By Derek Boles

On June 22, the Globe & Mail carried a lengthy obituary of Richard Bébout, who died at age 59 on June 10 from complications following an HIV related stroke. In 1972, Bébout edited the book "The Open Gate: Toronto Union Station," the only book written about the station thus far and one of the finest volumes ever published about a single railway station.

Bébout was born in Ayer, Massachusetts in 1950 and immigrated to Canada in 1969 at the age of 19. He was only 21 when Bébout edited the Open Gate, whose publication was a major factor in alerting people to Union Station's value as an architectural treasure and its imminent destruction to make way for the Metro Centre development. People today don't appreciate how close we came to losing Union Station since the media, politicians, the railways and big business were united in their zeal to replace what they considered a run-down and obsolete facility. The book featured a collection of essays by Pierre Berton, John Robert Columbo, Mike Filey, Ron Haggart, William Kilbourn and Douglas Richardson. The chapter "Union Station, Railways and the City" by Robert McMann is still the most complete chronicle of the complicated political environment during which the station and the waterfront railway viaduct were planned and built over the first three decades of the 20th century.

Bébout is best known to Torontonians as an AIDS activist who helped produce the "Body Politic" newspaper that provided a voice to the city's gay community and challenged Canada's morality laws. In 1977, a controversial article in the paper led a police raid on the editorial offices and a six-year long legal obscenity battle. At one point the legal challenge drew the support of San Francisco gay activist Harvey Milk, recently the subject of an Oscar winning Hollywood biopic starring Sean Penn. Milk organized a rally that called for a tourist boycott of English Canada.

The Open Gate has long been out of print although copies of it are available in most Toronto libraries and the book can be obtained for a reasonable price through used booksellers.