| Lancette Arts Journal Founded in 2000 |
Feature Stories From our Archives |
May 2007 |
By Alidė Kohlhaas
City dwellers, no matter where they live, tend to walk along their streets with eyes pointed straight ahead or even to the ground. Looking up is usually not an option, unless the walker is a tourist looking for a good camera angle. At the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) an idea was born in 1980 that would change this for many Torontonians. It inaugurated the free ROMwalk that over the next 26 years grew from one guided walking tour to 18. For many Torontonians it is now: eyes up to the top of buildings or a closer look at some monument or whatever that in the past has been ignored that is part of the cityscape.
Now series 27 has begun and will last until September 30. There are also two ROMwalk Plus walks this year, which cost $30 per person and include refreshments, with the proceeds going to the Museum. The symbol of these walks is a blue umbrella, carried by the tour guide. So, if on Wednesday evenings around 6:00 pm, or Sunday afternoons around 2:00 pm, you encounter a blue umbrella in various parts of Toronto, you know that a tour is underway. Just join in and you might find yourself learning a great deal about the history and the architecture of Toronto.
I joined some fellow media colleagues on just such a walk on a grand May day, when the temperature rose to 29◦ C upon its completion. This particular tour, called ROM and its Neighbors, circled the ROM by taking a close look not just at the museum's exterior, but also that of its immediate neighbors: The Royal Conservatory of Music, Philosophers' Walk, the Church of the Redeemer, and the Gardiner Museum of Ceramics, as well as a brief . . .
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