Our City, Our Podcast

We know our services and programs impact you! So let's talk about them. Together we'll learn from the people behind the scenes and get to know our city a little better. From the City of Winnipeg. This is Our City, Our Podcast.

Winnipeg is located in Treaty One Territory, the home and traditional lands of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe), Ininew (Cree), and Dakota peoples, and in the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. Our drinking water comes from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, in Treaty Three Territory.

Hi, I'm Rachel.

And I'm Natalie. And this is Our City, Our Podcast. Well, today on the podcast, we're joined by Murray Peterson. He's the Heritage Officer here at the City of Winnipeg. And he's going to take us on a bit of a architectural tour. Yeah, we'll hear about some of the historical gems of our city some of the obvious and not so obvious ones. It's pretty fun. Let's go.

Thanks for joining us, Murray. Now this is this is a fun answer for you this this is your first job at the city. Yes, yeah. But maybe more. The interesting question is, when did you start at the city? Well, I

started in 1987. My children say before the invention of the automobile. I was I made I wrote my first report on a manual typewriter. Yeah, I've kept it. It's still at home. So but the it was all very long time ago. You can do the math, but it's yeah, I've been doing this for a very long time.

And how did you get started with the city.

So I had a I had a shiny new degree in Canadian history, which was completely useless. And we all we all kind of laughed about it. But it was it was really my love. From high school. It was it was what I like to do is the name of the subject that I really liked. And I'd heard I'd had a summer job with a province and I, the the, my manager was another historian. And he said that there might be there might be a job at the city to write a report. And so I went down, I went to 395 Main Street, up to the fifth floor, I think. And I knocked on this guy's door, and he said, No, I don't have any work for you. And I came back every day until he gave me a job. And then he was my boss for 25 years. And he was great. A really good friend Jarlsberg liscus, who became the senior heritage planner for the City of Winnipeg. And he just gave me a job. He gave me a goal write this report. So I will one report on a building on Bannatyne and the rest is history, I guess, which is hilarious. Yeah. And then, you know, from there, I you know, I was a consultant for a long time. And then they made an honest man on me and gave me an office and a real computer on a manual typewriter. And yeah, and so I've been doing that since 1987.

You do a lot of historical designations. Can you tell us a little more about about the process? They're in? Particularly how we do it here in Winnipeg? How does it

work? Yeah, so the first rule is that it has to be 40 years old, the building or the resource. Our bylaw now allows us to designate not just a building, but we can designate sites like a cemetery or we can even designate statues, which we have done recently. So it has to be 40 years old. And then what I do is I will write an evaluation report for the historical buildings and Resources Committee. So that will include things like the age of the building, who designed it, who who worked in it, or who, you know, who owned it. And then some of the architectural, you know, whether it's a rare architectural style, or whether it's, there's many of them, so I'll write that report. And then the historical buildings and Resources Committee, is a volunteer committee Advisory Committee of council will evaluate it. So it's basically you get points. So if it's, if it's old, you get more points than if it's young. If it's a rare architectural style, you get more points, and then we add it up. And then if it's if it reaches a certain level, then we'll advise, you know, council that we want to designate. And then and then we work with the building owner, because part of the designation is including what's called a character defining element. So the elements of the building that are particularly important or unique to that building, so things like the architectural elements on the outside of a building, or, you know, maybe a unique form of construction on the interior. And so we list those, but we list those with the help of the owner, because this is you know, it's very collaborative. You know, we want them to be, we want them to understand what the designation means. We want them to understand what is protected and what isn't protected.

Interesting, Murray, what are some of the misconceptions you run into as a heritage officer?

