There’s nothing like it in New York or Los Angeles. The MZTV Museum of Television and Archive, 64 Jefferson Street in Liberty Village, is without equal when it comes to the history of the “box”.
TORONTO’s broadcasting mogul, MOSES ZNAIMER, has spent six decades chasing roughly 10,000 artifacts from the earliest days of television to the present, and now his collection is open to the public right here in our town.
Among the exhibits is a multiplicity of television sets, some dating back to World War II; books, magazines, toys, ephemera from North America, the UK, Germany, Italy and Russia; and Marilyn Monroe’s Magnavox from 1957. A commemorative wall celebrates the inventors of television – John Logie Baird, Charles Francis-Jenkins, Philo T. Farnsworth, Allen B. DuMont, Vladimir Zworlkyn and NBC’s David Sarnoff.
The Museum is a tremendous collection of televisions and related broadcasting and pop culture items – including a 1928 Felix the Cat doll, which was placed on a turntable, scanned by a primitive camera and transmitted – one of the first TV stars.
The highlight of the Museum is a very rare TRK-12 Phantom Telereceiver, discovered in Israel, restored, and now on display. The TRK-12 <PHOTO BELOW – Bill Brioux> was the first television set visitors to the 1939 New York World’s Fair had ever seen. To prove there wasn’t a film running inside the box, the set’s transparent case allowed fairgoers to see all the wires and tubes. Even as an object, it’s a stunner. You can see all four of the TRK series in the MZTV Museum. As BILL BRIOUX – http://www.brioux.tv – writes in the Toronto Star “that they are all in one place, and that place happens to be TORONTO, is pretty astounding.”
MOSES ZNAIMER is a Canadian broadcasting visionary. He’s the founder and CEO of ZoomerMedia, a company specializing in media and entertainment for adults 45 and over. The company’s properties include radio stations (two in TORONTO), television (Vision TV), digital, trade shows and conference programming. He’s the president of CARP (Canadian Association of Retired Persons). He was a founder of Citytv, CEO of 22 television stations including MuchMusic, Fashion Television, Bravo and Sex TV.
The Museum is showing a special exhibit from Montreal’s Cinémathèque québécoise – “Aspects of the Global Village: The Television Era in Canada, 1950-2000”. The museum’s address: MZTV Museum of Television and Archive, 64 Jefferson Street, Liberty Village, in the King Street West/Dufferin neighbourhood, http://www.mztv.com
Big changes are coming to the FAIRMONT ROYAL YORK, 100 Front Street West. The fabled hotel, as close as TORONTO gets to NEW YORK’s Waldorf-Astoria, opened in 1929, and is now undergoing a $100-million dollar renovation. More than 500 rooms are being fully updated, just in time for the 2015 Pan-American Games, the inauguration of a rail link to Pearson International Airport and the completion of Union Station’s massive overhaul.
In a deal announced this week, a fund managed by real estate company KINGSETT is acquiring a 60% interest in the ROYAL YORK worth an estimated $111.9-million, while INNVEST Real Estate Investment Trust will pay $37,5-million for a 20% share.
Renovations are expected to be completed by January, 2015. The ROYAL YORK’s current operator, FAIRMONT, will continue to run the hotel.
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Toronto Savvy 