February 14, 2008

Members of the Heritage Committee read the first draft of the Madison Avenue Heritage Study for Madison Avenue, prepared by Cathy Nasmith, our heritage consultant. Cathy is revising her draft in time for a meeting for Madison Avenue residents, scheduled for April 15. The location is still to be determined. Councillor Vaughan will be in attendance.

Anyone wishing to attend the meeting should contact Sandra Shaul, heritage@theara.org.

The report shows that houses of Madison were designed by many of Toronto’s leading architects, active from the end of the 19^th to the first years of the 20^th century. The best known of these is E. J. Lennox, who designed 37 Madison, the house for which the term “Annex Style” was coined.

Cathy also wrote an article about Madison for her electronic newsletter “Built Heritage News.” You can view the entire text here.

While we are waiting for the go ahead to official continue our study of other streets in the Annex, a team of neighbourhood heritage volunteers is ready to start compiling data for streets in the west Annex. Residents on these streets will be consulted regarding their desire to move forward on obtaining heritage designation for their properties, however, regardless of their decision, learning more about our neighbourhood is always worthwhile.

Anyone wishing to volunteer is more than welcome. We are looking for people with good research skills, availability during the day, and comfortable with data entry for a web-accessible database. Please contact Sandra Shaul at heritage@theara.org.