The Building Nobody Wanted to Save | The Story of The McLaughlin Planetarium

In April 2026, the McLaughlin Planetarium, Toronto's only public planetarium, was demolished after sitting empty for thirty years. This is the story of how that happened. Opened in 1968 as gift from Colonel R.S. McLaughlin and operated by the Royal Ontario Museum, the planetarium drew millions of visitors and was one of the few in North America turning a profit. It was closed in 1995 to satisfy a $600,000 provincial budget cut under Mike Harris's Common Sense Revolution. What followed was three decades of institutional abandonment: the ROM tried to build condos on the site and used it as storage, and the City nominated it for heritage protection in 2013 but never designated it. In 2020, the City recommended its demolition to improve a sightline. Toronto is now the largest metropolitan area in North America without a public planetarium. The closest one is a 35-seat teaching facility in the basement of McMaster University in Hamilton. Special thanks to Greg, a former laser show operator at the McLaughlin Planetarium, for sharing his recollections, footage, and photographs. His channel, The Golden Age of Laser Shows, is linked below. @thegoldenageoflasershows1192 Credits: CGI Snake by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/divider/ Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com/ Darkest Child A by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100783 Artist: http://incompetech.com/