only that, there is a historic easement with Heritage that further protects the property from future modifications or developer interest in demolishing it.
So where the article says it is "inside" of the building, that really isn't correct. It might have been "incorporated" into the new building, but even looking at the photograph, you can see that the two buildings are almost separate and distinct buildings. Getting WP:RS to confirm this is a bit tricky, but some of the documents I showed above make it pretty clear that was the plan.
If you have some ideas for new language you want to discuss, I'm all ears. I'm still uncertain what might sound best and be best supported by WP:RS and whether more digging for WP:RS is necessary.
I'm honestly dismayed about the proposed merger above, which saps my energy and interest in improving this article. I'm trying to broker a compromise to get editors to support keeping both articles if I withdraw my nomination at AfD to delete Burano (building). I just don't see how this run of the mill highrise among the 50+ others listed here can be considered more notable than this showroom which is a "rare surviving example of an early 20th century automobile showroom in Toronto." [2]. I do not want to see this significant historic structure buried in the article about that ordinary high rise.
-- David Tornheim ( talk) 03:34, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
Per my comments and Jacknstork's: This language consider inaccurate and I will probably change it if no one else does:
References
I don't remember who wrote "demolished"--it might have been me, but that clearly isn't accurate based on looking closely at the documents from planning and city council. It was disassembled and rebuilt and restored. And saying that it was incorporated in into the Burano's lower three floors is misleading for two reasons: (1) the bulk of the Burano high rise is in the former parking lot of the old building. (It might be technically correct to say that the rebuilt showroom is now part of the larger new Burano building, or building "complex"), (2) but to say it is the lower *3* floors makes no sense, especially since the showroom is only *2* floors. The whole sentence gives entirely the wrong image of what happened, which is why I was shocked when I saw the actual image that showed the entire showroom intact and almost entirely separate from the new high rise, when I had expected to see just the facade pasted onto the highrise, like the images I showed of facadism. This was substantial preservation, and this sentence gives the wrong impression. -- David Tornheim ( talk) 04:14, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
I think we should change the writing to more closely reflect what we know with some certainty and not re-state anything that is vaguely and confusingly worded by the sources into the article which is can be disproven by direct evidence. Our biggest problem is that the secondary sources do not cover some of the the key information that can be discerned by primary sources and direct evidence. This is what we do know:
I went on a photo excursion last week, in that area, and made a point of taking some images of the building today.
I am pretty sure I took some photos with my original digital camera, in 2008, before the original building was demolished. I don't know if I will be able to find them, as I wasn't a serious photographer then, and I had no idea they would be of interest now.
But I can address the comment above, that the tower is built in the former building's parking lot. That is not true. At least one of the references refers to the parking lot as small. It was small, lying north of the wall with the mural, where the three story north lobby is now.
I remember visiting the building, about 20 years ago, with a friend of mine, when she went to get her car serviced. Goldarnit, what kind of vehicle was she driving? Geo Swan ( talk) 13:10, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
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Toronto Sketches 6 p. 173 states that the McLaughlin Building was the first car showroom on Bay Street, on a stretch which later became known as "Auto Row" for the number of showrooms. On p. 172 (and I think this can be found mentioned elsewhere), it is stated that the McLaughlin building was also the last car showroom to remain open in this area. This may have been part of the reason the building was considered notable enough for heritage listing and preservation, that it was both the first such building constructed in the area and the last remaining building of this type. Perhaps further sources can be found to verify this. It's also worth knowing that the documents preserved by the city make it clear that the historic parts of the building were retained, as required by the heritage listing. The reason some parts were not required to be preserved was that they were not part of the original 1925 structure. As usually happens, parts of the building were modified or replaced during its 82 years as a car showroom. Jack N. Stock ( talk) 21:20, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
It has been proposed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Burano (building) that McLaughlin Motor Car Showroom be merged into Burano (building), assuming the latter article is kept. I think that the content in the McLaughlin Motor Car Showroom article can easily be explained in the context of Burano (building), and the Burano (building) article is of a reasonable size that the merging of McLaughlin Motor Car Showroom will not cause any problems as far as article size or undue weight is concerned. Jack N. Stock ( talk) 02:08, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
I will withdraw this WP:AfD, if all of you ( Geo Swan, Jacknstock and doncram) agree not to attempt to merge or move either of these two buildings ( Burano (building) and McLaughlin Motor Car Showroom) into one article and you also agree not to submit McLaughlin Motor Car Showroom to WP:AfD. If that condition is met, I in turn will also promise not to initiate a merge, move or AfD on either article. Can we agree? And also, that Jacknstock removes the merger proposal he just put up.
