[URBAN NOTE] On me and the fate of my neighbourhood, Dovercourt Park or Village

[rfmcdonald]

This photo, one of three I took standing north of the Dovercourt Road rail crossing, between Dupont and Geary, was selected to a illustrated a recent Torontoist article.



The URL reveals Kelli Korducki's article to have been originally titled "Is Dovercourt Village Toronto's Williamsburg?" The published title is the more modest "Is Dovercourt Village Toronto’s Next Big Thing?". My neighbourhood, called either Dovercourt Park or Dovercourt Village, is apparently in the middle of a renaissance stretching as far north as the Geary Avenue I blogged about on Monday.

The street that marks the top of Dovercourt Village, running north of Dupont from Ossington to just beyond Dufferin has been called the ugliest street in Toronto, and it may well be. A drab residue of industry past, it’s the kind of street a 15-year-veteran Toronto taxi driver might not realize existed: lined with old buildings that are the wrong kind of old, back-alley-like in the way that is neither appealingly seedy nor charming but, instead, resolutely meh.



The rail lines and power transformers that buffer the street aren’t exactly picturesque. But things are changing on Geary Avenue, and Dovercourt Village by extension.

Brandon Donnelly, a trained architect and real estate developer who writes the daily Architect This City blog, knows this well. He moved just north of the street to St. Clair West in 2009 when the new streetcar corridor was under construction, and realized that the area’s combination of affordable rents and viable transit were just the right ingredients for a neighbourhood-wide commercial renaissance. Now, he thinks Dovercourt Village is poised to become the next Lower Ossington.

“What’s interesting about it is that even if you look at Ossington, it’s obvious [that businesses want to set up shop there],” he says. Area rents are high—a challenge for fledgling businesses, that’s also a barometer of hipster cred—but so is foot traffic, which means restauranteurs and savvy retailers recognize the strip as a smart place to be. “But, if you look back, it isn’t so obvious.”

Like Geary, lower Ossington is architecturally dreary. But last summer marked the launch of Geary Lane, an experimental performance space set up by experimental production gurus Jason Pollard and Justin Adam of Man Finds Fire. Then there’s S.H.I.B.G.B., the new underground all-ages punk venue beside Geary’s three-year-old trendstarter taco bar, Kitch, and a new restaurant and concert venue, Mercury Social Club, scheduled to open in the spring.

This is all well and good. I'm just left wondering where I will live when residential rates spike. It's not a nice feeling to know I'm going to be pushed out of the neighbourhood I love, maybe even far out.