"In the Lister Block, Hamilton's crumbling landmark, you can be sure plants are growing from seeds carried in the windows by birds, or maple keys on the roof that have germinated and rooted in the accumulated dirt of abandonment.

If the warring factions fail to agree on a rescue plan, the Lister Block should become the world's biggest garden folly. Take the roof off and let a garden grow. Now there's a tourist attraction of world-class proportion.

Follies, defined by Wikipedia as fanciful, extravagant examples of artistic expression, are found the world over. The Chanticleer Garden in Pennsylvania has a wondrous one in the foundation of an old estate. Hamilton has a mini one on Aberdeen Avenue.

Isn't it time for bold thinking? Imagine the Lister Block as a fantastic garden, the Harris Inlet preserved, and Hamilton becomes a city of rescued gardens instead of the city "it's good to get sick in," as a citizen recently declared in this paper.

It's possible the Lister will sit rotting for a few more years so there is time to issue a challenge to creative thinkers. Ask the students at Guelph School of Landscape Architecture and the architecture students at the University of Waterloo to turn the Lister into a wonderful garden.

Ask them to make room for a music garden where students from Mohawk College could play. Display their ideas and drawings in the art galleries on James Street North.

Two years ago, U.K. artist Mary Wardle had a show at the Print Studio on James Street North based on the gardens she found in abandoned textile mills in Manchester. Her work evoked Hamilton. Imagine a display like that in the new Lister Garden Gallery.

The fun police are reading this and saying "what a stupid idea." But ask an architect and they will say anything can be built."