Toronto rocker Carole Pope had some harsh words for the City of Toronto in a National Post piece yesterday called “Dude, where’s my city?”. I had no idea development and historical critiques were part of Ms. Pope’s many talents. Here’s some samples:
So I’m walking along Yorkville Avenue, always a poignant, painful experience for a baby boomer, and I see a big honking ugly condo rising up where rows of boutiques and The Grab Bag (smoke shop and meeting place for Toronto’s sixties Youth Quakers) used to be.
The Grab Bag bit the dust eons ago but its ghost lingered on for me. Now I can no longer walk by and have vivid acid flashbacks. What a total bummer.
Nobody cares that so much great music and history came out of Yorkville. Nobody thought to preserve The Riverboat or The Penny Farthing, the Purple Onion or any of the clubs that were packed every night of the week.
Huge city blocks and 200 years of history have been bulldozed out of existence, sacrificed for so-called urban renewal, and from what I can tell nobody raised an eyebrow.
…
Does anyone in Toronto have a sense of history? Are we that apathetic? Is our self-esteem as a people and culture that low? Can we not integrate old and new architecture and preserve more of our past?
I hate that most of my memories of Toronto have been flushed down the toilet of progress. My past has been relegated to grainy film footage and faded kinescopes in CBC archives.
The people of Toronto are the last to know what buildings are headed for destruction. Supposedly the Heritage Act has been amended. Whatever. I checked it out and almost had a brain aneurism.
2 comments
Groan. Toronto’s music scene has probably never been better but it’s happening in other neighbourhoods. If Yorkville were still a hippy den (which it kind of is, because they all settled down, bought Mercedeses and became consumers), it would be a sick, stagnant neighbourhood and probably a touristy rip-off. The only constant is change, Ms. Pope, if this weren’t the case our city would be a hopeless has-been. You don’t go trolling for the ghosts of Hemingway and Gertrude Stein in the Rive Gauche, either. Next!
hey Carol if you don’t like it then stay in LA all the time and quit yer whining