Following public outcry, the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation will return engraved bricks from Olympic Plaza to their original owners.
The Calgary Land Municipal Corporation offered to return, where possible, the engraved bricks that line the surface of Olympic Plaza after public outcry followed the initial announcement the artifacts would be destroyed during the downtown landmark's transformation project.Some of the bricks that line the surface of Olympic Plaza in downtown Calgary will be removed and returned to their owners.
There's no guarantee that those who registered for the Olympic Plaza brick retrieval program will get their inscribed mementos back — but that didn't stop more 5,105 people from trying anyway. The City of Calgary and the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) offered to return the bricks that lined the plaza's surface to the original purchasers, or to those with ties to them. It was a reversal of course following the initial announcement that the artifacts would not be salvaged during Olympic Plaza's transformation project due to age, wear and cost-related issues. 'Maybe they just didn't think that it would be as big a deal as it was for people,' said Valerie Salkeld, a brick owner whose then-boyfriend Laird proposed to her at Olympic Plaza with a message on a brick. 'So when they responded to people's disappointment, that was, that was a good thin. And I think that they came up with hopefully a good solution.' Valerie Salkeld's husband, Laird, had a commemorative replica brick made for the couple's 25th anniversary. The program came after public outcry regarding the decision and apparent attempts by people to remove some of the roughly 33,000 bricks from the ground themselves. The CMLC did give people opportunities to commemorate their bricks, with events held at the plaza earlier this year that included etching equipment and a professional photographer. 'Over the next two weeks, crews will continue to carefully remove the bricks from Olympic Plaza,' reads a statement from the cit
Calgary Olympic Plaza Bricks Return Public Outcry
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