DOORS OPEN TORONTO - May 23 and 24 10am -5pm

The Parkdale Arts and Cultural Centre 1313 Queen St. West

The Parkdale arts and Cultural Centre 1313 Queen Street West was contructed as a police station Division 6 City of Toronto in 1931 . The art deco building is now home to community offices the Kababayan Community Services , the Parkdale Village BIA , Gallery 1313 and nine live work studios. Managed by Artscape going back to 1997 until they went into receivership it is now managed by Wood Green Community Housing .

The building is slated for demolition in 1929-30 accept for the facade which will be part of a new Parkdale Library . All tenants at 1313 Queen St. West will move to the site of the present Dollarama which was bought by the City of Toronto and will become the site of a sixteen storey affordable housing development having three stories dedicated with community organizations including Gallery 1313 and many others . This new community hub will have support from United Way.

The interior has some art deco features and including a walk in safe , a shooting range and an old boiler room .Visitors to DOORS OPEN TORONTO will enter the iron gates at the west end of the building . This was used to bring the horses into the stable house in the back . You then enter Gallery 1313 which was home to the 12 holding cells for prisoners. Entry to the rest of the building is restricted as there are people living in the live work studios but there is a video of the rest of the interior .

For over a dozen years the building was used as emergency housing by the City of Toronto . It became a metro property and sat empty for 5 years until it became the Parkdale Arts and Culltural Centre in 1997 . It was a community hub back then with as a mixed use communty building with an arts focus.

Over the years the buildings architecture has lent to be used for many movie shoots such as Reacher the Tv series where it was pictured as Boston South Police Station . In the nineties it was used as Robo Cop the Tv Series and Once A Thief Tv series .

Gallery 1313 serves as the public entry to the building as the art venue serves up 70 exhibitions a year from local to international artists . Visitors to Doors Open Toronto will get to see the current exhibitions as well as learn about the history of the building. ( see www.g1313.org )