[LINK] "Living in a clockwork ghost town"

[rfmcdonald]

The latest edition of the Sunday Star of Toronto had a compelling article, Francine Kopun's "Living in a clockwork ghost town", that examined the lives of the few permanent residents of Toronto's Financial District in the region around lower Bay Street.

Office workers push through the glass doors of the financial towers that define Toronto's skyline, spilling out onto the sidewalk. Smokers light up, Blackberries and cell phones are urgently consulted as the crowd surges south towards Union Station. When the clock at old city hall strikes 5 p.m., a new wave crests, forcing pedestrians heading north to step into the street to avoid being stopped in their tracks.

A hundred and four thousand people are going home, to suburban backyards and barbecues, to Riverdale and Rosedale, to the Beach, to neighbourhoods where they know the butcher, the baker, the bookseller.

Shops close up on their heels, deserting Canada's most densely-populated workplace. Theatre-goers and concert-lovers clog King Street before curtain call. More often the traffic lights blink at empty intersections, at elegant, empty towers.

Defined by glass and steel, by Yonge and Simcoe, Queen and Front streets, the area includes the Sheraton Centre, but not the Eaton Centre, a view of Roy Thomson Hall, but not Roy Thomson Hall, a view of Union Station, but not Union Station, the Hockey Hall of Fame, but not Shopsy's.

The 2006 census reported that the number of single family homes was zero. Thousands of people spend much of their lives here, but few call it home – 548 in 2006.

Kopun expores the lives of some of the different people who live there. New condominium developments are expected to bring the district's population up. For the time being after work hours there's little apart from the same sort quiet and looming skyscrapers that Jerry and I noticed more than a year and a half ago(!).