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WHITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, JULV 29, 1987, PAGE 7 PAGE SEVEN Whitby council has once again postponed a decision on what to do with the block between Ontario and St. John St. on Brock (Princiot- to & Cheah). This time they used the pretext that they needed to study the whole Brock St. corridor from Hwy 401 to the downtown before they could make a decision. The excuse sounds good except that it is only the latest in a long series of delay tacties that have stretched this matter out for a year. To date, the only people who have publicly supported the proposal to make the block wholly or partially commercial have been the two owners and a few coun- cillors. The planning dept. and the residents of the area are firmly opposed. Granted that a study of that corridor is long overdue. It is the area that gives virtually every visitor to our Town their first im- pression - and first impressions tend to stick. What kind of im- pression do we want to leave? - a wide avenue with a number of large well-kept stately homes with nice landscaping or a hodge- podge of piecemeal strip plazas, converted houses and gas stations. The remaining older homes (including the ones between St. John and Ontario) need to be protected, while the existing commercial block from St. Peterto Arthur needs to be upgraded so it is an asset to the community. Any further commercialization of Brock St. should be limited to large prestige developments such as the hotel which was announced last summer (and, I believe, the summer before that as well) with great fanfare but not heard of since. Speaking of hotels, threé supposedly serious proposals have been presented to council, but will one ever get built? I didn't make myself very popular with some of our councillors last fall when I published a rendering of what the new medical building next to All Saints Church would do to its surroundings, In retrospect I think the picture was overly generous - although the in- terior promises to be quite attractive with a skylit atrium, the out- side looks more like a jail (complete with one-way glass). The design was supposed to incorporate some details (such as the "frieze" at the top) to give it a more Victorian look but they have failed miserably. The architects should have stuck to design idioms they understood. One developer that has discovered the "heritage look" is the Sorichetti Group. Having just about finished the Byron Estates condominiums, they have proposed two new buildings downtown - a four-story commercial and office building at Dunlop and Brock in an Edwardian Beaux Arts style and a seven-story commercial residential complex on Hickory St. south of Colborne in a Chateau style. Incidently, many of those councillors who supported the new medical building when it was first proposed are now just as critical as myself. The question is, do they have the political will to make zoning changes in the downtown secondary plan that will make such buildings impossible in the future? Have you noticed that they've been replacing all the "four-way" (stop) signs with "all-way" signs. I don't think I can think of a more needless waste of our tax money. If a person can read the signs, he can also count up to four. * ** * ** Remember the fanfare about five years ago when Whitby declared itself the Home of the Marigold and wanted everybody to plant them. Well, apart from the marigold contest still being spon- sored by the Chamber of Commerce, the Home of the Marigold is petering out without so much as a whimper. There never was very much community support. One large apartment building which used to have a garden of different colored marigolds to spell out their address has used other flowers this year. Even the Town has switched to predominantly other flowers in its planting strip along Brock St. at the Centennial Park. The only legacy remaining is the big signs that were erected with such fanfare at the Town's boun- daries. If there is a lesson in this, it is that for something like this to suc- ceed, it needs grassroots support and nobody bothered to consult the grassroots - if they had, they would have found that a lot of people don't like marigolds. Besides, a lot of the fun of gardening is trying many different plants. I wonder how much those signs cost. Here's an item I've had on my desk now for several months. Out of the economics department of the University of Southern Califor- nia comes a piece of analysis that says that lawyers slow down the economy - countries with the poorest economic performance have the most lawyers and vice versa. They theorize that the more lawyers there are, the more litigation there is and the more things get bogged down in legal nuances. Countries with a lot of lawyers waste some of their best minds and a lot of other resources on mat- ters which in a global or even natìonal context are incredibly in- significant. Here, here! i 'l Time A CONTEST FOR SUMMER STROLLERS AND SUNDAY DRIVERS Sponsored by Whithy's LACAC* fi encourage an awareness of our local architectural heritage Each week though the summer, the Whitby Free Press will publish a picture of an architectural detail of a building somewhere in Whitby. A draw will be made from all the correct entries received by the following Tuesday morning at 10:00 a.m. for a copy of Historie Canada The correct answer along with a picture and description of the building in question will be published in the next issue along with a new mystery detail. All entries will be entered into a grand prize draw on Sept. 26, 1987 If you can identify this picture, submit entry below to the Whitby Free Press, 131 Brock St. N., Whitby, L1N 581. Winner will be selected next Tuesday at 10 a.m. THEBYRONSTREETCHURCH 508 BYRON ST. S. Last week's detail was the bust of St. An- drew over the front entrance of what was originally St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church. Originally built in.1859, this is one of the finest examples of GothicRevival architecture to be found in a small Ontario town. The magnificiently detailed brick and stone work was possible only because William Laing, owner of the biggest grain and mercantile business in the country, donated the land and one-half of the $12,000 construction bill. His generosity was - rewarded with the Mayoralty from 1863 to 1864. LAST WEEK'S WINNER K. SCHILLING, 110 Euclid St., Apt. 201 LOCATION Name Address Phone No. *LOCAL ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVANCY ADVISORY COMMITTEE lïN r4 p race