The Richard L. Hearn Generating Station, together with the nearby Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant sewage sludge incinerator stack and the Commissioners Street waste incinerator stack, stand as towering landmarks of a bygone industrial era in the Portlands area of Toronto (all three facilities are no longer in operation, but their towering smokestacks still stand).

The turbine generators were built by Parsons in England and the boilers were made in Canada by Babcock & Wilcox (Cambridge, Ontario) and Combustion Engineering (Montreal, Quebec).

Construction on the station was not even finished in the 1950s when Hydro officials and the government began to talk about phasing out the plant with nuclear power and closing it.

The turbine hall was almost 300 metres long and was an impressive sight, viewed from the visitor gallery on the west side of the plant where the offices were located.

The eight short chimneys were a source of air pollution in local neighborhoods and downtown Toronto and also fly ash and other particulates.

The new single tall smokestack was built in response to pressure to reduce smog in Toronto by the emerging environmental movement in the late 1960s.

[5] Air pollution in Toronto from the station was greatly reduced and the area around the plant became known as a good fishing and recreation spot.

The last three 200 MW units at the plant resumed burning coal along with natural gas but they were phased out of operation in July 1983, due to concerns about increased air pollution in Toronto and an abundant energy supply in the province.

[6][7][Note 1] In October 1988, PC member of provincial parliament Donald Cousens called for the addition of scrubbers to the Hearn and proposed to return the station to service.

The site was designated as protected for future electricity development by the Mike Harris- and Ernie Eves-led Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.

[2] Subsequent reports indicated that the lease-holders are Paul Vaughan of Studios America and real estate developer Mario Cortellucci, with no reference to Comweb Group.

[citation needed] A proposal was made by Enwave (the former Toronto District Heating Corporation) and Constellation Energy to install advanced gas turbines and cogeneration inside the station and restore the station's control rooms, turbine hall and building exterior as a historical, filmmaking and education centre.

On September 18, 2006, an agreement was signed between the Provincial government, Ontario Power Generation and TransCanada Corp. to construct a gas-fired plant next to Hearn.

The city has been supplied by stepdown transformer stations from the east and west since the R. L. Hearn closed, which are becoming overloaded, especially in the summer.

[citation needed] On June 21, 2010, architecture firm Behnisch Architekten presented a proposal for converting the Hearn site into a three-pad arena.

[10] The nearly abandoned plant attracted photographers and urban explorers who published their work on websites and in photography exhibits in recent years.

On June 15, 2008, Ryan Nyenhuis, an urban explorer trespassing in the plant fell three storeys into a coal chute, and was trapped for three hours when he became pinned under a steel plate.

[12] During the 1990s the Hearn Generating Station was used as a filming location in many Canadian television productions, including Goosebumps (it served as the Dark Falls Chemical Factory on the Season 2 episode Welcome to Dead House), Once a Thief and Animorphs.