Ontario Science Centre to close immediately due to risk of roof collapse

> claim the roof of the science centre is at risk of collapsing.. the same year that he is proposing to move the science centre to Ontario Place.. "to support a private foreign spa company".. allows public infrastructure to fall apart in order to advance private interests.. "Closing a world-class science and cultural institution is heartbreaking".. "The [province] could have invested in revitalizing the Science Centre, but instead it's using our public money to concoct a sham business case against this important community hub"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Science_Centre

  When it first opened [in 1969], the Science Centre was a pioneer for its hands-on approach to science, along with San Francisco's Exploratorium and the Michigan Science Center in Detroit. Unlike a traditional museum, where exhibits are for viewing only, the majority of the exhibits at the Science Centre were interactive, while many others were live demonstrations (e.g. metalworking). The Communications room contained a number of computerized displays, including a very popular tic-tac-toe game, run on a PDP-11 minicomputer. By 1974, it hosted about 250,000 students on field trips annually.

Over 50 years, the Ontario Science Centre has introduced hundreds of thousands of students to scientific principles via interactive exhibits. It will now be replaced by a commercial theme park in a tourism venue, rather than serving local students via the new Science Center subway station.

  The Ontario Science Centre Science School (OSCSS) offers grade 12 University Preparation courses in STEM subjects.. [and] an interdisciplinary studies credit in science communication.. the program.. is available at no cost to students from anywhere in Ontario. While at the Science Centre, students earn practicum hours through volunteering and interacting with visitors..

  Ontario Science Centre was used by David Cronenberg as a location for his 1970 film Crimes of the Future.

Does Canada not have a tech lobby that can outbid construction boondogglers, to defend the next generation of tech talent? Alternately, the US tech lobby could defend the Ontario Science Centre, as part of a talent supply chain that leads to U of Waterloo and subsequent engineering labor pipeline to US tech companies. If the Ontario Science Center and future labor pool must be sacrificed, can they at least fetch a higher price at the altar of special interests?

The great blue whale bones that hung from the ceiling was found beached in the maritimes, transported to Maple, and buried behind my dad's OFRI lab in an attempt to decompose the flesh and extract the bones (eventual success!). Our family dog dug it up, chewed it, rolled in it, contracted worms from it, and died. My family will forever be attached to this structure.

The Science Centre is actually a collection of different buildings, I highly doubt that all these are structurally unsound now prompting the closure of the entire centre. It's highly convenient for this to happen now when the Premiere of the province has been advocating selling off the valuable land to his developer buddies.

I know nothing about architecture/construction, but how much of these timelines and costs are due to the massively inefficient construction costs in Anglophone countries? Like, does it really take double digit millions and >2 years to fix some roof panels, when we can repair bridges in a fraction of that time? How much of this is going to be permitting, excess proceduralism and "environmental assessment" crap and how much of it is our current technological limitations?

Weird - this is the first place I saw the "internet" on display as a kid. Shame to see it close in such an unceremonious way.

this is probably more due to cronyism by the Ford government than anything. I highly doubt they just discovered this problem.

Their logo looks like https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red,_green_and_blue,... with missing colors.

Sad to see the apparent decline it's been in for a long time but glad I got to enjoy it and Ontario Place in their prime years. I haven't been back to Toronto since the late 80s but from time to time look up many of the tourist sites we visited in the 70s and 80s. Too bad, for whatever reasons, they didn't keep up with the times.

If anyone else went in the 80s and remembers the fire-fighting computer game and knows somewhere it can be played now, I'd love to hear about it. The graphics were quite primitive but it gave a really good basic understanding of wildland fire fighting.

It's been well over 30 years since I've been there but I always enjoyed going there in the summer, along with the ROM and Planetarium. I'm actually pretty sad to hear this.

As someone who recently took their nephews to the Science Centre, not visiting since high school roughly 25 years ago, it was pretty decrepit and rundown. Regardless of the politics surrounding all this, it’s in desperate need of a rejuvenating both in terms of infrastructure as well as exhibits.

PS not worth the admission, if you want to take the kids on an educational adventure go to Ripley's Aquarium.

Gates are being put up while there are still kids inside [0].

[0] https://x.com/SaveOSC/status/1804193939903152613

I had the good fortune in being able to attend a couple of corporate receptions as a kid, where I had free roam over some of the exhibit halls in after-hours. It was incredible.

I always thought the science centre was connected to the ROM... I didn't know they moved.

I’ve been following the Science-Centre-changing-locations-to-Harbourfront story for quite a while and Never heard (from anyone who told me the story) about the roof as being a reason for the move, so I wonder how recent the roof issue is. I’d prefer the Science Centre close immediately on a temporary basis to better evaluate the possibility of repairing the roof rather than using it as an excuse to move the Centre to the Harbourfornt, which is what the Premier wants, broken roof or not.

While science is important and someone has to do it, I don't think it is as intellectually rewarding as hobby/indie computer programming.

Maybe trying to get students interested in science instead of computer programming is problematic for this reason?