A new staircase leading to a Toronto community garden that has attracted worldwide attention will be ready for use Saturday afternoon.
Construction workers were putting the finishing touches on the stairs in Tom Riley Park near Bloor St W and Islington Ave Friday--soldering joints in a handrail, smoothing asphalt on a landing.
Adi Astl, the fed up do-it-yourselfer who built a ramshackle wooden staircase on the same embankment a few weeks ago flipped the workers a thumbs up.
"Mine was better-looking," he tells NEWSTALK 1010 with a laugh. "Mine was more rustic for the environment...the important thing was to have stairs for the safety of the people coming down here."
Astl still can't quite understand how a spat with city hall snowballed the way it did. He says he's had interview requests and statements of support from people in the United States, Britain and Chile.
Rough estimates from the city initially put the cost of a staircase in Tom Riley Park at between $65,000 and $150,000. Toronto mayor John Tory says the about-to-be-completed set of stairs will cost $10,000.
Astl imagines he'll have to fight back tears when he uses the stairs for the first time.
A plaque is planned for the stairs to acknowledge Astl's role in having them built. He says a ribbon-cutting ceremony is in the works for sometime next week.