A Field Guide to Tactical Heritage Urbanism Volume 1: October 2016 | Page 47

Missing Plaque Project:
Raising Questions at Queen’s Park
Tim Groves
THE MISSING PLAQUE PROJECT
The grounds of Ontario’s legislature are filled with monuments,
statues, and plaques, but while some histories are commemorated, others are left out of official narratives or even left to
fade from memory altogether. This Jane’s Walk used the area
surrounding Queens Park as a lens look at how the history of
our city is told in a very selective way and draw upon the work
of the Missing Plaque Project, an initiative to make posters
about elements of Toronto’s history that deserve their own
plaque, and wheatpaste those posters up in the area where
the history took place.

Under the Centre Ave. Parking Lot:
Digging up The Ward
John Lorinc
EDITOR, ‘THE WARD’
This Jane’s Walk traced the evolution of Lot 11, a garden plot
that was flipped and subdivided to become Ontario’s first
court house and one of the earliest Toronto suburbs: MacAuleytown, a.k.a The Ward. It looked at why this area came to be
a critical stage for Toronto’s second wave of black residents,
most of whom came to Canada West via the Underground
Railroad and eventually made their way to Toronto, where
they settled on Elizabeth, Chestnut and Centre streets.

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