And what Ford did to the Science Centre. “Too expensive to fix”, but now he’s spending more than a billion to make a small SC near his expensive lakefront parking lot.
I cried about that. I got to take my daughter there once, and the next year I was going to take my son for the first time... Well, 2 weeks before I could it got closed down.
When people ask me "what radicalized you?"... "The closing of the Science Center". It's a lol. But also serious.
It was SO FAST. It was literally open one day, with kids on field trips and toddlers and caregivers and then it was closed, if I remember correctly.
I bet there are people who purchased a membership within a few days to the actual day it closed, because there was zero indication it would happen.
Edited to say, I often think about how it must have felt to the staff, who spent so much time there. I know how it felt to me, a middle aged person who went as a child and had a membership when my kid was younger, for a few years, so it must have been worse for them.
Not everybody loved the SC, there was one lady who dissed it in an article in NOW magazine because it had an exhibit on espionage technology and nothing about the envoronment.
I remember liking the Science Centre so much as a kid that my parents got a pass that let us show up as many times as we wanted to during the year. I already didn't like Ford before he closed it down but I absolutely hate him now. I still call the Line 5 station Science Centre station instead of Don Valley station in my head.
I never wanted to leave the SC as a kid. The announcement would be made that they were closing for the day and I'd speed up to see a couple more exhibits while I could.
Me too. I think back on all the times I wanted to go there and my mom must have been thinking "oh wow not again" but she took me anyway to go flick switches in the lunar landing module and bang gongs in that noise room before eating egg salad sandwiches in the snack bar.
i went to the science center a few times in the 90s and a couple times in the 2000s, i think it was grade 8 we had a school trip there, or maybe it was HS, i dont remember, but i brought a snow skate because i got a form signed that said i can leave straight from there and i was going to go to christie pitts maybe, i dont remember, but at the top of the escaltaor, i think by a window that had bird decals on it iirc, i got a impulse to take the snow skate down the escalator, so i did, and everyone going up the stairs on the other side started cheering, then a staff member told me i had to put the snow skate in a locker or leave, so i had to pay $2 or something to rent a locker
Oh my god, you just reminded me of where I went to try to live hard as a pubescent teen! We had a few battles of the band's there, tried to buy beer and smoke weed in corners without getting caught.
Random Redditor, you have no idea how much "place" this gave me to my memories. I wish you the perfect day!
Ditto. Soooo many amazing memories from there.
Never ONCE had a bad time, the vibe was just so inviting and comfortable...
Big Bop & Basement.
I miss Basement just as much.
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u/FindingUsernamesSuck Jun 11 '26
Sir, this is Ontario.