Toronto Star

It started as an event, but now Doors Open Toronto has become a phenomenon, maybe even a movement. In just five years, this inspired program has managed to change the way Torontonians — and Ontarians — relate to their architectural heritage. Before Doors Open, heritage was something we passed by and looked at. Now we enter. And it turned out that the appetite for architecture, especially historic architecture, is huge. When the Ontario Legislature amended the Ontario Heritage Act last month, Queen's Park insiders gave much of the credit to Doors Open. As they pointed out, no one had realized just how much old buildings mean to people. To others, however, that came as no surprise. They remember the pitched battles that erupted in the 1960s and '70s when developers were proposing the demolition of E.J. Lennox's masterpiece, Old City Hall, and majestic Union Station, still the grandest monument to travel ever built in Toronto.