Opened in 1894, the revered Massey Music Hall has hosted some of the world’s greatest performers. But by 2018, the Toronto icon was looking decidedly worse for wear. The brickwork was damaged and dirty, the original stained-glass windows boarded over and broken; inside, the seats were worn, the paint peeling, the plaster crumbling. 

Photographer Peter Power captured the facade of the beloved hall on a quiet night just weeks before it closed for three long years of renovations (it reopened in November 2021). This photograph ran in the January/February 2022 print edition of the magazine. The legendary venue seemed to wait for its glow-up to begin. 

That photo is in stark contrast to the bustling scenes taken just before Massey Hall closed, with music fans streaming in for one last show before the shutdown.

Power also captured the beginning of the extensive restoration work being done on Massey Hall’s stained-glass windows, an epic endeavour consisting of hours of detailed cleaning, repairing and glass artistry.