One of the one of the big ones that we run into is people think that when a building is desert needed are a structure or resources is designated that you can't do anything to it. And that's not the case. In fact, the character defining elements are elements that you can change with a heritage permit. So it's not even, even once the owner and the city agree that these elements should be protected, that doesn't mean that you can't change them, we want to look for good heritage practices. So if you're going to put a sign up, we want to make sure that the sign isn't, you know, putting bolts or screws into something that's valuable or that, you know, we want if you're doing interior work, we want it to be reversible, so that it can go back to its original, you know, we don't, we don't mind you covering up a wall, as long as you're not affecting that original wall. And as long as we can take it down later. But that's, that's a really key part of heritage is, is that we want these buildings to be used and reused. So in the most danger to heritage building is having the lights off and the heat off. So if we have people in them, if they've come up with a new idea for oh, I want to put this into a warehouse, the city, we work really hard with the owners and with the architects and the designers to come up with a good solution, that's good heritage, but also makes these buildings last longer. And that's, that's really important.

It's in the same way, you know, getting a historical designation doesn't take the value out of your property.

No, it really doesn't. And then it opens up funding, there's heritage funds, both the city and the province. So, you know, to do work on the exterior or the interior. So it leads it leads to that. And I'm not suggesting that it's a lot of money, but it's more money. If you weren't then if you weren't designated so and then. And then the other thing that the committee my committee does is provide expertise. So you know, we have, we have experts in landscape architecture, we have heritage architects, we have historians, we have lay people, we have engineers, so we have that expertise, and that we freely give like these, the volunteers on my committee freely give their time to owners and as consultants just to say, you know, here's, here's what I've done, or here's what I've seen elsewhere in the city or North America for that matter. And so they can bring that expertise into into these projects. So it's a, you know, we really work collaboratively, you know, making sure that we protect heritage in the city.

Let's get into some of the cool heritage aspects of Winnipeg. Some people might not know this, but Winnipeg really was a very key part of the country in terms of commerce when it first became a city 150 years ago. Can you talk a little bit about what that was like, then?

Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's one of the things that's really hard to make people understand about when it makes history is how big we actually were, you know, everything. Everything that went out west, to any community to any farm, to any city, in any of the provinces out West had to come through Winnipeg. And for a long time, it actually had to be touched by it was cheaper to have somebody in Winnipeg offload, let's say, a crate of spoons. It was cheaper for them to offload it in Winnipeg, put it in a warehouse, and then put it back on the train from that warehouse and ship it to Edmonton than it was to go straight through to Edmonton. The Winnipeg the business leaders had had made this deal with the CPR. And so it was cheaper. It was it was a cheaper thing to have it offloaded in Winnipeg, so that that meant that Winnipeg was the center of everything, certainly for trade goods. But we're also the Center for for money, capital had to flow through the Winnipeg banks on Main Street to go last to you know, to build the buildings in Edmonton or Calgary or Saskatoon, Regina. So all of that had to come through Winnipeg. So anybody that wants to do anything, any development in in Western Canada, had to have to come and stay at a hotel in Winnipeg, and go with hat in hand to one of the big banks and to get money. So it really was the center of everything.

This is the part of the conversation I've been so excited about. We've got the guy here who who's constantly talking about historical value

historical elements. He's constantly talking,

as we've asked him to do, but we talk a lot about the resources in our say exchange district. But I understand and in talking to you earlier, there's other elements maybe that we don't talk about as much about apartment buildings, schools, can you can you tell us a little more? Yeah, so

that was actually it's a really interesting segue here because I was reading a story about a school that burned down in near Cleveland, Ohio, and they lost 172 children. And this was in 1908 and And it was horrific story. And it went to pigs school division was so cutting edge that they almost as soon as the fire was put out, the school division started looking around for for better ways to get better fire escapes. And they went everywhere they went to Europe, they went all through North America, trying to find the best fire escape. I, there's they they went with tubes, which are kind of like an enclosed world to to a metal tube for a while. And they realized that the little kids were scared of them, because they were dark, and they didn't know where they were going. So they have to stop doing that. But it was, it was a cause and effect that you can see through it. When it picks history that something something interesting happens or something unique happens, like you know, steel construction skyscrapers. It's another example of that. Oh, that's really cool. Oh, that will really work. And Winnipeg, oh, we've got tons of money. Let's do it. And we've got and so and we will get the expertise. So they did it. So they built skyscrapers. And it was the same with schools. So schools then stopped building three storeys, they went to two stores because it was safer. And they and then then fact went to one story. But it's this real. There's there's many aspects of Winnipeg history where we were just so cutting edge or so, so willing to, to adapt to something new. And, and maybe we've lost some of that. But it's a, it's a really interesting, a really interesting facet of our history and apartment blocks are the same we needed. We needed space, you know, we had a lot of salesmen that traveled, they weren't interested in shoveling or mowing the lawn. So apartment blocks were a perfect way to solve that. We had tons of money, we had tons of land. So these developers built apartment blocks more than any other city in Canada of any size. But before World War One, Winnipeg was king of the apartment blocks. So that's another it's another way that so we had, there was so much capital, and everybody was doing so well, that you looked around for innovative ways to spend money into and to improve the city. And that was apartment blocks and schools are a great example of that.

