[URBAN NOTE] "The street with soul"

[rfmcdonald]

In The Sunday Star, journalist Brent Ledger writes about Yonge Street, the street that might lie at Toronto's heart, and how he fears that continued development might literally efface its past.

Before Church St. "arrived" in the late 1980s, Yonge St. was the centre of gay Toronto and home to bars like the Quest, the St. Charles and the Parkside.

Those landmarks will live again, however briefly, during the "Yonge St. is Flaming" tour next weekend, one of 50-odd looks at Toronto's history scheduled to take place during an annual ode to urbanist Jane Jacobs. (See janeswalk.net for details).

But what about the future?

With massive condo towers announced for both Yonge and Bloor and Yonge and Gerrard, and Ryerson planning to put a library (a library!) on the pivotal site of Sam The Record Man, I wonder how much longer my favourite street has got.

It's not like I object to towers in general or the siting of these towers in particular. Allowing Ryerson, an institution with an alarming record for ugliness, to expand onto Yonge St. is depressing, but the condos will replace nothing more exciting than a parking lot and some forgettable small buildings, so no great loss there.

What worries me more is the signal these developments send, the message that the street is – oh hideous phrase – "open for business." Meaning available for demolition.

We've already lost University Ave. to oversized institutions, Bloor St. to homogenized high-end shopping, and Bay St. to condos (was there ever a deader strip of street?).

Can Yonge St. be far behind?

[. . .]

Anchored by Morningstar at the north and Monster Records at the south, the 10-unit block at 664-682 Yonge shows what the street does best. Detailed enough to interest the eye (check out those dapper dormers) but not so massive as to overwhelm the street, it's a comforting presence that's open to all comers, respectable or not. This – and not the bureaucratically imposed developments to the south – is the real Yonge St.

If you're interested to see images of Yonge Street, go to the very nice Toronto images website boldts.net, start at the pictures of the Yonge and Queen's Quay area, and head north.