[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] A Stroll in Parkdale
Oct. 4th, 2004 07:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldAfter getting out at my stop on Queen Street West in front of the Drake Hotel at 10 o'clock Friday night, instead of proceeding directly to bed I decided to walk west into Parkdale. Too frequently, of late I've not taken the time to explore that neighbourhood, so I decided to see what it looked like at night.
Two things struck me upon entering Parkdale.
1. Queen Street West and Parkdale are divided by Dufferin Street and a commuter railway track. The two neighbourhoods are separated almost as sharply as the gentrified white-inhabited districts of Richmond are from the African-American ghetto, at least after what I saw on my visit to Richmond back in July 2002.
2. The Portuguese presence visible on Queen Street West, an extension of Little Portugal, quickly fades out. Portuguese seafood restaurants are quickly replaced by Guyanese-style Indian roti places.
As I walked on the north side of the street, I passed a woman. She looked to be in bad shape, wearing a housecoat over a light pair of pants and (I think, I hope) a shirt, with deeply seamed cheeks. She was standing, with a healthier-looking man in dreadlocks, in the doorway of a closed store. As I looked at her she hastily left the doorway to walk west. Since I was heading west anyways, I inadvertantly followed her for a bit then doubled back to that doorway, but the man was gone. Perhaps fortunately.
Parkdale, after 10 o'clock at night, is very busy. As you walked past the clubs, you could hear different music: punk from the Gladstone, Latin from a karaoke bar, rock from a private club, Hindi film music from roti shops.
I doubled back at around 1500 Queen Street West, and walked on the south side of the street. Just before I passed a discount store on 1371 Queen Street West, I saw a poem, painted in black on a white-painted black door. I stopped to copy it down.
Legion
Shall I speak to you
of streetcars
Passing their midnight meridians
under office towers
Burning cold and fierce
Under a sky stretched drum tight
Past
Under age prophets
At the late show cruxifixions
Their cigarette screams
Punctuating the still air
Past
Wounded knights
Saints
Left staggering in their secret languages
And huddling
Against
the frozen clarity of a winter passage
In cardboard fortresses
And stinking blanket armour
Girded against the multitude
That rages inside them
And folded like chains
Around the doorways
Michael Roberts
I wonder what the people passing by thought of me, in my light brown suede jacket, with my black Toshiba bag on my shoulder and my notepad in hand.
UPDATE (10:23 PM) : This piece has been edited, thanks to the apt criticisms of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
redrunner and vcutag (over IM). I wasn't trying to slum in Parkdale or be condescending or make inappropriate judgements, and for that, well, I apologize for my lapses.
Two things struck me upon entering Parkdale.
1. Queen Street West and Parkdale are divided by Dufferin Street and a commuter railway track. The two neighbourhoods are separated almost as sharply as the gentrified white-inhabited districts of Richmond are from the African-American ghetto, at least after what I saw on my visit to Richmond back in July 2002.
2. The Portuguese presence visible on Queen Street West, an extension of Little Portugal, quickly fades out. Portuguese seafood restaurants are quickly replaced by Guyanese-style Indian roti places.
As I walked on the north side of the street, I passed a woman. She looked to be in bad shape, wearing a housecoat over a light pair of pants and (I think, I hope) a shirt, with deeply seamed cheeks. She was standing, with a healthier-looking man in dreadlocks, in the doorway of a closed store. As I looked at her she hastily left the doorway to walk west. Since I was heading west anyways, I inadvertantly followed her for a bit then doubled back to that doorway, but the man was gone. Perhaps fortunately.
Parkdale, after 10 o'clock at night, is very busy. As you walked past the clubs, you could hear different music: punk from the Gladstone, Latin from a karaoke bar, rock from a private club, Hindi film music from roti shops.
I doubled back at around 1500 Queen Street West, and walked on the south side of the street. Just before I passed a discount store on 1371 Queen Street West, I saw a poem, painted in black on a white-painted black door. I stopped to copy it down.
Shall I speak to you
of streetcars
Passing their midnight meridians
under office towers
Burning cold and fierce
Under a sky stretched drum tight
Past
Under age prophets
At the late show cruxifixions
Their cigarette screams
Punctuating the still air
Past
Wounded knights
Saints
Left staggering in their secret languages
And huddling
Against
the frozen clarity of a winter passage
In cardboard fortresses
And stinking blanket armour
Girded against the multitude
That rages inside them
And folded like chains
Around the doorways
Michael Roberts
I wonder what the people passing by thought of me, in my light brown suede jacket, with my black Toshiba bag on my shoulder and my notepad in hand.
UPDATE (10:23 PM) : This piece has been edited, thanks to the apt criticisms of
redrunner and vcutag (over IM). I wasn't trying to slum in Parkdale or be condescending or make inappropriate judgements, and for that, well, I apologize for my lapses.
