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By Chioma Lewis
It is difficult to imagine that Toronto’s Trillium Park was once eight acres of asphalt parking lot.
The creation of this nature park on the Lake Ontario waterfront is part of the first phase of revitalizing the once vibrant hub of Ontario Place, an entertainment venue that operated as a theme park from 1971 until 2011.
In 2019, the Ontario government formally launched a search for developers to bring the site back to life.
But last year, the World Monuments Fund added Ontario Place to the 2020 World Monuments Watch, a global selection of 25 at risk cultural heritage sites. The action rejected Ontario’s vision of private development and instead encouraged Ontario Place to be an open and publicly accessible site.
By Chioma Lewis
Growing up in New York City as a “street brat,” as author Walter H. Kehm calls it, he had a nature deficit.
As an urban kid, with few nearby parks to play at, he and his friends had only concrete sidewalks for games like stickball and stoopball.
“I grew up with concrete, I grew up with asphalt,” Kehm said.
While playing stickball, he noticed grass growing out of the expansion joints in the sidewalks, and that phenomenon fascinated him.
“I used to say to myself, “How the heck does grass grow in concrete?” Kehm said.
After going to school for landscape architecture, he decided to bring nature into cities for low- income, racially and ethnically diverse communities like the one he grew up in.