There is history in the making on Roncesvalles Avenue, and a local historical society plans to archive it.
The Roncesvalles Village Historical Society is in the early stages of planning a community time capsule, a cache of current day papers and menus, lists of popular movies and drawings by school children from up and down Roncesvalles Avenue.
The group held preliminary discussions around their time capsule project at the High Park Library March 9.
"The idea is someone who is a child now might still be around in 50 years to dig it up," said Paul Weinberg, society co-chair.
Posing such questions as: 'What messages they would like to leave future generations', 'who to approach to request submissions for the capsule' and 'where and when to bury it,' the group is just in the beginning stages of this project.
"A big group that needs to be involved are the four schools in the area," said Meghan Edmonds, who is also a co-chair of the group.
Members of the society said they hope to get submissions from the Revue Cinema, local book stores and movie stores and one meeting attendee suggested it include information about the local food movement, which they said is gaining momentum in the west-end community.
The plan is to collect the items for the capsule, then hold a celebration and bury the capsule in the latter part of September. The hope is to have the capsule buried in the sidewalk outside of the High Park Library. The sidewalk will be ripped up in June and reinstalled in September as part of the ongoing street reconstruction.
Keith Denning, co-ordinator of the Roncesvalles Village Business Improvement Area, said this would likely make for perfect timing to bury the time capsule.
Although the Roncesvalles Village BIA board had not yet voted on it, Denning said he believes the BIA will be on board with the project and support it in anyway it can.
The Roncesvalles Village Historical Society was created as a subcommittee of the Roncesvalles-Mcdonell Residents Association. Its aim is to promote knowledge of local history and the collection of primary material such as interviews with long-term residents for archival purposes.
Its first project was researching the history of Sorauren Park. In September 2009, they held a celebration at the park, which was attended by many of the people who played a part in the park's creation in 1995.
Visit http://www.rmra-to.org for more information or to contact the Roncesvalles Village Historical Society.