[URBAN NOTE] "About time city embraced demand for Toronto memorabilia"

[rfmcdonald]

Edward Keenan writes in the Toronto Star about how the City of Toronto is missing an obvious opportunity to offer for sale Toronto-themed merchandise.

There was a lot of talk about “swag” at the government management committee meeting at city hall Tuesday. The politicians tossing the term around were using it as a synonym for “branded merchandise.” Since swag in that sense generally means “freebies” (or the giveaway “Stuff We All Get” at events or conventions, as Michael Scott of the television show The Office famously said) and they were talking about selling stuff by establishing a gift and memorabilia shop at city hall, they were using it incorrectly.

Yet in another sense, it was the right word for the topic: the newest (already passé, you might say) common usage of swag is as a short form for “swagger,” and the newest addition to Toronto’s evolving reputation is that it has some. Part of the city’s newfound cool can be credited to Drake and the globe-dominating R&B and hip-hop scene he waves the 6 flag for. Part of it is probably the result of the bomb-blasting, bat-flipping Blue Jays of the past couple of seasons, and the underdog “We The North” Raptors playoff drive last year. Part of it is just the result of more than a decade of massive growth and evolution in the city, especially downtown, a pace of cosmopolitan change that inspires excitement. A more earnest local pride has been bubbling up in corners for a generation.

Whatever its component parts, this wave of pride has created a virtual industry in gear: T-shirts that say “Turonno” or “Toronto Versus Everybody”; iPhone cases with images of the streetcar engraved on them and cufflinks made of subway tokens; caps that say “The New Toronto” or “H6ME”; and, of course, those lapel buttons that show the tile patterns and names of subway stations. The list could go on — there have even been bidding wars on the city’s website for old street signs that have been taken down — but the point is there’s a market for Torontophenalia: Matt Blackett, creative director of Spacing, the magazine publisher and retail store that created those subway buttons, told the city committee meeting that his company has sold more than 750,000 of them since introducing them 12 years ago. (I should mention Blackett is a friend of mine and I have written for Spacing magazine in the past.)

Blackett said that if the city proceeds with a plan and seeks an operator for the store, his company would be interested in bidding, and the Spacing store on Richmond St. is a good example of what a civic gift shop can be: instead of just mass-produced CN Tower snow globes, it has toques bearing the names of neighbourhoods, books of local history, toys in the shape of streetcars, vintage TTC posters and die-cut coasters made of city street-grid maps. That the city’s government isn’t cashing in on this market may seem strange.