Toronto’s University Avenue from Front Street West to College Street will also be known as Nelson Mandela Boulevard before Dec. 5, a city committee has decided.
The great mix of people working together along the street or passing through it is "a visual reflection of Mandela’s own vision," and catches that spirit of inclusiveness very well, Lloyd McKell, co-chairperson of the Mandela Legacy Committee for Canada told councillors at a meeting this week.
As Toronto’s best-known arterial hub, the avenue matches the late leader’s stature, he said. "People won’t have to go off the beaten track to find it."
Toronto council agreed in April to ceremonially dedicate a "prominent street" which will bear Mandela’s name, though street addresses won’t change.
Council’s Public Works and Infrastructure Committee backed the dedication of University despite a suggestion from city staff that there should first be a policy developed in 2015 to deal with such dedications, noting "there is currently no approved process" for selecting streets suitable for them.
The committee agreed with McKell, however, that the city should try to install the signs with Mandela’s name by Dec. 5, the first anniversary of his death.
People in Canada and South Africa have looked forward to the dedication, and are concerned resolving the policy questions could delay it for many months, said McKell.
It was on University – Toronto’s grand boulevard of war memorials - where Desmond Tutu led a rally against South Africa’s racist apartheid system in 1986, and where Winnie Mandela, Mandela’s wife at the time, led a march up to Queen’s Park some months after his release from prison in 1990.
Besides University, the public was asked to consider dedicating Bathurst Street from College Street to Herrick Street, the area where Mandela spoke to 1,000 students at Central Technical Secondary School in 1990, as well as Gerrard Street East from Jarvis Street to Yonge Street, where Mandela and wife Graca Machel received honourary degrees from Ryerson University.
Also on the list was Shuter Street from River to Parliament streets, where Mandela attended the renaming of Nelson Mandela Park Public School in 2001, and Queen Street West from Yonge to University, since that was where Winnie Mandela addressed a crowd at Nathan Phillips Square in 1990, and started the march to Queen’s Park.
University was the first choice of 54 per cent of the 1,583 people who cast an online vote from June 19 to July 4, with Shuter Street getting a second-place 21 per cent of first-choice votes.
Queen Street West was the second choice of 42 per cent of the respondents.
Though neighbourhoods around any of those streets would get a boost from the dedication, University is the choice of most respondents and the most fitting tribute, McKell said.
Mandela visited Toronto for the second time, this time as his country’s elected president, in 1998.
He was made an "honourary Toronto citizen" in 1990. During a third visit in 2001, he was declared an honourary citizen of Canada, the first living person to receive this honour.
Mandela’s visits had a profound impact on the city, said East York Councillor Janet Davis, adding she remembers "the warmth and love and respect" shown to Mandela in 1990 as he addressed 30,000 people in Queen’s Park.
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