STAR TREK:  TO BOLDLY GO – TO TORONTO!?!

 

So, when you think of Star Trek, and all those exotic worlds and space opera like episodes, what is the first thing that comes to mind?

 

For me, it’s this:

 

1255411-city_hall-Toronto

Image from virtualtourist.com

 

Built in 1965, this bizarre looking building represents the core braintrust of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  It’s design is curiously futuristic in nature.  The vast majority of buildings out there have one really distinguishing feature – cubes.  Rectangular cubes.  Square cubes.  Lego bricks in their design.  But this building throws you a curve everytime, as government (or cheap floozies) almost always do.  Yes folks, this is the City Hall!  For the longest time this was the city’s major tourism attraction, adjoining a large meeting area (Nathan Philips Square) for citizen festivals, and the outdoor skating rink nearby.  Then the CN Tower opened in the late 1970s, a giant antenna giving all Canadians free HBO...

 

If you want to read more about the hall, try the following link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_City_Hall

 

One thing you may notice in the link, that the city hall made an appearance in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode entitled ‘Contagion’.  Interesting.  Then again, 40 years ago this building was cutting edge in terms of design, affecting the entire world.  Don’t believe me?

 

For any Trekkers (or is that Trekkies? – I could never figure that out) who visit the site, pick up a copy of the original Star Trek comic book series, issue #5 from the late 1960s.  Slowly flip through, and you’ll come to a part where the intrepid crew of the Enterprise, aptly drawn by Italian artist Alberto Giolitti, beams down to a seemingly dead world…

 

st5crop

 

Did I say exotic worlds?  My bad.  Now the kicker, Alberto did all his work from home, that is, Rome, Italy.  This must have been some interesting news back in the 1960s to make it halfway across the globe.  Goes to show, in Star Trek, you never know where you’ll end up.

 

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