What are some of the heritage buildings in Winnipeg that stand out to you?

Great question. I really like modern, modern buildings. City Hall is a wonderful example of modern architecture. You know, they uses light, it uses shade in the sun. And it's a spectacular building really well done. older buildings. You know, I love the Paris building on Portage Avenue, I think in terms of just sheer beauty. It's one of my favorites. We were in the process of designating the custom warehouse building on McDermott 145 McDermott. And the committee was talking about it, and we were sort of looking at it and evaluating it and we all stopped for a minute went wow, that is a beautiful building. Like it's if you if you go up on the parkade and look down on it, it's it's so beautifully proportioned. And it's it's just such a tidy beautiful building. It really is so that and I mean I how many I used to work down there. How many times have I passed that building a lot, but it really struck us all that wow, that is like that is so perfectly designed that building it's just the the scale and everything was just and very subdued. ornamentation, but but beautiful. So yeah, that's another one. You know, there are some of the warehouses are gorgeous down and like all of the warehouses are beautiful. There's, there's so many buildings to choose from. I mean, the Grain Exchange building on Lombard was, No, that one's a beautiful building. But it's huge. And part of its history was at one point, it was the largest office building in the British Commonwealth. Which is considering that includes London, that's quite as that's quite a tale, right that I mean that that really suggests how powerful Winnipeg was at one point for sure. And the green exchange rate so that was green was big, too. So yeah, there's there's I mean, I I guess I brought up the McDermott because it's It surprises me sometimes like I'm mad when when Don't I look at all buildings, but sometimes you'll see like, you know, you'll see a face and one of the churches or something you'll Wow, that is really neat like that. It's really neat to be able to see that in the city for sure.

I think last time you had also mentioned the Met theater. Yeah,

the Met theater is a really good example of being patient with redevelopment. You know, we talked about But it as a you know, as as, as trying to make sure that we're working with the owners to try and find something well, and that was in really bad shape, it had black mold, and it had a leaky roof. And it was, I remember going in there and thinking, wow, this is just too far gone, like all the seats were like, had mold growing on them, it was awful. We, we masked up for that one, for sure. And now it's an absolute gem. And it went through probably four or five developers with ideas, and none of them seem to be what we were looking for. So we, you know, we we've the city fix the roof and the city, you know, he did it and got the got all the mold out. And then And then along came this great idea. And now on the mat is such a wonderful, like, if you really want to treat yourself to an interior walk, have a walk through the mat, because it's the design and the ornamentation on the interior is just spectacular. And they brought it all back, you know, they were very careful about the, you know, again, with good practices and lots of money, and lots of advice from the committee and from other people. You know, it's it's just a gem. So the Yeah, that's a that's a really good one,

