TORONTO – Dozens of concerned Toronto-residents stood a few blocks north of Yonge and Eglinton on Monday, protesting the sale of a historic building, using a megaphone to chant “help save our local history,” and “we don’t need another condo.”
Canada Post recently issued a request for proposals for Postal Station K, a Canada Post station just north of Eglinton Ave on Yonge St in April.
Though the building has yet to sell, and Canada Post cannot comment on bids, residents of the area are concerned the site will be the future home of a high-rise condo.
“We’ve got condo-mania here. Every corner there’s a 60-storey building,” one protester told Global News. “Everybody’s saying ‘we’ve got enough condos, we don’t need any more condos,’ but we need to save our history.”
Postal Station K, first built in 1937, first housed The Montgomery Tavern – the birthplace of William Lyon Mackenzie’s Upper Canada Rebellion a hundred years prior in 1837.
A plaque outside of the Canada Post building states that the Upper Canada rebellion contributed “significantly to the legislative union of Upper and Lower Canada in 1841 and to the establishment in Canada of responsible government.”
Councillor for the area, Josh Matlow, joined the dozens of protesters in reanimating the site’s rebellious past, agreeing with the protesters in their stance against a condo replacing the historic site.
“We’re here to tell Canada Post that we don’t want to see this building sold off,” Matlow said. “We want to make sure that this building stays the historic site and it’s not for sale. So that’s the message we want to give to Canada Post.”
The site of the Montgomery Tavern is listed as a hostic site, though not designated by the city of Toronto – which would offer it several protections under the law.
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