Art installation that injured several people gets a safety makeover – Toronto Star

It’s encouraging when the guy in charge steps up to make sure more people aren’t hurt by a water-filled trench that is too easy to step into.

Last week I wrote about a narrow channel that’s part of an art installation in front of the LCBO store near Yonge Street and Summerhill Avenue, and how two women were injured after stepping into it on Mar. 9.

They ended up in the same cubicle in emergency at Mt. Sinai Hospital with serious leg injuries, where they met and realized they’d been bushwhacked by the same trench, which runs next to a busy sidewalk, just an hour apart.

Since that column, four more women emailed to say they were also injured by the trench. One suffered a broken foot that left her in a boot cast for six weeks. Another broke and dislocated three ribs, while a third suffered minor injuries.

Susan Merry, who ran a business nearby and was quite familiar with the art installation, which was built in 2004, tried to step over the trench one day in 2007 or 2008 “as a shortcut. I’d done it a million times.”

But she instead stepped into it, where “my left shin collided full-force with the granite edge,” that surrounds it. “I thought I broke my leg,” she said, adding she was in agonizing pain and also ended up in emergency.

“The gash on my shin was so bad you could see right down to the bone,” she said, noting she was wearing sandals and a skirt at the time, and that a piece of her skin was stuck to the granite edge for days afterward.

After hearing from six people who were hurt, it seems likely there are more, which is reason enough to think the trench and its proximity to the sidewalk is indeed a hazard, as all six described it.

Before my first column I talked to Mitchell Cohen, who runs Westdale Properties, which owns the historic former train station in which the LCBO is located and is responsible for the art installation.

He said he was considering changes, but wasn’t specific about what they’d be or how long it would take. So when he asked me to meet him there on Wednesday, I didn’t know what to expect.

I arrived to find the trenches on both sides of the ramp that leads to the LCBO doors covered with fitted steel plates that are fastened in place and prevent people from stepping into them.

Cohen said that covering them with plates — which he hopes is only a temporary fix — was the best way to make the trenches safer right away, adding he doesn’t want anyone else to be hurt.

He said he’s been involved in the train station and its property since 1987 and hopes to find a better solution that will make the trenches safer but “protect the design integrity” of the art installation.

The bottom line is that Cohen did what was needed to make the trenches much safer right now, and has engaged professionals to figure out a way to cover them that doesn’t detract from its esthetic appeal.

That’s a win-win, I’d say.

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