{"id":11299,"date":"2010-05-21T15:21:29","date_gmt":"2010-05-21T19:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=11299"},"modified":"2013-01-21T14:56:33","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T19:56:33","slug":"will-munro-1975-2010-toronto-has-lost-a-great-city-builder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/05\/21\/will-munro-1975-2010-toronto-has-lost-a-great-city-builder\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Munro, 1975-2010: Toronto has lost a great city builder"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Very sad news today. After a long illness that he fought longer and harder than any doctor expected, Toronto has lost Will Munro. Will was a cultural force in this city and helped change the way we think about Toronto’s geography and expanded ideas of where various communities are supposed to live and play.\u00a0 Along the way he created new spaces for untold numbers of people (many of whom may never even knew of him or that he was behind the event or place they were enjoying). He was an artist<\/a>; a volunteer; a community councillor<\/a>; a DJ, an impresario<\/a>; an entrepreneur<\/a>; and a friend to many and <\/em>civic glue to so many more<\/em>. He would occasionally DJ our Spacing events, yet in the middle of it have to run back to the Beaver Cafe on Queen to set up the turntables for a night that was unfolding there. He was constantly doing three things at once and was always hard to reach because he was always \u2014 always! \u2014 in the middle of making something or making something happen. This energy put up the most formidable force against cancer and, at times, it seemed impossible it could ever beat him. Will Munro is a city builder in the widest and best sense and Toronto would be a different city today if not for him. His spirit will live on in it. Below is the “Placemaker” feature Bert Archer wrote about Will that appeared in the Spring-Summer 2009 issue of Spacing. — Shawn Micallef<\/em><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The evolution of the big gay dance party
\n<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Will Munro changed where and how Toronto’s gay community celebrated public life in the city<\/em>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Bert Archer \/\/\/ photo by Carlos Weisz<\/strong><\/p>\n

The world moves in a mysterious way, its cities reform, and though there are any number of ultimately undecipherable forces at work in the way any city evolves, there are almost always people who act as conduits. Sometimes it\u2019s through direct influence, like Gian Naaz opening the Naaz Theatre at Gerrard and Coxwell in 1971, or City Councillor Kyle Rae expelling the financial underperformers from Yonge and Dundas and replacing them with a public square.<\/p>\n

Other times, it\u2019s more circumspect, like the way Jane Jacobs glamourized the Annex through her writing and her presence, or the way Geoff Polci and Alana Duggan, by opening Crema Caf\u00e9 in the Junction, pushed the neighbourhood over the edge it had been teetering on for years, making it the sort of place people would finally admit to living in. Or the way Will Munro queered the city west of Yonge.<\/p>\n

As he\u2019ll be the first to tell you, he wasn\u2019t the first. A quick browse through Rick B\u00e9bout\u2019s online opus, Lives, times, & place (rbebout.com), or a trip through the Xtra, NOW, and Eye Weekly archives with the search term \u201cDenise Benson\u201d will tell you how long people have been leaving the gaybourhood.<\/p>\n

Benson, who moved to Toronto in 1986, didn\u2019t know about George Hislop, Peter Pan, and Charlie Pachter when she started her dyke nights at the Caribou above Sneaky Dee\u2019s, and later at the Claremont where the Starbucks at Queen and Claremont is now, or later still at the Boom Boom Room across the street. And though she did know about various era-bridging forces like Bruce LaBruce, or El Convento Rico on College, the media, including the gay press, didn\u2019t pick up on any trends.<\/p>\n

It was only when Will Munro started Vaseline (later \u201cVazaleen,\u201d after some pointed letters from Procter & Gamble) at the El Mocambo that the whole press machine started to take notice that there was same-sexing happening off Church Street, and that there was this thing called queer which, once you got over the initial strangeness, seemed a little on the sexy side. At least when it involved young people. Within a year of Munro\u2019s starting up his monthly nights, the National Post, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star (in that order) had mentioned it in one way or another. By the time Munro had taken his night to Ottawa for the second time, in 2004, the Citizen ran a 1,200-word story called \u201cEverybody do the Vazaleen.\u201d Meanwhile, back in Toronto, the Star ran a 1,500-word piece in September (i.e., not hooked to Pride coverage) on a new gay generation \u201cfinding places to live and play\u201d off the Church strip.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

