I forgot to post this last week. The Toronto Parking Authority expropriated The Matador at Dovercourt and College to make room for a 20-car parking lot, outraging musicians and heritage-lovers alike.

From the Sept. 29 Globe and Mail:

The club has a long history as a premier venue for country and classic rock bands from across North America. Habitués such as Conway Twitty, Johnny Cash and Charley Pride scrawled their names on a back wall. Roy Rogers is up there somewhere too, his name hidden by elk antlers. Where will the wall go now? "It's too early to say," Ms. Dunn said, remorsefully. Thinking of the building where the family gathers for Christmas and birthdays and where her granddaughter lives in an upstairs apartment, Ann Dunn said, "I'm having trouble concentrating, because I'm not just losing my club - I'm losing my home."

And losing it she is, even after rejecting the city's initial offer of $800,000 to buy the property last January. "It was insulting," she explained. "Houses next door sell for much more than that."

Now, an expropriation process will go ahead, during which time the parking authority will try to make a deal with Mrs. Dunn, TPA president Gwyn Thomas said. If they can't agree on a price, a compensation amount will be determined based on market value. The TPA, Mr. Thomas said, sees a strong need for parking near the club's location at College and Dovercourt. "There are a number of major generators, local businesses and restaurants," he said, "as well as the West End YMCA, located across the street from the club."

Local councillor Adam Giambrone did not oppose the TPA's recommendation to demolish the club for parking, and he suggested that the club hasn't been an entirely welcome presence in the area. "I know there have been ongoing issues about the Matador concerning noise," he said.

Mr. Giambrone, who has never set foot in the club, said he won't miss it when it's gone. And neither, he said, will the club's immediate neighbours. "They will not be sad to see it go."

But Catherine Nasmith, president of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, is shocked at the decision to tear it down. "That the city is wanting to build a downtown parking lot is itself nuts," said Ms. Nasmith, an architect who is also past president of the Toronto Preservation Board. "We don't do that any more. It goes against all urban planning policies of the City of Toronto. We haven't been building surface parking lots in the city since the 1970s. And on top of a building that has such a rich history, to boot? That's the most bizarre story I have heard in ages." ...

Originally built in 1914 as a dance hall for Canadian soldiers billeted for duty overseas during First World War, the Matador is as rich architecturally as it is culturally. A vaulted Alhambra-esque ceiling overhangs a sprung oak floor stomped to a silvery patina by the likes of Stompin' Tom Connors.

"When I first saw the arches," Ms. Dunn reminisced as she walked through the structure earlier this week, her steps hobbled by illness and old age, but her mind brimming with memories, "I thought of Spain. That's why I called it the Matador."

Those arches are today strung up with cowboy boots that once belonged to, among others, filmmaker Bruce McDonald, who counts himself among long-time friends of the Matador who are at a loss to aid the club that helped them make their mark.

Leonard Cohen, who often performed there, wrote Closing Time as a tribute to the club in the nineties; k.d. lang shot the video there for her hit single Crying, and indie-country chanteuse Neko Case recorded selections there for her 2004 live album The Tigers Have Spoken.

"It's just like Toronto to want to tear something down and ignore the legacy that surrounds a building like the Matador," said Blue Rodeo's Greg Keelor, another long-time Matador regular. "This is a city of merchants who have no connection to the city around them. It actually makes me very sad. The Toronto I grew up in is now gone."