The Globe and Mail

It's an eyesore right now, no doubt about it. The 170-year-old tollkeeper's cottage at the northwest corner of Bathurst Street and Davenport Road is meant to provoke questions and provide answers about Toronto's forgotten past. But these days it's the tarp-draped, debris-surrounded building's uncertain future that has local residents perplexed. "Why doesn't it get finished?" asks Mary Jane Finlayson, who takes her dog on daily visits to the lonely parkette where the would-be museum has been imprisoned behind a stern chain-link fence for the past three years. "As long as it's a construction site, it has no presence as a historic building." "The finish line is in sight," insists City Councillor Joe Mihevc, who has clearly fielded a few complaints too many from the clapboard cottage's well-heeled neighbours along the escarpment between Casa Loma and Wychwood Park. "Any restoration project is a labour of love and a test of patience."