you bring up maybe a difficult point of the work, though, and that is when you can't save a building, wondering, wondering if you have a story there, or you know, how that I can hear the passion in your voice? Do you care about it? So how does that make you feel when you can't save something? Yeah, you know, probably the best example is the Capitol Theatre, you know, another one of the winter pigs, many, many opulent theater spaces. And that actually became part of the problem was that, you know, the, we had so many, you know, we have the, you know, the, the walker and we are at Burton Cummings, and we, you know, we have the, all of these all of these spectacular interiors, and there's just not enough, not enough people to support that, or there's not enough I don't think economy to support, it's certainly not in the case of the Capitol, it would you know, it, if it just stopped being a movie theater, you know, they had gone to the Big Eight, eight screen movie houses. And so it just couldn't, it just couldn't make it. And they, they ripped up the interior pretty good, they put a second floor on, so they could have two two movie screens. And it wasn't it probably wasn't as far gone as the Met. But you have to sort of make a decision there that, you know, the Met, the Met looked to be was more original, and it was just laid out a little bit better. Because the Capitol originally had been the entrance was on Portage Avenue. So you went, you went up a set of stairs and across the UK, on a like a pedestrian crossing of the back lane into the theater. And then they changed on on when they took that out. But it was just the Capitol just wasn't going to work. You know, it couldn't it just wasn't going to be renovated. So we saved the angels. There's a plaster angels that are now at the Pantages, which is we're very proud of because they're they're there, you can go and say hi to the angels. But it was just it just couldn't. It just couldn't be saved. And so you. Yeah, it's frustrating sometimes. And I guess you sort of justify letting them go. But you can't, you really can't save everything. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try. But there's in lots of cases, it's just not possible to save these buildings. So so they go.

Talk about some of the voices that are missing in our historical designations in the city.

Yeah, that's a that's a that's a terrific question. Because we're, you know, we're starting to I think the city is starting to as a, as a entity is starting to deal with that better. You know, it's difficult in it as a historical buildings and Resources Committee, because we deal with the built, you know, we deal with, like, we designate things that that have, you know, man or people have touched. So, it's, it's difficult to start telling the, what is the most important part of what it takes history is the indigenous history. So it's, we've been, we've been discussing it, you know, we're moving forward, we're talking to the City's Indigenous Relations Division, about how we how we increase that voice. You know, we're looking at having, you know, committee members, indigenous committee members, we're also looking at trying to come up with a couple of indigenous nominated sites in the city, that, you know, that that they feel is is a special place that we can designate because, like I said, with our bylaw, we're allowed to designate a piece of land, which is which is a big deal because we used to not be able to do that we could just designate a building. But we I think we recognized even 10 years ago, that that That was something that we needed to look at. So we've asked, we've asked the division to take a bit of a lead on on giving us a few suggestions for nomination, and then we'll and then we'll move ahead with them. Because I think it's, you know, as much as I focus on buildings every day, you know, you, you want to focus more on stories and people and you know, we haven't, we simply haven't had enough focus on indigenous. So I think I think that's it, I know that that's improving. And I know that every day, I'm being asked by colleagues to, you know, make a comment on some kind of indigenous history or some kind of, you know, important site. And, you know, I'm very proud to be able to be an advocate there.

What are you currently working on?

