Toronto's abandoned planetarium is now being demolished

The former McLaughlin Planetarium is finally about to bite the dust, its ongoing demolition ending a decades-long architectural and educational legacy that will live on in photographs and the fading school field trip memories of Gen-Xers and Millennials.

The iconic domed structure north of Queen's Park opened to the public back on October 26, 1968, and was a popular destination for everything from educational field trips to psychedelic laser rock shows for close to three decades before its doors were shuttered in 1995.

Mothballed and fate uncertain, the planetarium has sat idle for over 30 years — existing as an ignored and decaying white elephant for more than half its lifespan.

That was, until recently, when demolition crews arrived on site to finally take down the building ahead of a flashy redevelopment headed by the University of Toronto.

In 2025, three decades after the planetarium was closed, a new redevelopment scheme was revealed for the site — the culmination of years of consultations with the City and community evolving from a vision first proposed in 2019.

The jaw-dropping plan for the planetarium site was revised from an eight-storey building to the currently planned six-storey structure — roughly 60 per cent the size of what was initially envisioned six years earlier.

Demolition has begun to chip away at the venerable structure, with large portions of the building's ground floor ripped away as of April 1.

Crews will continue to tear away at the 58-year-old landmark in the weeks to come, eventually creating a blank slate for the impressive redevelopment ahead.

It's a bittersweet moment in Toronto's architectural history, with the city losing a beloved modernist landmark for a highly-anticipated futuristic design that will rise in its place.

Despite decades of neglect, the planetarium did have at least one recent tenant. A feral orange cat dubbed Cheddar was the subject of a rescue campaign ahead of the planetarium's demolition, ultimately landing the feline his forever home.