Worries over future of Olympic Plaza bricks resurface as major makeover looms
City councillors say new project a chance to recognize city's forgotten past and growing diversity
Beyond the eastern end of Stephen Avenue, across from City Hall, tens of thousands of brown bricks marked with the names of Calgarians line the surface of Olympic Plaza.
Etched with clever messages and at least one wedding proposal, the bricks were part of a city promotion in 1986.
For the suitable cost of $19.88, people could buy one and put a message on it — leaving their personal imprint on both the city and on the plaza.
"It was around '88, 1988, probably," said Brian Hwang, recalling the day he learned of his personalized brick.
"I remember, as a kid, we went to Olympic Plaza and [my father] said, 'You know, somewhere around here, you and your brother's name are on one of the bricks.'"
More than 35 years later, the plaza and its engraved surface seemingly cemented their place in Calgary's history as a site of celebration and a symbol of sporting heritage.
Olympic Plaza is showing its age, however.The original stage and its infrastructure don't work well with the technology needed for modern concerts.
As a whole, the plaza can no longer serve its intended purpose, says one city councillor.
"When we talk about being a centre and a hub of culture and activity and celebration, it doesn't function as that. It's costly to program, it's labour-intensive to program," said Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner.
"We have a much more diverse population and we have diverse needs, particularly when it comes to technology. When you look at how that space is activated, everything has to be brought in pretty much from the outside."
After more than a decade of dialogue, the plaza — which has been slated for a structural upgrade since 2007 — is going to be redeveloped.
It's part of a broader revitalization of the area that includes a $480-million upgrade and eventual expansion to Arts Commons and is an effort involving the City of Calgary, Arts Commons and the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC), which is spearheading the project.
What remains unclear, however, is how Olympic Plaza's physical and symbolic legacy, and its significance to Calgary's history, will be preserved and maintained.
"If they are going to take it all apart, I was hoping there'd be an opportunity for people to get their bricks … my father, he passed away quite early, in his 50s," Hwang said.
"So I almost wanted to just keep it as a memento of him.… I think that would be nice to at least have it, if they're not going to use them."
Reshaping the history
When the transformation project was announced in early June, a number of questions concerning the preservation of the plaza's physical legacy were raised, resurfacing a debate about the future of the bricks that has been going on for years.
Emma Stevens, the director of communications for the CMLC, said the project team will consider the historic legacy of the plaza, including the bricks, during the design phase to determine how best to reflect its history in the future of the space.
The bricks, however, are said to be unsalvageable. In a report from 2016, parks officials said the bricks cannot be retrieved whole, as given their age, they are crumbling in place. The same report also states the city told participants in the program that the bricks would remain in place for three years.
"This [the condition of the bricks] makes incorporating the existing bricks in a future design impossible," reads the report.
"Designers of the new space should think creatively about how to integrate the idea of these bricks into a new design."
A year later, the commentary seemed to shift when the city provided an update to its website saying there were no immediate plans to remove the bricks.
But with the plaza's redesign imminent and its reconstruction expected to start in 2024, questions loom large about the bricks, which hold so much history for many Calgarians.
"We're still in the very early stages of the project. We don't yet have definitive next steps on the bricks," Stevens said.
Will its significance be lost?
Ron McMahon never got the opportunity to buy one of those bricks. He moved to the city in 1987 when, in his words, Calgary was abuzz with all the excitement of the Games.
Construction was in full swing and the plaza's form was nearing completion.
Thirty years later, he contributed to the story in a different way.
McMahon, a software developer, finished developing an app in 2017 that mapped out the nearly 31,000 bricks in the plaza. It was a passion project, a way for him to bring about the excitement that people felt during the games in 1988 — and a way of keeping that spirit alive.
WATCH | Ron McMahon explained in 2017 how he made the brick-tracking app:
"I figured this is something that needs to be, this is a part of Calgary's history," McMahon said.
"Olympic Plaza was always full of people with their heads cocked down looking for a brick."
From as far away as the U.K. and Germany, people have been in contact with McMahon, asking him about their bricks.
In Calgary, he's helped people, including Hwang, trace their personal history through the app he made. But he worries those people, as well as the city, will lose a crucial part of the past.
"My point is Olympic Plaza is a historic monument to Calgary history," he said. "To go and destroy it or modify it, to take away what it is, is to betray the trust of a previous generation."
An opportunity for a new legacy
Over recent decades, the plaza has been a site of celebration for sporting achievements, including Grey Cup wins and the 2004 Stanley Cup run when the Flames were a goal away from a second NHL championship.
But more than a century before the start of the '88 Winter Games, Calgary's first Chinatown started to take shape around where Olympic Plaza and City Hall stand today.
By 1888, residents were concentrated between Seventh and Ninth Avenues — mainly along Eight Avenue between Second and Fourth Streets S.E. — where there were restaurants, a grocer and tailor as well as a number of laundries.
Ward 7 Coun. Terry Wong says there's a good opportunity through the redevelopment project to mark that part of the city's history in some way.
"Now we have an opportunity to re-imagine Olympic Plaza and Arts Commons," Wong said. "I have been in conversation … about how we can acknowledge that."
Calgary, both culturally and demographically, is also a vastly different city than it was in the late 1980s.
In Penner's view, the redevelopment project is an opportunity to reflect what Calgary is today while honouring the spirit of the Games.
"That's what those '80s Olympics were about, and what they did for Calgary was really catalyzed by community spirit."
"Maybe through the design, there's an opportunity for new Calgarians to put their name in there, too, and to create a new legacy or continuing legacy."
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