New lights, new life, and doors open at Exhibition Place

For many years, says Exhibition Place CEO Don Boyle, someone had forgotten to flip on the lights at many of the buildings and structures on the 78-hectare site; in fact, some of the bulbs had burnt out and no one even noticed.

Which is fitting, since to many generations of Torontonians, a dim reminder of the Canadian National Exhibition – and the expansive grounds upon which it is held – burns slowly to life in late July, perhaps, glows brightly in August, and then goes dark again in our sleepy September brains. It’s as if that swath of land behind the Princes’ Gates (Chapman & Oxley, 1927), is erased from our collective map of the city for 10 months of the year.