News   May 03, 2024
Assembly's Blueprint for Sustainable Urban Living in the GTHA
 536     0 
News   May 03, 2024
RAD's State of the Market 2024 to Feature Talks on AI and Real Estate
 337     0 
News   May 03, 2024
Congratulations to our Avontuura Guides Winners!
 191     0 

Shabby Toronto

Going back to Tyler Brule's National Post piece, what, may I ask, is so liberal about Montreal's night life that is lacking in Toronto? Besides the 1 extra hour of drinking, I get that part, what is so liberal about Montreal at night? I left in 1990 and whenever I go back, it's cool but I don't understand what is unique about their night scene. Both cities have posh joints, wino bars, big box clubs, tiny lounges and everything in between. We have the cheesy club district, they have Boul. St. Laurent & Prince Arthur, with 20 cop cars and dozens of cops watching the drunk kids all week-end long. We have Yorkville (ugh) and they have Crescent Street (ugh). I'm not terribly concerned about Messrs. Brule or Wainwright, but I do meet quite a few folks who have these fantasies about Montreal. At least they don't have entire neighbourhoods or blocks of Ste Catherine Street 'a vendre ou louer' like they did through the nineties. Then there are all the smug "Montrealers" I meet here- the ones who loudly bitch to all their friends in a bar that 2 a.m. last call is proof-positive Montreal kicks ass and Toronto sucks. Usually they're from places like Beaconsfield, attend McGill, live near the campus, live en anglais, and work the berets 'n' baguettes image as soon as they are outside Quebec. Mon dieu et tabernacle...
 
...well they're 'french' aren't they? makes them better and more chic than everyone else.:rolleyes:

...as for Ruffie, second rate Judy Garland impersonators shouldn't be taken too seriously on these matters.
 
Erik T said:
Going back to Tyler Brule's National Post piece, what, may I ask, is so liberal about Montreal's night life that is lacking in Toronto? Besides the 1 extra hour of drinking, I get that part, what is so liberal about Montreal at night? I left in 1990 and whenever I go back, it's cool but I don't understand what is unique about their night scene. Both cities have posh joints, wino bars, big box clubs, tiny lounges and everything in between. We have the cheesy club district, they have Boul. St. Laurent & Prince Arthur, with 20 cop cars and dozens of cops watching the drunk kids all week-end long. We have Yorkville (ugh) and they have Crescent Street (ugh). I'm not terribly concerned about Messrs. Brule or Wainwright, but I do meet quite a few folks who have these fantasies about Montreal. At least they don't have entire neighbourhoods or blocks of Ste Catherine Street 'a vendre ou louer' like they did through the nineties. Then there are all the smug "Montrealers" I meet here- the ones who loudly bitch to all their friends in a bar that 2 a.m. last call is proof-positive Montreal kicks ass and Toronto sucks. Usually they're from places like Beaconsfield, attend McGill, live near the campus, live en anglais, and work the berets 'n' baguettes image as soon as they are outside Quebec. Mon dieu et tabernacle...
Click to expand...

For a lot of people I know, Montreal's more "liberal" and "exciting" nightlife has everything to do with the fact you can get away with more at strip clubs.
 
Noodles said:
you guys gotta be kidding!

Toronto is everything but shabby...

I'm originally from Milan, Italy, try that one and then tell me what shabby means! All the places you listed have nice and ugly areas...have you tried Paris baenlieu such Pigalle?
Click to expand...

Pigalle is not a banlieue but a district of the inner city. ;)
The idea of a rich core and poor suburbs in Europe is wrong.
The very large majority of suburbs in Paris are middle class with detached house. (90% of Parisian live outside the inner city)

It is interresting to know that the famous rich inner Paris has the second highest poverty and unemployement rate in Paris region. (out 8) Only the northeast inner suburbs (93) is worse.
People just use to only see the bourgeois 1st 2nd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th and 16th arrondissements when they think of inner Paris but these host less inhabitants than the working class 18th 19th and 20th arrondissements.

