Neil Peart Pavilion Named After the Rush Drummer in His Hometown
Tributes to Rush drummer Neil Peart continue to pour in, even months after the musician's January death following a battle with brain cancer. In fact, in Peart's old stomping grounds of Port Dalhousie, Ontario, an honorary park pavilion has just been named after the Canadian performer.
That's right, the locale's Lakeside Park now boasts an official Neil Peart Pavilion. That's after both a public vote and local government deliberations chose the nod to the Rush icon over a more generic name.
Peart grew up in the region's St. Catharines neighborhood, and the rocker's memory still inhabits the area. In an online vote, more than 81 percent of residents chose to christen the structure in Peart's honor rather than name it Lakeside Park Pavilion. A subsequent city council ballot confirmed the designation.
"The public voting on naming is obviously fairly conclusive," Port Dalhousie council member Bruce Williamson shared in a statement to The St. Catharines Standard. "Neil Peart's been one of our most famous local individuals, and a lot of his songs have local roots, including the namesake park."
Indeed, the song "Lakeside Park" — a single from Rush's 1975 third album Caress of Steel — contains idyllic Peart lyrics about the park on Lake Ontario. In a report to the council on Wednesday (June 3), the city's staff quoted lines from the composition as an endorsement of the pavilion idea.
A portion of the proposal read, "Staff recommend that the Neil Peart Pavilion is a fitting name to complement the history of Lakeside Park's 'willows in the breeze; Lakeside Park's so many memories with laughing rides, midway lights and shining stars on summer nights.'"
The city began the naming process shortly after Peart's Jan. 7 death at the age of 67. In the public poll, 606 of 746 people voted to name the pavilion after the Rush drummer. (140 voted for Lakeside Park Pavilion.) The pavilion is a $1.8 million structure that replaced an older pavilion in 2017.
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