Well, we're putting, we're putting panels, interpretive panels at Abinojii Mikanah. You know, we, I'm working with a group of elders and indigenous Relations Division, some wonderful elders, talking about their journey, and where they see the journey for the young people, because it's always it's funny, they, they'll, they'll talk to you about themselves, not very, not a lot, but for a little bit, they'll talk about themselves, but then they always go to the, to the children like, well, what are the children? Or what are the children or the children's journey? Like they're starting here? Where are they going to go to in the world about their children, so they're always, they always have an eye to the future, which, which I really respect. So, you know, they're the renaming, you know, when they realized that if you're just going to disappear Bishop Grandin, and the name or the person or the, who he was, but that's not really doing it justice, you know, I completely agree that you can't, can't just throw these monuments into the river or into the lake, and hope they'll disappear because you want, you need to have those people so that you can interpret it, right. So you, we need, you need to know who Bishop Grandin is, so that you can tell the full story, and then tell the indigenous story. So, you know, Bishop Grandin, there's an interpretive panel, talking about Bishop grand, and we're, we're not doing anything with that. But we're locating these interpretive panels on the on the Greenway, by a pond, it's a beautiful spot, are surrounded by trees, so that it'll, it'll cut down on the traffic noise. So so those are, those are gonna be four panels. The fourth ones just saying, How do you pronounce this name? How do you pronounce the new name, same number of syllables. And then the other three are just talking about their journey and their, what it was like. They wanted people to understand Bishop grand and as the as the architect of the residential school system, but they they wanted to, we mentioned them once in one of the panels, but they, they wanted to do is say that he was the architect, and this is what it did to seven generations. And this is what it's continuing to do. And this is what we're going to continue to do, to try and fix us. And so it's it's, it's, you know, it's a story about like, horrific. It's a horrific story. But it's, it's told, well, not very generally, it's we had a we had a moment, we had to stop a meeting once because it was it was it was pretty powerful. The wording and, but but the city and myself are determined to let let those voices be told and and let them be told in their voice. So they have final say in the panels. The city, the city will not change a panel that an elder has written as long as I'm doing it. Because that's, that's their guarantee. So now that means means considerable time sometimes, you know, elders, elders are on their own time and elders want it right. So we've been meeting for a long time. And when we had to stop that meeting, we realized that we had it right, that the wording was was correct. So that was that was a great moment. So now it's in those are in design now. So that will take some more time because the elders are very intent on colors and imagery. Because it's part of their culture. So that that's going to take a while as well. So that's, I'm working on those right now. And I'm really proud of it. We're we're crossing our fingers that it's going to be done in time. It'll be done for September, so that'll be great. And the signs are going up on Abinojii Mikanah, which is really nice. And there's going to be some other some other events leading up to the panels but the panels will be probably September.

Now, Marie, for someone who who's listening, you know, you've talked so much today about stories And, and there are so many good stories that are out there. How could someone maybe, you know, maybe up in an attic somewhere? They've got some historic images, photos, documents? Oh,

man, that'd be great. Yeah. And everybody does, actually, yeah, for sure. Yeah, you know, I, part of my part of my duties is to archive, the stuff that I'm given I get, I get boxes of newspapers and magazines and images and slides. And then I, I hunt them down. Like, we had a big collection of slides that we digitalized. And there, it's just gold, I think it's 6000 slides. And there, it's from the 60s 70s, and 80s, which we really didn't have a lot, the city didn't have a lot of images. So we have, every, every part of the city is covered now. So that's a really good thing. So and so I named all of those and, and made sure that they were all like dated them. And if I know a lot of none of them had an address on them, so I had to address them on. So I do that. But I get I get photo albums all the time, which is a great thing. We're, we would really rather do that than have them thrown out. And the again, the my department has given me a lot of space on the, on the server. And and once I explained what I was doing, and what what the collection was, there's never been a complaint at all, like they, I need more space. Okay. And so I get more space, which is wonderful, right? Like, it's because because that's an issue, you know, you do something and you you do something for one of the you know, for the provincial archives, and they just don't have space for it. Like they don't have, they don't have budget or space like so it's it's great that the city acknowledges that that's part of what they do. And I work a lot with the city archives, who's great as well, like they've got man, they've got tons of stuff, they've got a really really top notch postcard collection. If you ever, ever want to find a postcard in the city, Winnipeg go to the go to the city archives, because and that's all digital. So you can just pull that off at the Internet. So that's those guys are good. The Archives is great. So I work a lot with him as well.

Great. So someone could could kind of Google heritage officers that he would have records or better with

you know, that's the gist if I think if you type in Winnipeg heritage, you'll get to us our website and then there's there's an email there and and I'll I'll get back to you.

So been or at being around for so long. Does anything really shock you anymore?

