TheKingEast
Senior Member
I could be completely wrong, but there's nothing that makes me think this area full of hi-rises will be a success. A sea of glass boxes with no character. I may be wrong, but I don't have much faith in this "master plan".
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- Thread starter Mike in TO
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I could be completely wrong, but there's nothing that makes me think this area full of hi-rises will be a success. A sea of glass boxes with no character. I may be wrong, but I don't have much faith in this "master plan".
caltrane74
Senior Member
Yeah, the club scene has moved to king, west of spadina. (more high end, more money)
The low rent stuff is still on the east side of spadina, between King & Queen.
The low rent stuff is still on the east side of spadina, between King & Queen.
TheKingEast
Senior Member
You really want me to write down a list? For what reason? I get the feeling that it would be a giant waste of time.
Ramako
Moderator
Well, I guess that's my point. I really couldn't care less about maintaining a massive concentration of clubs in this area. If restaurants, bars and theatres are remaining open and viable in this neighbourhood, I think it will be a success. The only things that clubs really add to the neighbourhood are 3 hours of drunken brawls on two nights of the week. At any other time, the 'club district' is altogether deserted. More residents will change that, and will create a demand for more local restaurants and bars. Let's have an Entertainment District that's capable of entertaining people over 20 years of age.
taal
Senior Member
And that's the area with the most amount of condos proposed : - )
TheKingEast
Senior Member
You sound like a 70 year old.
Ramako
Moderator
I'm 27, but even when I was 18 I thought the 'club district' was a lame area. It's nothing but an otherwise desolate gathering place for JerseyShore-esque 905'ers. Nothing urbane about it. You'd be more likely to find me on King or Queen West of Spadina, and I definitely wouldn't advocate high-rise condos in those areas. Then again, those areas are actually vibrant, unlike the Clubtainment District.
unimaginative2
Senior Member
Off the top of my head? Second City, Jeff Healey's, Cantina Charlie's, Joker, Tonic, DNA, Mercer St. Grill. Fez Batik and that lovely patio closed for the homeless centre. Soon: Gretzky's, Adelaide St. Pub. Some of them are total shit, of course, but some aren't and all of them give the city a little life.
As for New York, most of its nightlife neighbourhoods (Essex/Delancey, Meatpacking District, West Village, Williamsburg, etc.) have few or no condo towers. The same is obviously true for London, Paris, Berlin, Chicago, Amsterdam, etc.
But that's the whole point. Just because you don't like those clubs doesn't mean that other people don't have the right to enjoy them. I wouldn't be caught dead in Cantina Charlie's, but I live in a big city and that means that different people are allowed to have different tastes. Besides, on a more selfish level, chasing the Jersey Shore-esque 905ers out of the Entertainment District has just meant that they've colonized West Queen West.
You mustn't live in the area. For better or worse, in its heyday, it was packed at least 4, sometimes 5 nights a week.
Ultimately, though, this is the problem:
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Parkdalian
Senior Member
Greenwich Village used to the centre of bohemian New York - now it's a pretty snoozy residential area and an extension of NYU. SoHo used to be filled with poor artists - now it's all upscale fashion boutiques. Williamsburg is rapidly transitioning to an upscale neighbourhood. Neighbourhoods transition from scary to boring. That's what happens in cities. The Entertainment District - for all its supposed "sterility" is still busy pretty much every day during the day, and has fewer parking lots. I think that's a definite improvement. New things always seem sterile - that's the benefit of the new.
And as someone who lives in a gentrifying neighbourhood - I can tell you that I hate the self-absorbed "liveliness" of clubbers more than the sometimes crazy and poor people who live here. Clubbers use my neighbourhood like a piece of toilet paper - residents don't. Having places where people publicly barf does not make a city world-class.
taal
Senior Member
I think the real problem here is none of the areas mentioned were as dense as Toronto's 'old' entertainment district. The second problem is the majority of those areas aren't as central as our entertainment district is to the core. Thirdly, and most significant, our entertainment district is/was such a mess / ugly / lifeless during the day. To be clear I don't fault the clubs for this but that's just the way the entertainment district is.