Jacknstock At first, based on what I had been reading from you and other commentators, I thought only the facade was kept. However, further digging, I discovered last night that it appears this went above and beyond simple facadism (and the pics--I believe posted by you post--seemed to confim that far more than the facade appeared to have been preserved). From this April 8, 2008 report from City Planning:
The revised strategy also proposes that the southern part of the building be demolished and the decorative interior elements be reconstructed (from moulds and survey drawings) within the new building. The structure of the new building has been adjusted to locate the columns of the correct octagonal section to permit an accurate reconstruction of the interior features.
This certainly sounds like they went further and planned to reconstruct some of the historic interior elements as well. This example goes beyond the kind of poor facadism you see in these examples.
That report was incorporated into the materials presented to the City Council on May 26, 2008 and approved May 26-27, 2008 here. That approved item include (this has been edited down):
-- David Tornheim ( talk) 03:08, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
@ Anne Delong: Thanks for your interest in this article and recent edits. I hope you agree with me that this would make a good article separate from the Burano (building). I wanted to let you know that a couple of things are incorrect in the article, and I haven't had time to correct them.
As mentioned above, it is not just the facade that was restored, but additionally other historically significant elements. This is actually a big deal in historic preservation if you are not familiar with it. Not only that, there is a historic easement with Heritage that further protects the property from future modifications or developer interest in demolishing it.
So where the article says it is "inside" of the building, that really isn't correct. It might have been "incorporated" into the new building, but even looking at the photograph, you can see that the two buildings are almost separate and distinct buildings. Getting WP:RS to confirm this is a bit tricky, but some of the documents I showed above make it pretty clear that was the plan.
If you have some ideas for new language you want to discuss, I'm all ears. I'm still uncertain what might sound best and be best supported by WP:RS and whether more digging for WP:RS is necessary.
I'm honestly dismayed about the proposed merger above, which saps my energy and interest in improving this article. I'm trying to broker a compromise to get editors to support keeping both articles if I withdraw my nomination at AfD to delete Burano (building). I just don't see how this run of the mill highrise among the 50+ others listed here can be considered more notable than this showroom which is a "rare surviving example of an early 20th century automobile showroom in Toronto." [2]. I do not want to see this significant historic structure buried in the article about that ordinary high rise.
-- David Tornheim ( talk) 03:34, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
Per my comments and Jacknstork's: This language consider inaccurate and I will probably change it if no one else does:
References
I don't remember who wrote "demolished"--it might have been me, but that clearly isn't accurate based on looking closely at the documents from planning and city council. It was disassembled and rebuilt and restored. And saying that it was incorporated in into the Burano's lower three floors is misleading for two reasons: (1) the bulk of the Burano high rise is in the former parking lot of the old building. (It might be technically correct to say that the rebuilt showroom is now part of the larger new Burano building, or building "complex"), (2) but to say it is the lower *3* floors makes no sense, especially since the showroom is only *2* floors. The whole sentence gives entirely the wrong image of what happened, which is why I was shocked when I saw the actual image that showed the entire showroom intact and almost entirely separate from the new high rise, when I had expected to see just the facade pasted onto the highrise, like the images I showed of facadism. This was substantial preservation, and this sentence gives the wrong impression. -- David Tornheim ( talk) 04:14, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
I think we should change the writing to more closely reflect what we know with some certainty and not re-state anything that is vaguely and confusingly worded by the sources into the article which is can be disproven by direct evidence. Our biggest problem is that the secondary sources do not cover some of the the key information that can be discerned by primary sources and direct evidence. This is what we do know:
I went on a photo excursion last week, in that area, and made a point of taking some images of the building today.
I am pretty sure I took some photos with my original digital camera, in 2008, before the original building was demolished. I don't know if I will be able to find them, as I wasn't a serious photographer then, and I had no idea they would be of interest now.
But I can address the comment above, that the tower is built in the former building's parking lot. That is not true. At least one of the references refers to the parking lot as small. It was small, lying north of the wall with the mural, where the three story north lobby is now.
I remember visiting the building, about 20 years ago, with a friend of mine, when she went to get her car serviced. Goldarnit, what kind of vehicle was she driving? Geo Swan ( talk) 13:10, 17 May 2017 (UTC)