Museum's fun online contest seeks to answer the question
Bernard Lansbergen
Special to Niagara Now
What is the sexiest building in Niagara-on-the-Lake?
Is it Locust Grove on Hunter Road or perhaps Willowbank with its Greek Revival style? The Woodbourne Inn in St. Davids or maybe McFarland House on the Niagara Parkway?
The Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum is looking for the input of the community as every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday a new poll is posted online, pitting two beloved NOTL buildings against each other.
The idea for the project was sparked after Shawna Butts, the museum’s assistant curator and education programmer, saw a similar poll on social media for inns in the U.K.
She sent it as a joke to her colleagues but they liked the idea and quickly decided to put on a similar competition for the buildings in NOTL.
Thirty-two buildings were hand-picked by the staff of the NOTL museum and will compete through several rounds before a winner is declared in late April or May. The field has been narrowed to 16 quarter-finalists so far.
“For this particular series we’ve only selected heritage buildings because they have a more unique quality than the more modern buildings in Niagara-on-the-Lake,” says Butts.
So what makes a building sexy?
“That’s a very personal question,” said Butts. “When people are voting they are probably looking at the overall landscape of the property … or they might have some personal connection to the buildings as well.”
This is not the only way the museum is virtually engaging with the community. Throughout the pandemic the museum has been putting on virtual lectures as well.
As for the sexiest building, there isn’t much agreement among the staff of the museum, so they’ve started a competition of their own, where the staff member who gets the most rounds right will win a prize.
And the winning building? “They’ll just get the honour of being named the sexiest building in the community.”
If you want to have your voice heard, head to the Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum’s Facebook or Twitter account to participate.
