It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Ask and answer questions about Leonard Cohen, his work, this forum and the websites!
Anne
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It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by Anne »

There is an 'after hours' Country and Western club in Toronto called the Matador. We always called it a booze can, a place you could go to keep drinking after the bars were closed. Anyway, it is where Leonard filmed the video for Closing Time. It is a very cool place.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/259716
Red Poppy
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by Red Poppy »

Bull-shit :lol:
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Byron
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by Byron »

Ah, where people stand on the chairs of giants. Or somethin' like that.
"Bipolar is a roller-coaster ride without a seat belt. One day you're flying with the fireworks; for the next month you're being scraped off the trolley" I said that.
Anne
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by Anne »

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lizzytysh
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by lizzytysh »

Christopher Hume said it best. At first I thought the 20 might/MUST be a misprint. Obviously not :roll: :? :shock: !!! I hope people are gathering in protest to such absurdity. Even at twice, three times, or more, than $800,000, for a parking lot, much less a 20-space one, it would still be a travesty. Is a family member of one of the councillors a YMCA member :shock: ?


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Anne
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by Anne »

The Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... t/Ontario/
THE MATADOR: A LANDMARK DECISION
A ruckus at closing time
The city's move to replace a historic nightspot with parking has musicians, preservationists - and the local BIA - singing the blues

DEIRDRE KELLY

September 29, 2007

'They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."

It may be the line from a famous Joni Mitchell song, but the words ring true for patrons of the Matador, a popular after-hours club where Ms. Mitchell has been a regular. As of this week, it has been targeted by the Toronto Parking Authority for demolition.

"I've spent my life here," says Ann Dunn, a 79-year-old mother of five who bought the club in 1962 and has been operating it ever since. "We've been good to Toronto, we've launched many a career, and now Toronto wants to turn us into a parking lot? It doesn't make any sense."

The Toronto Parking Authority wants the solid 93-year-old brick building for a 20-spot surface lot, and a decision to expropriate the property was approved by city council on Wednesday morning. "Oh my god!" Charmaine Dunn, who manages the club for her ailing mother, exclaimed when told of the news on Thursday. "I needed the heart of the Matador and the heart of my own mother - the two are connected - to keep on beating. It's not what we wanted. We at least thought we could negotiate this."

John Kingman Phillips, the Dunn family's lawyer, said the family would be preparing a response. "Expropriations are usually done when there is a need for a right-of-way or for urban development," he said. "But to do this for a 20-spot parking lot? It boggles the mind."

The club has a long history as a premier venue for country and classic rock bands from across North America. Habitués such as Conway Twitty, Johnny Cash and Charley Pride scrawled their names on a back wall. Roy Rogers is up there somewhere too, his name hidden by elk antlers. Where will the wall go now? "It's too early to say," Ms. Dunn said, remorsefully. Thinking of the building where the family gathers for Christmas and birthdays and where her granddaughter lives in an upstairs apartment, Ann Dunn said, "I'm having trouble concentrating, because I'm not just losing my club - I'm losing my home."

And losing it she is, even after rejecting the city's initial offer of $800,000 to buy the property last January. "It was insulting," she explained. "Houses next door sell for much more than that."

Now, an expropriation process will go ahead, during which time the parking authority will try to make a deal with Mrs. Dunn, TPA president Gwyn Thomas said. If they can't agree on a price, a compensation amount will be determined based on market value. The TPA, Mr. Thomas said, sees a strong need for parking near the club's location at College and Dovercourt. "There are a number of major generators, local businesses and restaurants," he said, "as well as the West End YMCA, located across the street from the club."

Local councillor Adam Giambrone did not oppose the TPA's recommendation to demolish the club for parking, and he suggested that the club hasn't been an entirely welcome presence in the area. "I know there have been ongoing issues about the Matador concerning noise," he said.

Mr. Giambrone, who has never set foot in the club, said he won't miss it when it's gone. And neither, he said, will the club's immediate neighbours. "They will not be sad to see it go."

But Catherine Nasmith, president of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, is shocked at the decision to tear it down. "That the city is wanting to build a downtown parking lot is itself nuts," said Ms. Nasmith, an architect who is also past president of the Toronto Preservation Board. "We don't do that any more. It goes against all urban planning policies of the City of Toronto. We haven't been building surface parking lots in the city since the 1970s. And on top of a building that has such a rich history, to boot? That's the most bizarre story I have heard in ages."

For his part, YMCA chief executive officer Scott Haldane said the West End Y doesn't need and has never requested parking from the city. "We are on a streetcar line," he said.

But Mike Sinopoli, chair of the Bloorcourt Village Business Improvement Area, confirmed that parking for others on the strip is a growing problem. High-end restaurants such as Chiado and a new cheese store, La Fromagerie, are drawing Torontonians from across the city to the neighbourhood, he said. Meanwhile, rising real-estate prices reflect an increased demand for the neighbourhood's solid brick Victorian houses.

