Article content

Ghalid Ahmad was dressed in a white shirt, black pants and shiny black shoes, a work outfit he had rounded out with a pair of dark aviator sunglasses and a green vest with “security” on the back.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Future for ‘Toronto’ sign that ‘everybody loves’ is unknown, but most like it right where it is Back to video

Ahmad is skinny, and for a security guard at Nathan Phillips Square cuts a decidedly non-intimidating figure. But even on a busy afternoon only a handful of people stopped to ask him a question.

“They all ask the same thing,” Ahmad says. “They all want me to take their picture in front of the Toronto sign.”

The sign was next to Ahmad’s post, a beat he has been walking since the Pan Am Games began and the colourful, kitschy, giant-made-for-Pan-Am-Toronto marker by the reflecting pool at city hall became a photo destination for tourists and Torontonians alike.

“Everybody loves this sign,” says Ahmad.

After the future of this sign became a thing this week — it is to be moved elsewhere Dec. 31 — I went and spent some time watching it. The people came in ones, snapping selfies of themselves sitting in an “O,” or leaning against the “T,” or nestled beneath the “N,” and in families and even bus groups, to stand by a sign that, more than any athlete or moment at these Games, has achieved international stardom while being shared around the globe through social media.