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I work at Queen and Spadina. On my way to work that morning, I saw the smoke spurting up from the skyline, but my first hint of the proximity was when I could smell smoke all the way back to Queen Station. The ventilation system had clearly sucked up the smoke and was distributing it through the tunnels.
I usually walk from University to Spadina, so I see that stretch twice a day, five days a week. Since I don't work as far as Bathurst, I rarely see that stretch unless I'm going to the Cameron or Java or something.
Charlatan's right. The stretch is rundown but in a good way. In the four years I have walked the University to Spadina stretch of Queen, I've noticed a slow progression of developers tearing down the old wonderful buildings and erecting glass monstrosities (it's as though we're moving from postmodernism back to modernism in this respect). What tends to close down are things like old bookstores, underused legion halls, and indie clothing stores, the latter of which having succumbed to the likes of what goes in their place: "trendy" chain stores such as H&M, FCUK, and what have you. I'm not against these stores per se, but how many does this city need?
The fading beauty of Queen West is its uniqueness, its indie quality. When these high-profile stores move in, they tend to choke out these little places--and then it gets worse: they attract competition (both direct and indirect), and then the whole area changes. It starts to look like other areas. (So many other areas. Do we need another Bloor-Yorkville?) The ones some of us avoid not out of discontent, but out of sheer disinterest.
That's right. I'm not disappointed in the stores or "cafes" (I use the quotation marks knowingly) or their message or image; I'm simply disinterested. This is a move toward monoculture--public experiences fabricated by large companies who pass the costs of imagemaking onto the consumer. I have no interest in these things.
When I speak of gentrification, I speak of many things. I'm concerned about neighbourhoods as a whole. (i.e. the cost of living in Queen West is undoubtedly rising. What does this do to its residents?) But the ultimate question, I suppose, is this: Where is the next "Queen West"? I'd like to think it is what has come to be known as "Queen West West," but, as we know, that stretch is eroding one block at a time.
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
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