"The goal is for even more intensification," added Mr. Sinopoli, who owns Ralph's Hardware, a neighbourhood fixture for the past 50 years. "You can see that from all the new construction taking place on College Street." Still, Mr. Sinopoli wouldn't have recommended that the city tear down a grand old building like the Matador to create parking. He said the Matador, because it is a link to the neighbourhood's storied past, "adds an element of charm."

Originally built in 1914 as a dance hall for Canadian soldiers billeted for duty overseas during First World War, the Matador is as rich architecturally as it is culturally. A vaulted Alhambra-esque ceiling overhangs a sprung oak floor stomped to a silvery patina by the likes of Stompin' Tom Connors.

"When I first saw the arches," Ms. Dunn reminisced as she walked through the structure earlier this week, her steps hobbled by illness and old age, but her mind brimming with memories, "I thought of Spain. That's why I called it the Matador."

Those arches are today strung up with cowboy boots that once belonged to, among others, filmmaker Bruce McDonald, who counts himself among long-time friends of the Matador who are at a loss to aid the club that helped them make their mark.

Leonard Cohen, who often performed there, wrote Closing Time as a tribute to the club in the nineties; k.d. lang shot the video there for her hit single Crying, and indie-country chanteuse Neko Case recorded selections there for her 2004 live album The Tigers Have Spoken.

"It's just like Toronto to want to tear something down and ignore the legacy that surrounds a building like the Matador," said Blue Rodeo's Greg Keelor, another long-time Matador regular. "This is a city of merchants who have no connection to the city around them. It actually makes me very sad. The Toronto I grew up in is now gone."

On the eve of the expropriation decision, Mr. Keelor mused that the Matador should be designated a historic site "because of the great community of artists that have been there, from Leonard Cohen and k.d. lang to Prairie Oyster and Blue Rodeo. I'd love to organize something in protest."

Mr. Thomas wished him luck. "They can put pressure on anything they want," he said of the artists. "But there are no other spots available."

This land is our land?

Expropriation, the practice by which government lays claim to private property, is rare in Toronto, but a variety of different public bodies actually have the power. "Under the Ontario Expropriations Act, municipalities, school boards, universities, hospitals and government bodies have the right to expropriate private property for their purposes," explains real-estate lawyer Bob Aaron.

Expropriation generally occurs "when there's a valuable social purpose," Mr. Aaron says - such as the expansion of Ryerson University's downtown campus, for which the university has expropriated the former site of Sam the Record Man, or the redevelopment of the Yonge and Dundas area beginning in 1996.

Large-scale expropriations - like those that drove "urban renewal" projects such as City Hall, Regent Park and Moss Park - have been deeply unpopular in the city for a generation. (The fight to stop the Spadina

Expressway, settled in 1971 by premier Bill Davis, is perhaps the most obvious example.)

But when it comes to the Matador, Mr. Aaron suggests that the reason for the decision has driven the negative response. "What really rankles in this case is that it's a parking lot," he says.

"If this is was to make way for a school or library... people wouldn't be as upset as they are about the city taking away somebody's land and business for a mere parking lot."
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lizzytysh
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by lizzytysh »

Originally built in 1914 as a dance hall for Canadian soldiers billeted for duty overseas during First World War, the Matador is as rich architecturally as it is culturally. A vaulted Alhambra-esque ceiling overhangs a sprung oak floor stomped to a silvery patina by the likes of Stompin' Tom Connors.
Where's the military protesting regarding one of their own, historical sites?

Twenty spaces will fill up in twenty paces!! There will STILL be need for parking! LOTS of it!!

Even a library could be built within the existing structure.

Tears came to my eyes as I read this, the list of people, the description of the building itself, the history of it all. Even Roy Rogers! And the YMCA making a disclaimer... the Toronto councillors gone mad!?!

I don't get it. It seems to me that no respect for the past can mean no respect for the present and none for the future. There's such a cataclysmic chasm between all that this building represents and the flat, black or grey, hard surface marked off by lines that this defies all comprehension. Especially in the days of global warming when there is public transit to that very area. Toronto has so much going for it. Why would they want to homogenize it? How about some soundproofing for the neighbours who want to complain about the noise. Other solutions for the rest of the complaints! Are the nearby residents going to be using the spots for weekend, visiting friends and relatives?

Are people writing, calling, gathering??? Is it REALLY a done deal!!!?!


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Red Poppy
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by Red Poppy »

Originally built in 1914 as a dance hall for Canadian soldiers billeted for duty overseas during First World War, the Matador is as rich architecturally as it is culturally..
Must have been a hell of a trip to get back from the trenches at Mons and Ypres for dances in the Matador :roll:
Last edited by Tim on Sun Sep 30, 2007 1:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: fixed quote
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dick
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by dick »

Am sorry now we didn't stay in Toronto for a Neil Young tribute at the Matador. :cry:

Clearly some other public use may be better than a club only open at 1 in the morning and beyond, but NOT a parking lot!