Oh. You know? Sure. Absolutely. There's, there's always things that amaze me. You know, I'm so lucky to be in the job I'm in because I get to research new topics all the time, like the the the freight house on Ross Avenue, I had no idea how big you know, these these West train is obviously important freight and passenger, I didn't know how important north south was. And the Winnipeg connection to Minneapolis was incredible. In the 30s 40s and 50s. There was there was three trains daily that traveled overnight, from Winnipeg to Minneapolis. And I had, like I, I used to take train all the time to my my family cottage. So I know trains, and I've always loved trains. And I've researched train stations, I had no idea that the North South was like that. And like they had, you know, they had pamphlets and like they sold you know, they they had travel agents selling this this service. So I guess you could get get on the train with your pillow and your teddy bear and wake up in Minneapolis and do whatever I mean by then you are connected to the, to whatever Amtrak was back then. And then you could go anywhere in the States. So Chicago was easy. Really, even San Francisco or like the west coast was easy. The east coast was easy. So I found that fascinating. I would I started to dig and then I really, you know, it was like, Okay, I don't need to this doesn't need to be done for the report. But I wanted to know, passenger numbers. And I'm not sure where you would get that. Maybe when I retire, I'll figure that out. But it must have been. I mean, if they ran it for three decades, it must have been successful, right? They wouldn't have run it if it wasn't. So and it might have not been a big train. It was probably, you know, maybe two passenger cars in a free car. But even still, that's a lot. That's a lot of traffic going. So So that's that was that certainly amazed me. And pretty much every day. It's like wow, that's like, I'll find a picture that is in my collection that I didn't know I had and it's like, well, that's cool. I had that. Well. So yeah, that's I'm amazed every day so I think that's why I've been on it for so long. Because it's such an interesting job. Yeah, something new every day. Right. Yeah. And

you know, I think that's, that's a good lead into my next question, which was after all this time, you see you have all these pictures, you could feel like all right, everything the historical designations, they're set. And yet time marches on I'm looking forward, what what buildings are moving into a space? Where did you say it was? How long did 40 years? It needs that 40 years? Yeah. What's coming on the horizon for the next batch of buildings or architecture that are coming for historical design? Oh, definitely the mid-century modern, like the 50s, 60s and 70s stuff is all top drawer.

You know, the, the, the buildings in the exchange district are kind of copies, you know, they use classic architecture or they use, you know, the architecture of Chicago, or they, you know, you can, you could go to a contractor and they have, would have books of, of exterior ornamentation. So you could basically like a jigsaw puzzle, order your exterior. The modern stuff, especially like along Broadway, that stuff is, is brand new.

Like some of that stuff had never been tried before. The workman's compensation building on Broadway is, is so new. You know, it was internationally recognized as, as this wonder.

They had to, they had to build stadium seating on the, on the sidewalks so people could come and have their lunch and watch it being built. There was so much interest in it. So those buildings, and you have to be really careful because yeah, just because you worked in it or your mom or dad worked in it, doesn't mean it's not really important and doesn't mean it's not heritage.

And those buildings, you know, designed by some of the, you know, Canada's greatest architects that were produced in, at the U of M are, are just marvels. You know, the stuff by Gaborie and, and, and, and the other ones, you know, all of that stuff is, is really, really amazing stuff. And we have to, we have to educate Winnipeggers that, um, you know, the exchange district, I don't think we have to, you know, teach them any more that how important it is, but Broadway is really important and they've started to reclad some of it and it's, it's too bad because it's, the thing about modern architecture is that they designed it interior and exterior to all fit together.

So the color schemes, the landscaping, the interior decorations, all of that mattered. All of that was designed with the first thought of what we're going to, what we're going to give the, you know, the client. So as opposed to, you know, a warehouse, which, well, I mean, the warehouse is designed for the client, but, but this is bringing more architecture to, to, you know, and more art to, to a building.

So those are really important. So the interior and the exterior are really important because they're connected. So that's, I would say going forward, the modern, the modern architecture is something that we really need to sort of celebrate and embrace.

Yeah. So, so when I walk down Broadway, I don't know that I necessarily see that connection to history. I'm sure others, I'm so sorry, but, but I guess like in terms of like Winnipeg, Winnipeggers as a whole, how do you think we compare to folks from other cities in terms of that connection to history? I think, I think because, you know, our downtown is a national historic site, I think people are educated.

The general population is educated that yes, heritage matters and that yes, heritage should be celebrated and it's worth protecting. And I think it's just an education thing, you know, like in 1979, when we got our first heritage bylaw, there was, there was a lot of indifference and a lot of opposition to it because, because building owners didn't want, didn't want the city to tell them what they could do with their buildings. And that was just, so that was just an education thing.