I think Yorkville, which really only has a couple clubs (if you want to call them that) is a much better example of what we should be striving for (with more clubs of course) the reason being that the area is actually interesting during the day!
If the point of the area is too only add night life, and for this to happen it essentially cannot be used during the day (which I don't think is this case) then it needs to be a lot further out of the core.
unimaginative2
Senior Member
There are way more clubs around Essex and Delancey than there ever were in the entertainment district. Same with the Meatpacking District.
I suppose that ugliness depends on how you define it; I'd say that most of the new condos we're building are much uglier than many of the old warehouses in the area. It's hardly lifeless, though. The whole area is filled with offices that co-exist quite nicely with the clubs. One brings people to the streets at night, one during the day: a genuine mixed-use district.
Oh come on. It's not like the clubs are being displaced for the "crazy and poor". They're being displaced because a certain city councillor doesn't like them and wants to replace them with glass condos in a deliberate attempt to sterilize the neighbourhood. I have no problem at all with condos and condo-dwellers. I have a problem when busy and interesting neighbourhoods get overrun with them and become a grey monoculture. I have a problem when historic buildings are torn down to build them. And I have a problem when they're built along our precious and irreplaceable low-rise commercial strips.
I also don't actually have a problem with gentrification. If the stores on a thriving low-end commercial strip are replaced with high-end stores, that's a natural evolution of the neighbourhood. If whole blocks of the thriving commercial strip are demolished for a condo superblock, that's not a natural evolution of a neighbourhood.
I live near the club district and I hate the things that some clubbers (a small minority of them) do. Pretty much every weekend, somebody destroys the flowers in front of the Soho Metropolitan hotel and it makes me sad. I don't believe in punishing the many for the sins of the few, though, and it's interesting to note that the suffocating police presence doesn't seem to do a damn thing for preventing these issues.
taal
Senior Member
hmm, I was fairly sure in North America at least the entertainment district was at one point the most dense in terms of clubs, but I'll take your word for it.
Here's where I'll disagree - your right it has office use, just like the CBD of many other cities which completely empty out after 4/5 this area is very fitting of that description. Take a walk in this area on any weekend; After 6pm during the week, there's just about nobody. Why would there be ? There's really nothing here, other then the club !
I wasn't at all commenting on the architecture, I love some of the old warehouses in Richmond and the like.
Again just to be clear, personally I don't have anything wrong with the clubs, I'd just like a more mixed use district here, more like other areas in Toronto I mentioned earlier.
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unimaginative2
Senior Member
There are also some restaurants in the area, so I wouldn't really say that it's any less active than most other neighbourhoods in the city in the hours between the closing of the offices and the opening of the clubs. I walk in the area all the time--I live here. I'm just not convinced that the kind of "mixed use" neighbourhood that we're talking about--one with dozens of ultra-high-rise condos with retail podiums--leads to any more active neighbourhoods. We're creating a condo monoculture. On Peter from Wellington north to Queen, Second City is being torn down for a condo, north of there is another condo application. Across the street, Gretzky's will be torn down for another condo just north of the existing Icon condo. North of there is a parking lot and the warehouse that used to have the Indian Motorcycle cafe--it will become several more condos. Further north there is a condo application for the warehouse on the southeast side at Adelaide. North of there the Adelaide St. Pub is coming down for another condo. At Peter and Richmond, the old Tonic/Cantina Charlie's building will become yet another condo. I don't see how this is mixed-use. These neighbourhoods haven't worked on Bay north of Queen, or on Bremner. I don't see why it will in the entertainment district, and in this case it would be replacing an established neighbourhood.
I just don't subscribe to this theory that every neighbourhood has to be "mixed use" (which typically means lots of condos added to downtowns) to be successful. I don't think condos are detrimental to a neighbourhood, as long as it doesn't become a monoculture and doesn't come in the form of superblock projects. I also agree that an office monoculture is unhealthy and in a feeble American downtown, condos can add much-needed life. But in any truly large city, you are going to see neighbourhoods that specialize. I lived in Berlin, a city often prized by these "mixed use" theorists. Yet around Warschauer Strasse, you'll find a club district vastly larger than our own entertainment district. You'll also find primarily retail neighbourhoods, and primarily office neighbourhoods. Not necessarily exclusively, but definitely predominantly. There's nothing wrong with it. It's natural in any large city and I don't think these neighbourhoods would benefit from shoehorning in condos so that theorists can call it mixed-use.