Now wondering what uses have, or will be made of Bottom Line (closed by NYU) and CBGB's in NYC.

Lightning -- you got a handle on it?

dick
Anne
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by Anne »

Back to the Matador...

http://www.savethematador.com/
Anne
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by Anne »

Here is another article. http://torontoist.com/2007/10/rogue_pave.php
Except to its frequent clientele, Toronto's legendary Matador Club is best known as the setting to Leonard Cohen's "Closing Time", which laments a place that "got wrecked by the winds of change."

The Matador's been around since the 1914, built as a dance hall for WWI soldiers, then became home to a bowling alley, and finally ended up as a quirky, late night hangout with strong country music roots. Well-worn boots hang behind the stage, and the ratty oak floor is scuffed and dented by a million heels. 79-year-old Matador matriarch Ann Dunn has retained decades of peculiar tales of fabled performances and celebrity visits, as well as odd little artifacts, like a lock of Basil Donovan's (Blue Rodeo) hair pressed in a picture frame.

But the Matador is sitting on prime land at crowded College and Dovercourt, and the City wants it—not to preserve it, but to flatten it into a slab of pavement so twenty cars can park there. The City offered $800,000 to buy it. Ann and her daughter Charmaine declined. Fine, said the City, we'll just take it.

Toronto is hardly known as a city bent on retaining its history. After all, what passes for "preservation" these days is leaving a single wall standing in an historically designated structure, and then enveloping it by a totally dissimilar condo or office tower. Yet, City Council's unanimous approval last month allowing the Toronto Parking Authority to expropriate the Matador is particularly offensive.

Matador_standby_11Oct07.jpgThe City says that it needs the spots for YMCA customers across the street. The gym says that they've never requested extra parking, noting that they're easily serviced by streetcar. Late night traffic is also an significant problem as the neighbourhood intensifies, yet cheap parking is only liable to bring more cars rather than relieve the current density. And even worse: all this for only twenty parking spots.

Past private land appropriations have seen the installation of City Hall, Dundas Square and Regent Park—developments deemed socially useful to the community at large. The Spadina Expressway expropriation plan was killed because residents didn't want a pollution-clogged freeway cutting through tranquil neighbourhoods. Today, our love of the automobile continually trumps any new plans for alternative transportation or public pedestrian concourses, and this is why the City can wrench private land from a private citizen for such a preposterous reason.

The Dunns have said that they are ready to sell the place, but not for $800K and not to pave flat decades of charm and history. The structure is zoned for a three-storey development, and its noted reputation during wartime and to Toronto's music scene is undeniable. k.d. lang shot videos there, and the club accommodated performances by Roy Rogers, Conway Twitty and Johnny Cash. Parts of Neko Case's The Tigers Have Spoken album were recorded at the Matador.

And the Toronto Parking Authority's response to such a storied legacy? "We've identified that area as high demand [for parking]," said Gwyn Thomas, who was appointed to President of the TPA on August 1 and is also the President of the Canadian Parking Association. He also parks for free in any of Toronto's 20,000 Green P spots, half of which are in surface lots like the one slated for the Matador site.

Now, the TPA has been given the go-ahead to snatch the land whether the Dunns wish to surrender it or not, the price of which will be determined by a market value evaluation. For a city that hasn't built many surface lots for decades, let alone for only twenty parking spaces, the interference is especially aggressive and callous.

Councillor Adam Giambrone claims there could be more palatable alternatives for the use of the Matador site, but he's not aware of any other interest in the club's acquisition. Which makes sense—nobody knew it was going away in the first place. Though Giambrone seems to be coming around in recent days, he didn't oppose the TPA's demolition plan and claims that the club had been a frequent source of noise complaints. Despite being chair of Toronto's public transit system, Giambrone has also supported a push for rush-hour parking on Dundas West for commercial reasons, even though such a move would wreak havoc for streetcars.

This is more than just the obliteration of a storied landmark or the over-romanticizing of a dingy booze can—it's about our officials and public agencies perpetually bending over to whore our city out to private and shortsighted interests with merely a passing wink to effective urban planning. Toronto, you ignorant slut.

By Marc Lostracco
evelyn
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by evelyn »

Sorry I didn't know about it while I was in Toronto this summer.

evelyn
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lizzytysh
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by lizzytysh »

So am I, Evelyn. Even if it weren't closing, I'd have wanted to visit it and experience its rich history.


~ Lizzy
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dick
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by dick »

We have an even worse regret Evelyn

James Greenspan invited us to a Neil Young tribute on Tuesday night after Book of Longing -- at the Matador. But we felt leaving on Wednesday would not get us home on time. Traffic, and LONG customs lines, proved us right -- it was a 2 day drive home. But still wish we could have brought it off.

Maybe they will change course, and at least not put up a parking lot!
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Re: It may be Closing Time at the Matador

Post by evelyn »

It seems so ridiculous, I find it hard to believe that another, less important location can't be found for a parking lot!

evelyn
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