When the Vlahos family ended their 42-year ownership of the Canary Restaurant in 2007, its sign was removed from over the entrance of the Cherry Street Hotel at the corner of Front and Cherry, and taken to Jim Addison’s antique everything warehouse on Wabash Avenue. There it remained, weathered and battered but intact, until shortly after Jim’s death in June 2017.

When efforts, encouraged by ACO, to restore the sign to the Canary District came to nothing, the Canary itself was recovered by the restaurant’s last managers, leaving the banner to be purchased by neon collector Mark Garner at the March 24, 2019 auction that brought the life of Addison’s Inc. to an end. Efforts to re-unite the two parts of the sign and, if possible, return them to another Canary Restaurant have continued.

Equal as a symbol of a Toronto that no longer is to the spinning records of Sam the Record Man, the temporarily downed Silver Dollar and the recently restored El Mocambo palm tree, the Canary sign is precious. Its loss to the city that loved it so much or its continued incarceration would be extremely sad.