Relic Linear Park

Nominated for the Paul Oberman Award for Adaptive Reuse: Small-Scale/Individual/Small Business

On September 29, 2023, the community and Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik celebrated the opening of the Southern Gateway Boulevard, at Queen and Simcoe streets, beside Campbell House Museum, the first part of a new linear park system for Ward 10 in downtown Toronto – a project of the Grange Community Association and Campbell House Museum in partnership with the City of Toronto.

The project is an important milestone in fulfilling the community-led vision of the Relic Linear Park System, which integrates architectural “relic” stones into a unifying corridor of green. The aim is to connect separate city spaces in the Grange Neighbourhood along five streets from the Southern Gateway Boulevard to the northern gateway at Dundas and McCaul streets. The relic stones are hand-carved architectural fragments rescued long ago from Toronto’s demolished downtown buildings and stored for decades at Guild Park and Gardens in Scarborough. In the Southern Gateway Boulevard, these architectural fragments have been used in imaginative and whimsical ways to make artistic installations and to provide seating in protected spaces that are defined by new paving, trees, and shrubs. An interpretive panel tells the story that connects the stone fragments to lost heritage buildings, opening the public’s eyes to this unusual, small-scale adaptive re-use of old stone buildings.

This once-neglected right-of-way has become a quiet, green oasis, with the carved stones serving as heritage reminders of the past. The project has also created a safer and more beautiful public realm that brings together history, culture, art and nature.

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