On Thursday night film types descended into the abandoned Lower Bay Station for a TIFF party thrown by the Italian Trade Commission to celebrate the Italian film industry. As mentioned in this post, TIFF is continually poking its way into different parts of the city, though Lower Bay seems appropriate as so many big-and-small productions have been filmed down there. The Commissions (Italian Trade and the Toronto Transit) had been working together for months to organize the party, and it felt a bit strange to be going to an event like this given the TTC’s legendary history of staid officiousness, but it seems Adam Giambrone has loosened things up in many ways. Still, a small battalion of sharp-eyed TTC inspectors and Special Constables required to be on hand kept things from turning into one of those profane parties in La Dolce Vita that the Vatican objected to in 1960.
Trains were in the station on either side of the platform, and on each was a bar car. We immediately thought this would be the best way of increasing ridership on the TTC. Random open bars rocketing under Toronto would certainly entice a few more people into the system. As for the wedding or Bar/Bat Mitzvah potential of Lower Bay, there are some drawbacks. There are no washrooms down there so guests had to go elsewhere — three guys we met took the subway from the Upper Bay platform and used the toilets at Yonge Station, then took the subway back. The air conditioning was running in the trains, which were quite comfortable, but the platform area was hot as those A/C units fed heat back into the station. The constant rumble from the trains above was nice as it mixed in with the sound of the DJ (check out this upcoming Nuit Blanche project that uses sound recordings from Lower Bay).
The most fun about being Lower Bay is trying to figure out what is original 1966 TTC, and what has been added on for various film shoots. The MTA benches above certainly aren’t local, though they were nice to sit in.
All photos by Liz Clayton (see her photos of Lower Bay from an earlier visit here). Click below to see more photos or check the Spacing Transit Flickr collection.
Evolution of the yellow line.
Bar car. Likely not the first time people have danced on the subway.
Old tiles.
Ghost elevator up to Upper Bay.
8 comments
> Bar car. Likely not the first time people have danced on the subway.
Haha. I wish they would let US drink during our subway parties.
Then again, I guess only about half of the crowd is of age…
Holy crap, am I ever jealous.
I wonder how much it cost to book that space… as for bars on commuter trains – don’t they have those on the Long Island Rail Road?
What a great space for a nightclub!
Sort of, Mark. You can buy beer on the platform before you board the train, as well as upstairs in Penn Station. Imagine if you could buy cold, single bottles of beer at the fruit-news-and-lotto place in Union Station.
Then you can board the “drinking car”, where the consumption of alcohol is expressly allowed.
Although you can sort of drink everywhere else, too.
One of the few things I admire about the laws in New York is their treatment of alcohol (except the age): you can buy affordable alcohol almost anywhere and drink it in almost as many places.
Mark> It’s my understanding that the space is “free” but the production has to pay for the cost of opening it. So security, TTC overtime, etc. So the party worked like a film shoot likely, just instead of camera rental and crew costs they had catering and bar service.
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As for drinking in general on the TTC, if you’re discreet, you can get away with most anything. After being in London a few times over the last few years the drink-anywhere (Tube included) thing is sort of neat and seems right, but then after seeing the loutish behavior, vomit in the streets, etc, maybe keeping some cap on it seems right. Maybe the Long Island RR way is a a good balance.
Shawn
I’m just thinking that there might be other groups who might like to book the space and the TTC should consider charging for it and listing it on their charter page. Considering they wouldn’t let anyone near it until the Doors Open it wouldn’t be unfair to request a fee beyond simple security costs – after all any other venue in Toronto would probably cost a lot more, and the income could be used to at least clean up the Bay Yorkville signage 🙂
Given the current state of affairs at TTC I’m not sure that cost recovery alone is appropriate to facilitate a private party, even if the Chairman is invited (for surely that is he pictured above?)
I could see it being rented out as a money maker, but as I mentioned, there are some things that might keep it from being too popular, like the lack of Washrooms, and sheer amount of organization that has to go into it. It certainly is *cool* though.
The city rents out other municipally owned spaces, so it wouldn’t be unprecedented.