I just don't subscribe to this theory that every neighbourhood has to be "mixed use" (which typically means lots of condos added to downtowns) to be successful. I don't think condos are detrimental to a neighbourhood, as long as it doesn't become a monoculture and doesn't come in the form of superblock projects. I also agree that an office monoculture is unhealthy and in a feeble American downtown, condos can add much-needed life. But in any truly large city, you are going to see neighbourhoods that specialize. I lived in Berlin, a city often prized by these "mixed use" theorists. Yet around Warschauer Strasse, you'll find a club district vastly larger than our own entertainment district. You'll also find primarily retail neighbourhoods, and primarily office neighbourhoods. Not necessarily exclusively, but definitely predominantly. There's nothing wrong with it. It's natural in any large city and I don't think these neighbourhoods would benefit from shoehorning in condos so that theorists can call it mixed-use.
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Parkdalian
Senior Member
Sigh. I wasn't saying that the crazy and poor were displacing anyone. Just using it as an example of how the crazy and poor - often seen as negatives - are *much* less irritating in my community than clubbers.
So your argument is that you are a Jane Jacobs fan. Who isn't? But the difference is that you think the club district was a thriving natural outgrowth of mixed-use. When it was actually a ghetto to contain the clubs. What's going on now is an attempt to restore the balance of clubs vs other uses.
As for the the mysterious "certain city councillor" (I'm guessing Adam Vaughan?) - if you think he's anti-Jacobs, you are very very wrong mah friend.
unimaginative2
Senior Member
I understand you weren't trying to say that. You don't like the clubbers. Others don't like the crazy and poor. It may be clichéd but we all have the right to live in this city and enjoy it the way we want as best we can.
I agree with you that it was a ghetto to contain the clubs and that was unnatural. I think it's a shame that all of the bars and clubs were forced out of Yonge Street, which was a natural home for them. The problem is we're repeating this mistake by chasing these undesirable bar patrons/clubbers all around the city.
I know Vaughan's background, but whether he likes Jane Jacobs or not is completely irrelevant. I'm sure he means well and probably thinks that he's implementing Jacobs' vision, but the principles that are guiding his governance in this case are completely at odds with some of the best parts of Jacobs' legacy, such as organic growth and avoidance of superblocks. Even taking it to the most basic level, one could hardly say that the future Peter Street that I described will remotely resemble the Jacobs Greenwich Village ideal.
This is a neighbourhood that grew fairly organically out of a warehouse and garment industry monoculture into a neighbourhood that includes offices, nightclubs, residences and some shops and restaurants. We're now demolishing block after block of it and replacing them with functionally identical condominium superblocks. Despite Vaughan's intentions, this sounds an awful lot like the very urban renewal that demolished undesirable neighbourhoods for shiny new mega-developments that Jacobs so decried.
I agree with you that it was a ghetto to contain the clubs and that was unnatural. I think it's a shame that all of the bars and clubs were forced out of Yonge Street, which was a natural home for them. The problem is we're repeating this mistake by chasing these undesirable bar patrons/clubbers all around the city.
I know Vaughan's background, but whether he likes Jane Jacobs or not is completely irrelevant. I'm sure he means well and probably thinks that he's implementing Jacobs' vision, but the principles that are guiding his governance in this case are completely at odds with some of the best parts of Jacobs' legacy, such as organic growth and avoidance of superblocks. Even taking it to the most basic level, one could hardly say that the future Peter Street that I described will remotely resemble the Jacobs Greenwich Village ideal.
This is a neighbourhood that grew fairly organically out of a warehouse and garment industry monoculture into a neighbourhood that includes offices, nightclubs, residences and some shops and restaurants. We're now demolishing block after block of it and replacing them with functionally identical condominium superblocks. Despite Vaughan's intentions, this sounds an awful lot like the very urban renewal that demolished undesirable neighbourhoods for shiny new mega-developments that Jacobs so decried.
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