File:20150706 - 03 - Sudbury, Ont. - Memorial Park Cenotaph.jpg

English: A view of the cenotaph at Memorial Park in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, as seen from near the corner of Brady and Minto Streets on a July 2015 morning. A three-and-a-half-acre expanse of pleasant green space in the center of the city's downtown core, Memorial Park was the first to be established by the new Sudbury Municipal Parks Board, who in 1917 oversaw the beautification of what had previously been the site of the town dump. The park took on its present name in 1928, when the first cenotaph to occupy the site was unveiled; the one seen here is its replacement, which was dedicated on Remembrance Day in 1957 in honor of the 575 Sudburians who lost their lives in the First World, Second World, and Korean Wars. The laying of wreaths at the dedication by the Honorable Randolph Pearkes, Minister of National Defence, and Mrs. F. C. Lane, a Silver Cross Mother who lost two sons in the Second World War, began a tradition of somber Remembrance Day ceremonies that would take place annually at the park until 1985, when they were moved to the nearby Sudbury Arena. In the time since this photo was taken, Memorial Park has been perhaps better known as the site of one of several tent cities that appeared around the city in 2020 as the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated an already burgeoning homelessness crisis. The encampment accommodated nearly 100 individuals at its peak and was initially tolerated by the municipal government, but a subsequent increase in vandalism, drug offenses, and violence crime was widely blamed on its presence, and it was forcibly disbanded by the city police in April 2022. Cleanup and repair work is ongoing as of this writing (July 2022).