You could say it was timing. You could say it was how genuinely open Munro threw his arms \u2014 to men, women, trans, gay, straight, other \u2014 and how wide the media\u2019s arms, and the city\u2019s, too, were open to embrace his polymorphous non-disco DJing and band-booking at Spadina and College. Whatever the case, all of a sudden, you started seeing stories using cultural references like Go West, West Side Story, or clever wordplay turning Queen West into Queer West, to evoke this thing that was happening to the city and, apparently, to the sexuality of its citizens.<\/p>\n

You might, if you had a mind to, distill it down into the space between two verbs. When asked why she started spinning discs to create a little centripetal dyke space, Benson says, \u201cI created the spaces because I needed them.\u201d According to Munro, 34, Vazaleen got started because, \u201cI wanted a place to hear the music I like.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he sits drinking a pot of tea in the queer-friendly caf\u00e9 space at the Gladstone, three doors down from his new venture, The Beaver, which he took a share of in 2006 with longtime friend Lynn McNeill (whose family bought the place, and who was the longtime queer punk presence behind the bar at Lee\u2019s Palace), friends drop by the table to say hi. It\u2019s like talking to Al Waxman in Kensington Market. \u201cI\u2019ve always lived in the west end,\u201d says Munro, who moved to Toronto in the mid-90s from small-town Ontario to go to what was then OCA. \u201cIt\u2019s where I feel most comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

And comfortable is just why this next phase of Munro\u2019s queer sphere of influence is probably here to stay. This little caf\u00e9 that\u2019s become as much a physical hub as Vazaleen was a social and cultural one. Though only just into his 30s, Munro\u2019s already evolved from the frenetic pleasures of the monthly blowout into the sustainability of a place to hang your very cool hat. It\u2019s an evolution helped along by a recent diagnosis \u2014 one he\u2019d rather not dwell on here \u2014 that\u2019s brought him a good deal closer to his own mortality than most guys his age. \u201cThe Beaver\u2019s a place you can go and just hang out,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can get a coffee, or some good food. And it\u2019s a place that queer kids can work.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the website, they\u2019re \u201cthe prettiest kids in town.\u201d He still hosts nights there, and he loves the new-old-revived Queer Street West, but he doesn\u2019t want to claim too much credit. He just did what he did, did what he wanted, and the city followed. Tea cold, conversation finished, he gets up to leave, and though I don\u2019t follow, I figure that when he walks down his street, he smiles at everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Very sad news today. After a long illness that he fought longer and harder than any doctor expected, Toronto has lost Will Munro. Will was a cultural force in this city and helped change the way we think about Toronto’s geography and expanded ideas of where various communities are supposed to live and play.\u00a0 AlongContinue reading “Will Munro, 1975-2010: Toronto has lost a great city builder”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21758,4],"tags":[14512,15079,315,15073,3868,15075,15076,15082,7970,655,15083,15072,15077,15074,1371,696,423,451,15078,15080,313,504,1277,10698,15081,641,15085,636,346,26,13667,316,7612,15086,310,150,159,314,1316,405,339,19,341,160,15084,158],"class_list":["post-11299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-culture","tag-al-waxman","tag-alana-duggan","tag-artist","tag-beaver-cafe","tag-bert-archer","tag-bruce-labruce","tag-carlos-weisz","tag-charlie-pachter","tag-city-builder","tag-city-councillor","tag-community-councillor","tag-crema-cafe","tag-denise-benson","tag-disco-djing","tag-energy","tag-entrepreneur","tag-eye-weekly","tag-food-2","tag-geoff-polci","tag-george-hislop","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-jane-jacobs","tag-kyle-rae","tag-lees-palace","tag-lynn-mcneill","tag-national-post","tag-online-opus","tag-ontario","tag-ottawa","tag-people","tag-procter-gamble","tag-queen","tag-rick-bebout","tag-search-term","tag-shawn-micallef","tag-starbucks","tag-the-beaver","tag-the-globe-and-mail","tag-the-national-post","tag-the-star","tag-the-toronto-star","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-star","tag-vazaleen","tag-west-side-story","tag-will-munro"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWill Munro, 1975-2010: Toronto has lost a great city builder - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/05\/21\/will-munro-1975-2010-toronto-has-lost-a-great-city-builder\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Will Munro, 1975-2010: Toronto has lost a great city builder - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Very sad news today. 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