NYT: Toronto's Inn Crowd

[Hipster Duck]

Articles about gentrification and hip neighbourhoods are always bound to be attacked with a certain amount of "you think you're better than me?" vitriol from the locals. It's a thankless job and I wonder why writers even attempt to write these pieces. It's kind of like wanting to be an anti-mafia lawyer in Sicily.

 

[allabootmatt]

The griping here seems to be in the details, and isn't that just so 'Toronto' too? The information in the article, though flawed and somewhat superficial obviously, still does manage to capture a little of the flavour of at least one part of the Toronto arts scene for its readers. Besides who knows how long ago it was actually written? Do we expect the NYTimes to be 'onto' Ossington yet or some of the other erratic permutations of an arts scene that is fairly peripatetic to begin with?

Sort of, yeah. The NYT has, sometimes anyway, been pretty good on TO. The story in the mag about Broken Social Scene and the Toronto indie music world a couple of years ago was absolutely stellar. Similarly, in the past it has relied on pretty solid local correspondents--Dave Bidini, Carl Wilson, Katherine Ashenburg. And the Frugal Traveler's visit last year produced a wonderful article.

Which makes this story a bit mystifying, and, yes, pretty behind the curve for a publication that's so often ahead of it.

In any case, I don't want to build up a tempest in a teapot--but that's my $0.02. None of this matters, of course--but I was a bit put off by this idea that all of the interesting anything happening in the city is under the roof of either the Drake or the Gladstone.

 

[Tewder]

The problem is that once the New York Times starts reporting on it, or Toronto Life for that matter, it probably isn't that cutting edge anymore anyways. The arts scene is pretty fickle, and wonderfully fickle in fact, but the Drake and Gladstone do seem to have held their ground in Toronto as hubs for the arts. They are not the whole story, obviously, but they are a part of it.

 

[ssk]

There are other cities with more pronounced, more developed elsewhere syndromes than ours.

42

Haha, best comment in the thread.

 

[SimonP]

The New York Times has returned to our fair city, this time outlining what you can do in a 36 hour trip here:

AS one of the planet’s most diverse cities, Toronto is oddly clean and orderly. Sidewalks are spotless, trolleys run like clockwork, and the locals are polite almost to a fault. That’s not to say that Torontonians are dull. Far from it. With a population that is now half foreign-born — fueled by growing numbers of East Indians, Chinese and Sri Lankans — the lakeside city offers a kaleidoscope of world cultures. Sing karaoke in a Vietnamese bar, sip espresso in Little Italy and catch a new Bollywood release, all in one night. The art and design scenes are thriving, too, and not just on the bedazzled red carpets of the Toronto International Film Festival, held every September. Industrial zones have been reborn into gallery districts, and dark alleys now lead to designer studios, giving Canada’s financial capital an almost disheveled mien.

Rest of article.

 

[unimaginative2]

trolleys run like clockwork

!

 

[ShonTron]

Hey, a broken clock is correct twice a day.

 

[allabootmatt]

That and the use of "trolleys" aside, nice article. Like the frugal traveller last year, the writer did some good, off-the-beaten-track stuff. Though I don't get the near-blanket dismissal of College St. for nightlife...