Removal of Church Street’s Alexander Wood statue in near secrecy welcome but complicated

The Alexander Wood statue at the corner of Church and Alexander Streets was suddenly removed under a cloak of secrecy early Monday.

Without consultation with community members, recent communication with the city or any advance public notice, the statue was pulled into a dump bin with the hole in the ground where its granite podium stood filled with concrete.

It was not until late afternoon when the Church-Wellesley Village Business Improvement Area (BIA) confirmed in a short update on their website they directed its removal.

“As of March 2022, we have hired a contractor who will remove the Alexander Wood statue,” it read, elaborating members of the board had anti-Black racism training and Indigenous teachings around the history of Anti-Indigenous racism. “As of April 2022, the Alexander Wood statue has been removed.”

The update was brief with the BIA unwilling to talk, including to the Star. The news came as a shock to the community six months after the BIA called for the city to support the statue’s removal.

Beyond questions about transparency and the fate of the statue, the news again highlights the legacy of a controversial man and the overarching question of why there was a statue at all.

Wood came to Upper Canada in 1793 from Scotland and moved to York (now Toronto) four years later. He made a career for himself as a successful businessman, community builder and magistrate before he found himself at the center of a scandal in 1810 where he allegedly inspected the genitals of suspects in a sexual assault investigation. As a result, I have faced sodomy charges and stirred rumors of his sexual identity.

Wood fled to Scotland to avoid prosecution but returned to York two years later to fight in the War of 1812. In 1823 the scandal resurfaced and Woods successfully sued his accuser for defamation and won. He was widely ridiculed as a “Molly” — slang for a gay man — and the undeveloped piece of land he owned that is now part of the Gay Village was called “Molly Wood’s Bush.” He died in 1844.

Nearly two centuries later, to May 2021 letter from the BIA to Mayor John Tory revealed Wood was a founding member of an organization called “The Society for Converting and Civilizing the Indians and Propagating the Gospel Among Destitute Settlers in Upper Canada.” That organization raised money for the “St. John’s Missionary to the Ojibway 1832,” which became a residential school in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

It was an ugly tie to horrific history and completely missed when the statue came to be 18 years ago, at the direction of the BIA themselves.

“That particular part of Toronto had been recognized as queer from the day that man bought that property,” says Dennis O’Connor, who was once head of the BIA and chair of the committee that sought the monument. “There are few places in the world that can say we’ve had a queer footprint for over 100 years. That was something that needed to be celebrated.”

Late artist Del Newbigging took the commission and was given full creative license. He shaped Wood’s likeness to include a top hat and walking stick in hand, and a defined, flowing coat with a flower on its lapel as a nod to former prime minister, and individual rights champion, Pierre Trudeau.

The resulting flamboyant-looking, 2.4 meter tall bronze statue was unveiled in May 2005. A plaque on the front called Wood a gay pioneer.

Its location on the northwest corner of Alexander and Church streets, one block north of Wood Street, was deliberate as was the 10-tonne granite base, meant to assure the statue stood out.

“It was meant to be distinguished, it was meant to last, it was meant to be visible,” says Ward 13 Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam, then a business owner and BIA member who was on the monument committee. “We put him on a pedestal, by design. … There wasn’t awareness about residential schools, what happened to the Indigenous community.”

The project cost $200,000, paid for largely by a cost-sharing grant with the city, with the BIA keeping responsibility to pay for the installation, construction and maintenance.

Now, it is gone.

Wong-Tam’s office confirmed it knew the BIA wanted to remove the statue, but had no knowledge of when.

“They were demanding the city remove it until we reminded them that they own it,” says Wong-Tam. “I asked them if they involved members of the Indigenous community and they confirmed with me that they did. They were strong in their opinion that it had to come down.”

Wong-Tam says she is “a little bit shocked” by a photo circulated online of the statue in a dumpster and no apparent consultation with Newbigging’s family.

Steven Maynard, a social historian and professor at Queen’s University, says it is not so much a surprise there was no consultation because there was little public consultation when it went up.

“We pretty much always knew the Alexander Wood story, hence the reason why some of us, myself included, objected to this happening in the first place,” he says.

Response to the statue’s removal has been mixed among people who frequent the Village. Those who defend it clinging to a sense of nostalgia, others say it was never really inclusive to begin with and question why he was seen as a gay icon when so little is known about his private life.

“As a gay icon it doesn’t relate,” says Susan Gapka, an activist and area resident. “It is not inclusive of women, racialized people, Indigenous people or of trans people.”

Ed Jackson, an author and historian who wrote about Wood in the book “Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer,” calls Wood the “gay pioneer who wasn’t.”

“Doing a figurative statue is problematic… it makes it more complicated,” he says. “He wasn’t a hero. He took advantage of his position from him.”

The biggest upset is the lack of public consultation and input into what would be done with the statue and what could replace it. Some suggest statues of gay rights activist George Hislop or AIDS activist Michael Lynch would be suitable replacements. Others suggest Indigenous elders should be consulted with the space given back for use by an Indigenous artist, moving away from recognizing one individual.

Wong-Tam notes the BIA is working on a new Streetscape Masterplan to revitalize the neighbourhood, prioritize pedestrians and celebrate art.

“What they are planning to do is something spectacular,” she says. “Great things are coming to the street.”

The BIA accepted public consultation in that project, but as of Tuesday no one was available to talk about the Wood statue.

“I suspect they find it embarrassing,” Jackson says. “There should have been more of a discussion.”