As many of you know, when the Maple Leaf Hotel closed down, it was taken over by the city due to taxes owed. Before they demolished the hotel, the STC staff was able to enter the hotel and remove many of the artifacts that were there with the intention of building the Maple Leaf Lounge at the Shania Twain Center. So in August 2005, Tracy, Jack Watson and myself held a RECON mission at the old Maple Leaf. Keep in mind the utilities had been shut off for a long time, the place had had one fire and the basement was flooded. The place stunk of a mixture of beer soaked carpets, cigarettes and mold spores. It was not pretty. At the time, I took a series of pictures that I have never shared with anyone. It does show the Maple Leaf in a total state of disrepair.
I'm posting them today so that you may get somewhat of an idea of what the place actually looked like. You'll also be able to see that Tracy and the staff at the STC did a really good job of recreating the atmosphere of The Leaf.

Enjoy.

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And how Ironic that this would have been found on a table at the Leaf.

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Its quite sad to see the bar like that. Tracy did a great job of replicating the Maple Leaf at the STC. I don't think I have ever seen those pictures before. A lot of the stuff was saved, I see so many signs and drum heads that are in the STC now. The STC version of the Leaf is definitely much cleaner and doesn't smell like beer, mold and smoke. It did however smell musty for a little bit, only once did it smell like smoke because some customers thought that they could smoke in there! That was bad, but kind of funny at the time.

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Sorry Andrea... I guess after we were married I should have shared all my STC secrets with you.

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Ren,

Thanks for the pics. Great job of shooting under less than ideal lighting conditions, and now these are very historical shots.

Also thanks to Tracy and the STC staff for salvaging the materials and recreating part of the Maple Leaf at the STC.

I still have my souvenir piece of the Maple Leaf wood paneling that all convention goers were given at.... uh.... what was it- Fan Con 2006?

Eric G.

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"Crops are green, Tractors are RED"

NYET!! Ren!! Haven't you learned ANYthing? You ALWAYS have to keep a few secrets. Or you lose all your mystique, and half your leverage on negotiations. And there's ALWAYS more negotiations.

Bonjour mademoiselle spicy. Long time, no post.

Appreciate reading your interesting perspective.

That is a familiar view to me on the outside. I took a number of photos back around that time, including some of the signs and posters, because the windows had not yet been boarded over then. Even did some artistic renderings of the building front and architecture. I think those are on my older computer. The website from which I originally posted them to various ST message boards, has been transferred by that service provider. And my carefully constructed system of folders and subfolders, got jumbled. I never went back to recreate those older pics.

In Timmins, I went down along at least one if not both sides of the Maple Leaf building, and looked at what I could see from the outside. I think I may have seen some of the inside, but it was mostly dark, so I could see only a small portion of what you have captured here in these inside photos.

As a writer and historian, I am delighted to see this content and context. Some may turn up their nose. Not me. If you smelled stale beer and a bit of mold, the place was holding up well. I once helped take down a large, old hall beside a church in my home town. When I was a kid, the place was a combination stage, auditorium, basketball court, kitchen and hot lunch for our parochial school, on the first floor. In the basement were a couple bowling lanes and some lovely hardwood flooring rooms for various activities. When some of us took the building down years later, my family salvaged some of the lumber and large beams for use in our family business (building chopper wagons for the cows, etc.). There had been a couple bathrooms in the basement of the hall. Apparently the sewer line backed up and the water swelled the hardwood floor boards, buckling them badly. The smell would not let you breathe in there for very long. It was way worse than the smell in the cow stables of our barn.

It's strange how hard people work to build good things that are used and enjoyed, but taken for granted. And how far those buildings decline when not maintained. Life changes and passes so fast. And most of it is forgotten. Jack, Tracy and the rest of the crew have done a fine deed, to preserve some valuable, local history.