Before I can discuss how the neighbourhood might change, I need to first describe it to you, especially if you’re not from Toronto.
It’s home
I live in a little residential pocket neighbourhood just two blocks north of Accordion City’s Queen West neighbourhood. The term “Queen West” is usually used to refer to the section of Queen Street West that is bordered by Dovercourt Road on the west and University Avenue on the east. This neighbourhood is comprised of mostly two-or-three storey buildings housing an eclectic variety of businesses and other services: comic book shops, community centres, european delis, new and used clothing stores, an AIDS hospice, furniture stores that carry everything from 50’s retro-modern to Indonesian wood carvings, offices, churches, musical instrument stores, sex toy shops, bookstores, all sorts of bars, several hot dog carts (including Max’s, which is open 24 hours a day, every day except Christmas), social workers’ offices, dance clubs, restaurants from vegetarian to greasy spoon, a grade school, several independent art galleries as well as the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Ontario Academy of Art and Design, a large psychiatric institute, hardware stores, toronto’s best surplus electronics store, walk-in clinics and the combined studios for CityTV, Space, MuchMusic and Bravo. Many of the buildings on the street have stores at street level and apartments above them. Most of the residents of the neighbourhood live in little residential pockets just off either side of the street.
The people are just as varied as the storefronts: little old ladies from either Kowloon or Krakow do their shopping alongside suits from the nearby financial district. Earlier this afternoon (the first relatively warm one in a while, and sunny too!), I passed a cluster of pre-teen kids gathered around one who was playing something new on his Game Boy Advance, some chain-smoking art students hauling their portfolios to class, a gaggle of high school-age girls peering through the glass walls of the MuchMusic studios, officemates in blue suits talking about their upcoming office Christmas party, two guys with mohawks horsing around, and several moms with strollers. Many of them live in the area, but the neighbourhood is so popular that a good number of the people you’ll meet come from outlying areas, the burbs, or often from Toronto’s satellite cities.
The street is lively during most hours of the day. During the morning and evening rush hours, it’s a major throughfare to and from work, especially for those who work in the financial district or hospital zone nearby. Come noon and dinner, its many restaurants make it a popular destination. Shopping keeps the street busy during the day while clubbing and bar-hopping make it lively at night.
| Condition 1 [for city diversity]: The district, and indeed as many of its internal parts as possible, must serve more than one primary function; preferably more than two. These must insure the presence of people who go outdoors on different schedules and are in the place for different purposes, but who are able to use many facilities in common.
— from The Death and Life of Great American Cities, p. 152 |
Once upon a time, Queen Street was the evening place to go for the 18-to-35 who were on the social leading edge. This was twenty years ago — my teenage years — when “alternative rock” and its associated culture were just getting started, and Queen Street West was a nexus for both the music and the culture. Since then, the title of Toronto’s number one must-go-there strip moved a couple of subway stops north and a short streetcar ride west to the slightly College Street West, but Queen West’s history and continued liveliness place it among the top five.
It’s a great neighbourhood, and I call it home.
Queen West, in Pictures
These photos were taken on Monday and Tuesday and cover the small portion of Queen Street West near my house, between Soho and Duncan, a distance that can be walked in less than five minutes.
