{"id":22317,"date":"2018-11-29T12:26:31","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T17:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22317"},"modified":"2018-12-08T16:15:09","modified_gmt":"2018-12-08T21:15:09","slug":"historical-society-revives-role-as-advocate-for-heritage-preservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/historical-society-revives-role-as-advocate-for-heritage-preservation\/","title":{"rendered":"Historical Society revives role as advocate for heritage preservation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Aurora Historical Society was founded over 55 years ago to fight for the preservation of local heritage and helping to secure, in the words of Society founder Dr. Leslie Oliver, Aurora\u2019s \u201cjewels in the crown.\u201d
\nOver its first half-century, it worked diligently to preserve reminders of our past, but once the \u201cAurora Collection\u201d was transferred to the stewardship of the Town of Aurora five years ago for the re-establishment of the Aurora Museum of Archives, much of the Society\u2019s work has focused on the preservation of Hillary House, Aurora\u2019s only National Historic Site.
\nThat important work continues, of course, but now the Aurora Historical Society (AHS) is looking to get back to basics, re-establishing itself as a passionate voice for the preservation of the Town\u2019s built heritage.
\n\u201cKeeping up the house is a chore \u2013 a welcome chore \u2013 that takes a lot of effort, but I think it is important to branch out and look at other buildings and other issues in Town,\u201d says Erika Baird, Executive Director of the AHS. \u201cThis is a step in the right direction. There was a time when people were less inclined to step out from Hillary House or say, \u2018What happens outside is maybe not our concern\u2019 and it has been a little bit refreshing to say that things have changed.
\n\u201cWhen (AHS Board President) John Green and (Past-President) Bill Albino came to me with this [advocacy role] I was really excited that this is what we are going to do and we would be taking on that role again because we felt very strongly about it. The reaction from our members and people in our community was nothing but positive. I got a number of positive emails saying, \u2018thank you for doing this. Thank you for taking on this role again.\u2019 They were thrilled and it was great to hear we were doing the right thing.\u201d
\nHelping to spur this move back to advocacy work were a series of proposals for Aurora\u2019s traditional downtown business core. In recent years, a number of the historic office blocks on the south side of Yonge and Wellington have been bought up by one owner. Council this summer, following a recommendation from Aurora\u2019s Heritage Advisory Committee, passed a resolution to put 15 of these buildings, eight of which are owned by one individual, under historical designation. However, a lawyer on behalf of this client, formally objected to the measures.
\nThe process is still underway.
\n\u201cThere was a feeling at the time that if they were going to remove all of this, Aurora is just going to be a whistle-stop,\u201d says Mr. Green, on any ideas to demolish and rebuild these historic buildings to allow for the widening of Yonge Street. \u201cWhen there was this talk of smashing things down, we said, \u2018Wait a minute!\u2019\u201d
\nOver the years, Mr. Green has seen a number of instances of property owners promising to preserve components of heritage buildings \u2013 such as facades \u2013 or rebuild them to exact specifications in a slightly different location, with varying \u2013 and often negative \u2013 degrees of success.
\n\u201cOne wonders whether this is deliberate or whether they are accidents,\u201d says Mr. Green, referencing attempts to integrate the fa\u00e7ade of the historic Doane House on Wellington Street East opposite Victoria Street into the entrance of a new apartment complex, a project that was abandoned after the remaining sliver of building was suddenly found to be structurally unsound. \u201cOther times, buildings are purchased and left to literally sit there, rot and become a hazard. They ask for permission to take them down because it is not worth saving. You can see the patterns we go through. I can see [the developers\u2019] point of view: they buy a property and think this thing is a piece of junk, they have ideas of what they would like to do and they find ways of doing it.
\n\u201cWe know that change is inevitable and some houses that maybe shouldn\u2019t have been taken down were taken down. They were small and humongous houses have been put in their place and people have been so upset they didn\u2019t realise what was going to happen. Now they are living in constant shadow. For example, these buildings on Yonge Street, the feedback I got there was a plan would be to widen Yonge Street by taking these buildings down and then we can rebuild them exactly what they used to look like. I said, \u2018You don\u2019t understand. This is history, this is real.\u2019\u201d
\nThe revival of the Aurora Historical Society\u2019s advocacy role became a reality over the summer in the heat of the municipal election campaign when the Board, via Ms. Baird, pressed each candidate seeking office on how important Aurora\u2019s heritage was to them.
\nFor some of the candidates, heritage was a vital and important part of their visions for the community over the next four years. For a few candidates, it was not really important at all. The candidates\u2019 responses were circulated to each AHS member verbatim and were important for these members in making their decisions at the polls.
\nOver the coming months and years, Mr. Green says advocacy work includes the AHS\u2019 rebuilding of Aurora\u2019s last surviving coach house, dismantled and preserved from the nearby Horton Place, once funds are available. Horton Place, now an insurance office at the corner of Yonge and Irwin, could be promoted as a prime example of how restoration can maintain the integrity of a house while adapting it for modern use. Meanwhile, he adds, there has \u201cbeen some conversation\u201d regarding bring the historic Petch House, now standing behind the Aurora Seniors\u2019 Centre, to the Hillary property. A move like this would be a point of pride for the AHS while making it accessible to visitors and animated for events and programs.
\n\u201cHistory is our identity,\u201d says Mr. Green.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Aurora Historical Society was founded over 55 years ago to fight for the preservation of local heritage and helping to secure, in the words of Society founder Dr. Leslie Oliver, Aurora\u2019s \u201cjewels in the crown.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5NX","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 11:55:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}