A KODAK MOMENT
Metrolinx crews preserved a historic Mount Dennis building by picking it up and moving it. Camera in hand, Jesse Winter tells us how they pulled it off
The last remaining building on Toronto’s old Kodak site has a new lease on life and a new — temporary — home. Crews pulled off an ambitious move Thursday morning, raising the imaging company’s Building 9 onto steel and concrete rails, and moving the 3,000-tonne heritage structure 60 metres to prevent razing it.
Creeping steadily along
To move it, the building was raised onto steel girders with wheels underneath. Once freed of its foundation, a hydraulic system pushed it forward at a mere 20 centimetres per minute. Survey crews tracked the building’s progress every millimetre for the entire two hours it took to complete the 60-metre journey.
Acommunity affair
Four-year-old Jayden Chaimiti watched the move with his mother, Lucy, from the bleachers that Metrolinx set up for the community, along with a barbecue, music, free coffee and cookies.
“We felt that it was something historic that was happening,” Lucy said. “We wanted to see this part of history in our area. Plus, 4-year-olds love construction. Jayden asked if we could come back every day to watch the project’s progress.”
Moving a mountain
The Kodak imaging company’s production facility at the corner of Eglinton Ave. and Weston Rd. was a fixture in the local community for eight decades, but closed in 2005. The last remaining structure, Building 9, housed the company’s staff recreation centre. It played host to numerous Christmas parties and weddings, and even offered occasional movie nights for staff. It weighs roughly 3,000 tonnes, and moving it without destroying it took a lot of careful planning, said lead engineer Anders Persson.
Saving a piece of history
The building could have simply been demolished, said Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins, but that would have erased an important part of the community’s history. That made saving it an easy decision.
“I’ve never blown anything up in my life,” said engineer Anders Persson. “As interesting as that sounds, I think (moving the building) was the right decision.”
Greasing the wheels
Persson said moving an entire building like this is a very rare feat. It requires precise planning and careful execution. The building sat derelict for years and was in rough shape before the big move. Before the job began, crews emptied it of years worth of trash, stripped out asbestos and brought it “right down to the bones,” Persson said.
A family atmosphere
Scott Eatough worked at Kodak for 12 years. In its heyday, the facility employed close to 3,000 people, but that fell to about 800 by the time it closed shop in 2005. Eatough said when he started there in the ’90s it was like joining a big family. He still carries his old Kodak staff ID card as a memento. Watching the building glide almost silently across the construction yard Thursday morning, Eatough said he wants to see elements of the old building preserved, like the soldiers’ memorial that once hung in the entranceway and paid tribute to those from the neighbourhood who had been killed in war.
Iron on iron
When it was in operation, Building 9 included a pool hall, a sweeping staircase and an auditorium. Once the LRT station is finished, the building will be incorporated into the larger mobility hub. The bottom two floors will be used as station platforms for travellers, including a bus terminal, and connections to the GO Transit Kitchener line and Union-Pearson Express.
Ajob well done
Just after noon Thursday the massive building slid quietly to a stop, a silence owed to the hydraulic system that pushed it along. The building will sit at its new location for about two months before it gets slid back into place on a new foundation. It will be renovated and incorporated into the transit hub’s architecture, preserving a piece of Toronto’s photographic history for good.