Mary Louise Pigott was just a girl when her grandfather died. But she knows he was a meticulous man. Detail mattered. So she believes that J.M. Pigott, head of what was Hamilton's best-known construction company, built City Hall right some 50 years ago.
And she's sure he would be deeply troubled by what's happening over on Main Street now. Specifically, that vote last month by council to violate its own heritage rules and replace the Hall's marble exterior with concrete slabs.
But this isn't about a family connection. "I'd still be every bit as devastated by this decision," Pigott says.
She thinks we'll end up with a City Hall that looks like a big box store. A cruel fate for a building that a National Post article last week described as "a masterpiece, one of the most beautifully executed modernist buildings in Canada."
So Pigott started calling people and that has led to a rally at the front steps of City Hall at 11 tomorrow morning, an attempt to see the building emerge from its $74-million restoration with walls of real stone.
At least two mayors like stone -- the present one and the one who spent longer than anyone else in the chair of the chief magistrate. They're in on this 11th-hour push, too. More...
