Tuesday, 23 June 2009

• Say Hi to Toronto, Not Mini-NYC

  

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  There's always been an underlying sentiment in Toronto that says it is trying to be Canada's NYC. I don't deny that it exists; most of the time it's harmless. I went to a Harlem Restaurant the other day in the East end. Great vibe and food, funny name. Then there's Dundas Square vs. Times Square. Similar intoxicating billboards-flashing precinct, like NYC's, but it's about something totally different with its open plaza. And then there are all our smaller streets: Essex St, Mercer St., and heck, we even have a freakin' Bleeker St. We boast a SoHo Met boutique hotel, while I don't even think most Torontonians really know or care about what SoHo really stands for.
  

  We call our midtown, Midtown, our uptown, Uptown. I'm going to cringe if they start using the term  "crosstown" for a streetcar line. We have our own Flatiron Building (which is actually older than New York's and the first in the world). So why? When is Toronto going to start recognizing that it has its own identity? And that it is when we start boasting more of that, that is when the people will start noticing instead of dismissing as "just like New York but smaller"?

  I think my feeling about this characteristic of my hometown grew only after I moved to a new city for a longer period of time. A year away was enough to start seeing how others saw this city. And you know what? People have only heard and seen good things about it, but that was about it. And I found myself being the most Torontonian that I've ever been. We have beaches, we have streetcars, we have a clean subway system that is reliable, we have SO MUCH diversity, we have little authentic cultural pockets that doesn't rely on segregation for their identity to thrive, we have great climate with four seasons, we have an efficient garbage pickup system, we have a great bicycle culture, our waterfront is evolving into something really great...

  So when this story popped up a few days ago in the local news, I just had to say no no no no no.

  The Highline - NYC - www.thehighline.org
  The Gardiner Proposal - Toronto - http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/652918

  The Gardiner making like the High Line? Are you serious? This idea is premature, and is too much of a coincidence with the opening events of the High Line this month in New York. The High Line is successful only because it is accessible (in all sense of the word) and it also stands as a urban relic, something that the Gardiner is not. Please Toronto. The city wants to be unique, but it needs to do it with the belief that it can solve its own problems by facing them, not by thinking you can solve them by boasting the accomplishments of another. It is such a typical Canadian attitude. We are Canadian, only because we are not American. Sigh...

  I still love you, Toronto!

  Has you visited Toronto? What attributes or qualities popped out at you? How would you describe the city?

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