[URBAN NOTE] "Amigos on Dupont"

[rfmcdonald]

I've blogged a fair bit about the Galleria Shopping Centre, a neighbourhood institution on the southwestern corner of Dufferin and Dupont that has seen better days. Between the currently-grim aesthetics and the recent closure of its Zellers anchor store--I blogged about this back in June, and shared photographs of the scene this morning--it's easy to fear for the mall's future.

Joel McConvey's brief article in Toronto weekly The Grid provides an interesting corrective to the consensus view of the Galleria. In it, he covers the 40th anniversary celebrations of the mall, highlighting the extent to which the Galleria was quite innovative in its time and is even now a hub for the neighbourhood's Italian-Canadian and Portuguese-Canadian populations. The critical question as yet unanswered is whether or not, as the neighbourhood's demographics change, the mall can change with it.

“Looking for squid, octopus, prosciutto, pig’s ears, or fresh sardines?” read the piece from the August 18, 1972 Toronto Star. “You’ll find them all at North America’s first ethnic food plaza in Toronto’s west end.”

It turns out that the Galleria, infamous for its time-capsule quality (and, increasingly, as the heir to nearby Dufferin Mall’s “ghetto mall” designation), was once a trailblazer in bringing ethnic diversity to the city. More recently, the building, one of the oldest enclosed shopping centres in the GTA, has developed a reputation as a lost cause. During last Saturday’s 40th anniversary celebrations, a series of musical performances took place in front of plastered-over windows of what was, just a few weeks ago, a Zellers.

But the bash at least proved that the mall’s original function—providing a gathering place for the neighbourhood’s large Portuguese and Italian population—remains intact.

“I’ve come here for 28 years,” said Miguel Da Silva, bongo player for the band Amigos da Dundas, while warming up to perform Spanish and Brazilian tunes at the festivities. “I’d like to see it stay how it is.”

With Price Chopper currently transforming into FreshCo, a newly opened outlet of the Ontario Conservatory of Music, and ongoing discussions about what will occupy the former Zellers location, Da Silva’s likely to be disappointed. But a Dufferin-style remake isn’t in the works either, as Galleria management is trying its best to stay true to the mall’s beginnings.

“It’s a community hub,” said Cristina Jackson, the mall’s property administrator, who started working there in 1979 and hopes to see it updated without compromising its familiarity to customers. “A lot of people who were in one way or another associated with the Galleria, they come back. I know people who used to come here with their grandparents who are now bringing their own children.”