Music

Toronto finally has a park named after Rush

by Mark Teo

Over in Brooklyn Heights, Adam Yauch has a park named for him. Aberdeen, Wash. residents can kick back in not one, but two Kurt Cobain themed green spaces. And now, Toronto—or more specifically, a post-amalgamation neighbourhood in North York—is getting its own music-themed park.

No, it’s not named after Drake, despite his best efforts to rechristen Toronto as the 6. (Though it’d be no surprise to see a parkette named after Drizzy. Let’s make this happen, Forest Hill.) Instead, the city may soon be getting the Lee Lifeson Art Park—named for Geddy and Alex, sorry Neil Peart—in Willowdale, the neighbourhood where the two spent their formative years.

Councillor John Fillion was behind the proposal, but it wasn’t his idea to exclude any members of Rush. In fact, he initially wanted to name the park after Lee alone. “I was standing around one night with a fellow music lover trying to think of somebody who had grown up in Willowdale who was a famous artist or musician,” Filion told the Toronto Star. “We both came up with the name Geddy Lee almost simultaneously.”

In fact, Lee requested that the park also be named after Lifeson, who also grew up in the NoYo neighbourhood. “On tour and during our travels we get to visit and enjoy so many parks around the world and really appreciate having that communal green space that is so important to a vibrant city,” he also told the Star.

Proposals for the park, meanwhile, include art installations and a small space for musicians to play. Naturally. The North York Community Council will decide on the park’s fate in a meeting on August 12, though it’s hard to see why the park wouldn’t be approved.

Lifeson and Lee don’t mean to snub the other members of Rush. It’s more about where each member grew up: Peart was born in Hamilton but raised in St. Catherines, while Lee and Lifeson met at Willowdale’s Fisherville Junior High School, which has been included on the Rush Fan’s guide to Toronto.

Famously, the band also referenced their roots in their music. Take, for example, “Necromancer,” which namedrops he “three travelers, men of Willowdale, [who] emerge from the forest shadow, fording the River Dawn [sic].”