Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Canadian Air and Space Museum Set to Close

Anna-Louise Richardson, a videographer from Toronto, has written me about the closure of the Canadian Air and Space Museum. She wrote to say that the museum has recieved notice from developers that the museum will be evicted from the old DeHavilland Building at the old Downsview airforce base in Toronto.

She noticed that this blog had posted a press release from the North York Central Library's Canadiana Department about an appearance by Keith Hyde and his talk on the DeHavilland Mosquito (Wednesday March 7, 2012) www.genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2012/03/dehavilland-mosquito.html, and Anna-Louise said that reading it had compelled her to write me about the closure of the CAS Museum.

There is more information available about the museum here - www.casmuseum.org/home.php

She said that the developers plan to demolish the building to put up a hockey arena. She goes on to say that it is "So sad....I have started to interview one WWII vet who volunteers there and hope to interview another who has written a book about his WWII experiences as a pilot. This place is rich in history and they need our help."

I checked the website the other day, and was impressed by the amount of information that they have made available. There is a full account of the closing of the museum, the awards that they have received, a history of the mueum, and a video and photo gallery.

She produces vidoes at http://www.treeoflifevideo.com/. There you can see interviews from two WWII pilots that volunteer at the CAS Museum. One is Philip Gray, who has written the book, "The Ghosts of Targets Past", about his time as a Lancaster pilot.