As reported in the Toronto Star, and despite the protests of its owners, the Revue Theatre has been granted heritage status by the City of Toronto Preservation Board. Although heritage status will not guarantee the building’s use as a movie theatre, it will protect the unique architectural features—such as the marquee—that make it a landmark on North Roncesvalles. From the community’s perspective, historical designation is a small but symbolically significant step in the ongoing fight to maintain the Revue as an operating repertory cinema.

The Save the Revue working group is presently collecting information about how the community envisions the Revue going forward. What are we saving the Revue for? Please fill out the survey at the Save the Revue web site and let your desires and opinions be known.

Despite the good will generated by the McQuillans’ commitment to keeping the Revue as a cinema, it must be made clear that they continue to be against the designation of the theatre as historically significant because of the implications that designation may have on the building’s future property value. Indeed, it appears that the owners will actively oppose designation on June 22nd when the Toronto Preservation Board presents its case to City Council and the general public is also allowed to make deputations on the matter.

And this should not be surprising, given that designation is not really in their interests as landlords of the building. As landlords who may one day wish to sell, they would naturally be against anything that decreases the possible market value of the building because it limits the flexibility of any future development. NorthRonces.com’s, however, is more concerned with the public interest and asks the following question: “Does historical designation benefit the community’s desire to maintain the Revue theatre as a neighbourhood cinema?” (next page…)

This will be NorthRonces.com’s initial post on the first community meeting to Save the Revue which was held on June 8th. Part two will discuss the the heated issue of historical designation and part three will address a few options that could keep the Revue operating as a cinema.

Thursday night the 2nd floor teacher’s lounge at Howard Public School was packed with local area residents committed to putting their ideas, their time, and, in some cases, even their money, toward keeping the Revue Cinema operating as a neighbourhood repertory cinema—what appeared to be a unanimous goal.

The meeting, organized by Susan Flanagan and moderated by Mark Ellwood, was packed and late comers had to find room on the floor. Councillor Sylvia Watson, a representative of Peggy Nash, and future NDP candidate for the riding, Reverend Sheri Dinovo, attended along with media outlets The Globe & Mail, CityTV, The Village Gleaner and The National Post. Obviously, interest around this issue is quite high.

Perhaps most surprisingly, all three of the current owners—Chris, Kate and Mark McQuillan—were on hand and did a commendable job expressing their respect for the neighbourhood cinema idea and their desire to work with the Roncesvalles community in finding either a tenant or an owner for the building who will continue to operate it as a rep cinema. (next page…)

Here is some good news to tide us over until the “Save the Revue” battle is won. It is also evidence that community action can influence the shape of our neighbourhoods. According to the Toronto Public Space Committee (TPSC) June 2006 newsletter, Toronto City Works has recommended that the City Council reject the Eucan MegaBin contract. NorthRonces.com has been following this issue since its inception and is pleased that reason and good taste have won out over greed and bad design. Unfortunately, the TPSC notes that the trial MegaBins are still on the street and probably won’t be removed until the new Street Furniture project is in place—unless we make a fuss, of course. Read the follow excerpt to find out what you can do:

EUCAN’T – WE CAN! ~ one more email, then we party!

Ding dong the witch is dead! It isn’t quite official yet – City Council has to confirm the recommendations (probably June 14), but thanks to all your hard work, the Eucan bins have been thoroughly quashed. The Works Committee has recommended not extending Eucan’s contract and not installing any of the thousands of planned megabins. (more…)

Chris McQuillan—one of the co-owners of the Revue Cinema—has contributed a long comment to the North Ronces Blog making his case for why historical designation would be a detriment to the future of the Revue—not only for he and his partners, but also for any future owner and, thus, the community as a whole. I have excerpted Chris’ argument against historical designation below. You can check out the full post, in context, here. For now, I have decided to let Chris speak for himself and reserve my response for a future post. (By the way, Chris, I apologize for not getting this up sooner; I was away for the weekend.)

Over this past week, Darryl (the webmaster at NorthRonces) and I have had a bit of an off-line debate around the proposed pursuit of heritage designation for these properties—and in a larger sense—how to best promote community cinema at the Revue. I can entirely understand why the idea of Heritage Designation appears, on the surface, to be so appealing. On a quick pass, it seems to grant the neighborhood the institution it seeks in perpetuity. The real effect will be the exact opposite. (more…)