Culture

Toronto City Councillor Adam Vaughan: Rebuilding Fire Stricken Q

by Tomitheos Linardos | February 21, 2008 at 01:58 pm

2811 views | 25 Recommendations | 7 comments

Leaving several historic buildings in smoldering ruins, a massive six (6) alarm blaze, that started early Wednesday morning, has caused millions of dollars in damage for several Queen Street West businesses and residents with upper-level apartments.

The fire believed to have started just before 5:00 A.M. at a street-level electronics stereo/audio store, National Sound, that has been on 615 Queen Street West for the past 40 years. National Sound along with Duke Cycle, Nikolaou Restaurant Equipment, Suspect Video, Preloved, Pizzaiolo, Jupiter, Cosmos Records and many other long-term businesses were ravaged and gutted by the fire.

The victims were offered ten (10) rooms free of charge at Toronto's Fairmont Royal York hotel with breakfast included and were allowed to call their relatives free of any long distance charges; others were directed to the Trinity Community Centre.

As I approached ground zero the area between Bathurst Street and Portland Street were closed off to cars by police. The smell of the fiery aftermath overpowering and still linguering in the air. With freezing temperatures firefighter crews were greatly challenged to fight the fire as water apparently froze to ice as soon as it hit the ground.

Action Plan:

(see my exclusive video footage)

Toronto city councillor Adam Vaughan speak to me on how he is prioritizing two (2) immediate ways to help the community pull back together, especially for the people that lost their homes and/or jobs from the blaze.

Toronto city councillor Adam Vaughan:

(1) "First we've set up trust funds to help the residents that were put out of their homes, the trust will be with any Scotia Bank across the city.."

(2) "..we've also convened a meeting where we're going to be planning heritage and building services to talk to the residents, the businesses and land owners about how they can rebuild as quickly as possible but still maintaining the social and architectural heritage of the area."

Toronto city councilor Adam Vaughan continues: "We're looking to make sure this stretch of Queen Sreet returns to normal and retains its heritage value as well as its wonderful pedestrian value. Our challenge will be the building approval process and to have the city not charge the usual development costs."

Traffic rerouted

Traffic, including streetcar service, was rerouted around the area. Many of the scorched buildings are no longer structurally sound and will be demolished before they potentially collapse.

Tomitheos reporting from Toronto

2 See all footage | View Slideshow

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recommend This comment thread is now closed

ryan

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 14:39 on February 21st, 2008

Tomitheos, thanks for this important report. Where is the video footage?

ryan

at 15:41 on February 21st, 2008

I see the video now. great stuff. how did you get access to the councilman?

Jordan Yerman

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 15:06 on February 21st, 2008

Great work, and thanks for adding the video.

Rachel Nixon

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 15:19 on February 21st, 2008

Tomitheos, great work!

Tomitheos Linardos

at 06:29 on February 22nd, 2008

thank you ryan, adam v. was speaking on his mobile phone near a bus shelter and we conducted the interview at a store that I had entered to change the zoom lens on my camera moments earlier..

thanks jordan, at first the video wasn't there and then it uploaded twice it seems..

thanks so much rachel, my biggest challenge was leaving the scene as rush hour was fast approaching and I was at the downtown core.