We, you know, we, we were patiently, you know, explained, well, we're going to say this because Winnipeg's history, blah, blah, blah. And, and I think people came around and now it's just, I don't think there's a question that we, that Winnipeggers understand and protect heritage. You know, sometimes there's differences in how you want to do it, but that's okay.

So I think, you know, sort of for walking down Broadway, you're like, you're like everybody else in the city. That's not unusual. It, and that's a problem.

That's a problem for the city because, because that's our problem because we have to, we have to educate. So, and we'll educate by designating because then we get to, you know, we get to talk about it. We get to talk about it at Standing Policy Committee.

Councillors get to talk about it, you know, gets to vote on by the mayor. All of that will help, you know, people to understand, you know, because Councillors will ask, well, this is, this building is only 50 years old. Why are we designating? And that's great.

Perfect. We'll tell you why. And, you know, we'll, we'll designate this because just exactly, you know, what we're saying about modern architecture is really important.

And Winnipeg was a leader again, you know, once again, we were, we were at the forefront of architecture. So let's celebrate that. And there's a couple of buildings that are particularly wonderful, right? Like the Manitoba Theatre Centre, right? That, that's a, you know, people may not like it as a design because it's, it's, it's called brutalism and it's, it's intended to be brutal.

It's intended to show what's important about a brutalist building is that it shows how it was built and they don't hide any of the surfaces and they, they, they want you to see that the, that the building itself is a thing. So that's, and we get to talk about that, right? And so if we, you know, if you choose to designate that, then we, the Councillors will ask and we'll answer and media will ask and we'll answer, and then we can move ahead in our education. So yeah, keep walking down Broadway, keep looking up, you know, don't drive, walk.

But even, you know, the, even the exteriors of those buildings are, are, you know, while they're, they're actually based on, on classic architecture, but again, with modern architecture, they get to, they get to re, they get to re-describe those things. So all of that is really important and we'll keep working on that. Murray, well, thank you so much for sharing this with us today.

Now our constant last question, it's something we ask everyone. Do you mind sharing with us something, you've already done it a lot today, but one more thing about Winnipeg, you wish that everybody knew. You know, I, I think, you know, we're celebrating our 150th this year and it's all about stories and storytelling and asking people to tell their stories.

And I think that, you know, I watch television, I see these pictures of, you know, all of these big, tall buildings and, you know, all over, all over the country, you know, Edmonton and Toronto and Montreal and all that. And, and, and I, I, I sort of feel sad that, that that's how people are judging, and I know my, my kids certainly do, judging a, a city by, by the size of its buildings and the size of, you know, how, how big it is and how, you know, how it's spread out all over the place. To me, I wish people understood how great the city's story is.

Our story, the Winnipeg story is so amazing and it's going to get better as we increase the Indigenous stories because those are so important. But, you know, the immigrant stories are, are fascinating and, and you can find those, like there's, there's, there's books, there's, you know, there's, there's all sorts of ways that you can, you can access these stories. And I, I think what Winnipeg has, just a spectacular history of people and stories and success and failures.

But I, I think our stories are, are really what puts, puts, sets us apart as a city. And, and I'm really proud to be trying to tell those stories. And I think going forward, you know, things like this are going to get more stories out.

And I, I think that's, I think that's what I, I've been thinking about this question because I, I wanted, I wasn't sure how to answer it, but I, I, I think big isn't always better. And I think the stories, the small stories, the everyday stories, getting on a streetcar on Main Street, you know, and hopping off, you know, at, at Kildonan Park. I think those are the stories that really make your city and Winnipeg has such a diverse, you know, citizenry to tell those stories.

Perfect. It's a beautiful place to land. Thank you so much.

You're very welcome. And before we go, we'd love to hear from our listeners. What programs and services impact you most? Email us at city-podcast at winnipeg.ca with suggestions for future episodes.

Thanks for listening.