Interventions to Protect
20 Jerome Street, 1905
Located in Toronto's Junction neighbourhood, built in 1905, and clad with terracotta tiles by John Shelley Turner.
Included in Terra Cotta: Artful Deceivers, by Alec Keefer, published by ACO in 1996. Listed but not designated by the City as heritage. Identified by NOW magazine in 2016 as “one of the city’s best kept secrets”.
2018: sold, deemed by its new owners, their architect and the City to be “not structurally sound”.
August, 2018: tiles removed, “as many as possible” saved. Owners responsible for rebuild, their architect and local Councillor urged to arrange for display of the tiles on Jerome Street or on Dundas West, the Junction’s “main street”.
2019: demolished and replaced by a new house with a few of the less interesting tiles attached like stickers - very hard to see, all but impossible to appreciate.
Spring 2019: sold “over asking”. Fate of the tiles unknown. A sad loss for Ontario’s vernacular heritage.
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