Cultural association proposes change to Peace Park
Jun 19, 2009 - 09:51 AM
PICKERING -- Council endorsed plans to change the name of Esplanade Park to Peace Park Monday night, but staff will have to tweak the plans first.
Shashi Bhatia, president of the Indo-Canadian Cultural Association of Durham, presented plans and reasoning for the change at Monday's council meeting. Pickering is diverse, she said, and the renaming will associate the City with an image of peace and harmony.
The association also proposed naming the garden circle in Esplanade Park the Lester B. Pearson circle, after a late Canadian prime minister who had served as president of the United Nations General Assembly in the 1950s and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957.
The walkway leading to City Hall and the garden circle will be called Mahatma Gandhi Walkway, after the late Indian nationalist and spiritual leader who developed nonviolent civil disobedience in the fight for India's independence, attained in 1947.
The two paths leading from the garden circle will be called Martin Luther King Way, for the leader of the American civil rights' movement who won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize but was later assassinated, and Mandela Way, after former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, who received a Nobel Prize in 1993.
An aerial drawing of Esplanade Park included in the presentation shows the garden circle and pathways are already in the shape of a peace sign.
The only cost will be for signs and association members agreed to help raise that money if needed.
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