xxx | Calgary Sun

Article content

Gaps in foresight in the redevelopment of Olympic Plaza are leading to literal gaps in the ground.

Article content

Visitors to the downtown Calgary park and gathering place Sunday morning were met with rhythmic clanging, with a small group of people huddled over a commemorative brick on the east side attempting to chisel it out of the ground and save it from future destruction.

They were hardly the first people to try: one of my colleagues witnessed something similar last week, with security and bylaw intervening to halt the attempted extraction of another brick on the plaza.

Meanwhile, a few spaces in the ground formerly occupied by bricks are now filled with what appears to be fresh cement.

People can’t be faulted for this sentimental attachment.

The bricks, upon which are inscribed the names of individuals and families who paid $19.88 for each one, were installed as paving stones in Olympic Plaza in the run-up to the 1988 Calgary Winter Games.

Article content

Article content

Folks who forked over the money might have rightfully expected for the bricks to live on as a permanent commemoration of the international athletics spectacle that happened less than 40 years ago — but in true Calgary fashion, this isn’t planned to be the case.

Too complicated to preserve bricks, officials say

The City of Calgary, Arts Commons and the Calgary Municipal Land Corp., all of which have a hand in the redevelopment of the plaza, have said it would be too expensive and complicated to preserve the bricks and reuse them as part of the public space’s next iteration.

Officials also expressed concerns about the ability to keep the bricks intact should there be an attempt to extract and repurpose them.

Instead, people have been offered the opportunity to find their bricks and photograph them. Alternatively, visitors have also been encouraged to bring some paper down to
the site so the bricks can be traced with a pencil or a crayon.

Article content

This laughable attempt to preserve this part of this city’s history constitutes astounding short-sightedness and breaks the trust of more than 30,000 people and their families who paid to help build our Olympic legacy and connect with it in a meaningful, physical way.

The planned destruction of Olympic Plaza’s bricks would present yet another loss in the slow erosion of our Winter Games legacy.

We’ve already lost parts of Canada Olympic Park, with the deterioration of ski jumps and the departure of training facilities.

A new arena will soon replace the Saddledome and no one would be surprised if this beautiful former Olympic venue will join the long list of Calgary buildings to meet with a wrecking ball — an anticipated outrage we will surely revisit.

Article content

This historic erosion is compounded by our collective decision not to pursue the 2026 Winter Games, meaning we are unable to create new Olympic legacies.

We must try harder to preserve our history

Ironically, the plaza itself is a symbol of our continual disregard for the past.

There is precious little evidence now of what was on the Olympic Plaza site before it was slowly dismantled and eventually turned into a park. The act of building the plaza and the construction of the Municipal Complex across Macleod Trail are themselves the result of the near-total elimination of the neighbourhood that once stood there.

This isn’t to say everything must be kept in a state of permanent stasis. We wouldn’t have been able to develop anything, anywhere were that to be the case.

Article content

That said, we must try much harder to maintain some connection with what came before.

It is extremely disappointing that no one in charge seems to give a damn — and it is especially disappointing for the City of Calgary, CMLC and other partner organizations to show such flagrant disregard in these matters.

While Olympic Plaza’s redesign has yet to be revealed, the park’s redevelopment must not be allowed to proceed unless leaders present an acceptable plan to maintain the site’s legacy by incorporating all elements of the existing space — including the bricks — in some tangible, widely accessible way.

Otherwise, the next iteration of the plaza risks becoming yet another in a series of continual failures for historical preservation in Calgary.

rleong@postmedia.com

Article content