I can easely see it in the media or here, Pigalle is located in 18th and 9th arrondissement and the movie that won Cannes festival descrived as a class in banlieue when in fact it is in the 20th arrondissement. :rolleyes:
And when they think of Banlieue they only see the worst districts of the 93. 5clichy sous Bois, La Courneuve...)

You need to know than banlieue is not a term for working class district but for suburbs or more exactly place place outside the city proper. (Because inner suburbs are a way too urban for being suburbs, where the outer suburbs are like your suburbia)


This is Paris
Barbes just near Montmatre
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/1327/cimg2858zm9.jpg
13th arrondissement, don't be fooled these building are middle class housing
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/913/cimg5309wy1.jpg

This is Banlieue
Neuilly sur Seine the wealthiest dense municapality in France
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/52/cimg6405im2.jpg
;)
 
Toronto isn't shabby, Yonge Street is.

Main problem there is all the business are part of their own "business improvement area" which means the current businesses dictate how the street evolves. Well seeing how all of the shops there are currently crap, and are content with their crappy facades and feeding tourists crap.

I must say up by Yonge and Bloor I'm starting to see a slow shift in how Yonge Street is appearing. There are some nice restaurants going in along that stretch. Hopefully Yonge Street will eventually just become nice restaurants and some classy retail. I use the word hope loosley though.
 
Yonge Street will eventually just become nice restaurants and some classy retail
Click to expand...


That is what most of the worlds famous streets are these days and people like it that way..
 
It's the little things that make Toronto shabby to me. I walk down Front west everyday and right in front of the East Side Mario's at Simcoe there are 2 empty holes in the sidewalk where trees should be. Instead, they get filled up with rain water and look disgusting with garbage and cigarette butts in them.

The worst part of this is that the Hippo tours has their offices there and they load their buses there. So not only do tourists get the privilege of seeing the already messed up intersection due to construction, they also get garbage and a homeless guy sitting right there. I don't know why the Hippo tours people wouldn't just clean that area up a bit.
 
musters said:
Toronto isn't shabby, Yonge Street is.

Main problem there is all the business are part of their own "business improvement area" which means the current businesses dictate how the street evolves. Well seeing how all of the shops there are currently crap, and are content with their crappy facades and feeding tourists crap.
Click to expand...

There is no BIA on Yonge between Alexander (Downtown Yonge) and St. Charles (Bloor-Yorkville).
 
Yonge has undergone considerable improvement over the years - and will continue to do so.
Click to expand...

I guess that depends on perspective. I'm of the ilk that believes Yonge should never lose its shabby, cheezy, smutty underbelly as t evolves.
 
Yonge Street from Bloor to Gerrard Sts. is loaded with tons of interesting shops and great places to eat, I don't understand why people are so bothered by it. Sure, there are a few junk shops and some of the storefronts are a little rundown but by and large it is an extremely stimulating area that constantly evolves and never gets boring. Great things can be found along this strip that one would never find in a shopping centre or big box mall and what could be purchased in malls can be found on Yonge street for a fraction of the cost.
 
Exactly, it's the sheer diversity of this section of Yonge that makes it such a draw in the first place. Why should everything be sanitized? We're already choking in bland corporate chain stores practically everywhere else. Gentrification is certainly not always a good thing.
 
I agree with Towered. Yonge has a long tradition of being tacky, why change it? God save us from Robsonization, please.
 
fiendishlibrarian said:
No money, no pride, a brain-dead hipster intelligentsia that views the shabby and decrepit as "having character" and celebrates the mediocre, fears and sneers at excellence, restraint and discipine, and encourages sloth, indifference and contempt of the public realm in the form of squalor ("grit", as in we're not Coburg etc.), vandalism ("street art") and endless, mindless spam-like postering ("reclaiming public space"), and there you are. Shabby is as shabby does. We get what we deserve, really.
Click to expand...

No Money? perhaps misapporpiate of such..?

And street art is not vandalism, there is a significant difference.

But yes, I think Toronto is lame as well. Try finding a park bench to sit on and have lunch or when taking a break from mindless shopping. The city reflects the mentality of the majority very well.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top