3D Toronto sign

Originally installed for the 2015 Pan American Games as a temporary attraction meant to be dismantled in November 2016 at the earliest, the City of Toronto government decided to continue to operate the sign after it became popular with tourists and residents.[3] Explaining the city's decision to keep it, Toronto City Councillor Norm Kelly said the sign is as iconic as the CN Tower and that it has become known all over the world.[4] It had appeared in an estimated 120 million pictures in various social media outlets by June 2016.[1]

Having an estimated three- to five-year lifespan,[2] the sign began to show signs of wear and tear by June 2016. Toronto City Council rejected spending another CA$150,000 on the sign, and city staff proposed replacing the sign with a permanent version.[1] The sign was vandalized in October 2016 during the overnight Nuit Blanche event. Graffiti was applied using markers, but Nuit Blanche employees were able to remove the graffiti.[5]

A 3D maple leaf was added to the Toronto sign adjacent to the final "O" in December 2016 to mark the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation.[6] The sign was modified again in 2018 to mark National Indigenous Peoples Day. The change added a 3D medicine wheel adjacent to the first "T" and new vinyl wraps for each letter consisting of a birch bark pattern with various First Nations symbols on them.[7] The wraps were removed, while the medicine wheel remains.

The sign experienced more wear in early 2017, due to uneven erosion at the bases of each of the three Os from hundreds of thousands of posing feet from those wanting to take pictures with the sign, exposing the black rubber padding underneath.[8] In 2019, Toronto City Council reaffirmed its plan to replace the current sign with a robust, permanent structure. A resident of the rural community of Orono, located east of Toronto, has requested that the current sign be donated to Orono.[9]

Although the Toronto sign is not an original idea and has been in European cities for many years prior, a local marketing consultant filed a lawsuit claiming he presented the idea to the city and staff before the city unveiled plans for the sign.[10] Named in the CA$2.5-million lawsuit is the City of Toronto government as well as Mayor John Tory and councillors Josh Colle and Michael Thompson.

The statement of defence, filed February 19, 2016, argues the concept itself is nothing new, and therefore the suit should be dismissed: "Interactive, three-dimensional signs bearing the name of a city are commonplace around the world. They can be found in Amsterdam, Guadalajara, Budapest, Istanbul and many other cities".[11] The civil lawsuit remains in the court system.

• City of Toronto media release about the sign