Toronto Star

Consider Nathan Phillips Square, that mixed metaphor for civic pride and confusion. It's a wide-open public space that beckons to pedestrians, then deters them with squat bunkers and a stolid concrete border. It's the home of a bronze Henry Moore masterwork and a kitschy animal-coded underground parking system. It offers visitors a quote-laden tribute to warrior-statesman Winston Churchill, as well as a generic monument to peace. Toronto's signature piazza, mixed up as it is, turns 40 this fall, a milestone the city will mark with a makeover. Last night, citizens offered their views on the square in the first of two meetings at city hall, consultations that could help resolve, or deepen, Nathan Phillips' identity crisis.