'We all came together to design' Grange Park, says councillor

A community-led effort, 13 years in the making, culminated Saturday with the reopening of the downtown park.

Metronews.ca
July 9, 2017

Grange Park, a downtown Toronto park that had its official re-opening Saturday, is a new model for how parks should be built and operated, Councillor Joe Cressy said during the ceremony.

“It’s a park for everybody,” he said. “The AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario), the city, the community, we all came together to design what I think is the coolest and best park in town.”

About 200 people stood together armed with safety scissors to cut a bright yellow ribbon that stretched from the east end of the park to the west side on Beverly St.

The park reopened after 15 months of construction. The fences came down early Saturday and by noon the place was packed with people. Dogs ran around in the grass, children jumped in the brand new splash pad and on the custom designed playground.

Passers-by stopped to admire Henry Moore’s sculpture, Two Large Forms, which had been moved near the centre of the park from its previous location near the art gallery.

According to Cressy, the area surrounding the park has 150,000 residents, and a study found that before construction began in 2015, an average of 6,000 people passed through it on a daily basis.

Cressy hopes that number will increase now.

Ceta Ramkhalawansingh, the honorary president of the Grange Community Association, and a resident of the neighbourhood since 1971, said she’s been involved with “every single discussion about the developments” in the area.

“This is really the end of one process and the start of another,” she said. “In about three months, once we figure out what works, what needs to be tweaked, we’ll then move into a more formal community management process,” she said.

“I think neighbourhoods have to be more involved in the management of their parks.”

Liberal MP Adam Vaughan, also on hand Saturday, said the park was an achievement that was over a decade in the making. As a city councillor, he helped pushed for funding, including $5 million from the city, $5 million from AGO donors, and another $2.5 million from an AGO endowment fund.

“I grew up swimming here as a little kid, I used to live across the street,” said Vaughan.

“When I walked in here today and saw it chockablock with kids, and the laughter, and smiles, and the parents sitting around on benches, it was beyond beautiful.”

This is a model for the next generation of parks, both in terms of how it was built and how it's being operated after, he continued. “This park shows what happens when you collaborate rather than argue.”

The park will have a full-time maintenance worker on site every day, paid for by the AGO’s endowment fund.