Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Newsstand: November 23, 2009
The Daily Photoist: November 23, 2009
The Making of a Medley
They're coming, theyr'e coming! Upwards of a million of Torontoist's fellow human beings will present themselves within 12 blocks of a single street this weekend (Broadview to Jones)... to have fun.
Taste of the Danforth begins today at 6pm and ends Sunday at midnight. (The Danforth will be closed to traffic as of 11am today.)
For locals this can mean chaos and disruption. Visitors drive here and, finding no place to park, abandon their cars wherever frustration leads them — often blocking driveways and obscuring corners. A band every couple of blocks, each doing their own thing, broadcast a curious mashup of bouzouki-house-and-western. And hundreds of braziers on the sidewalks (No: braziers) donate their particular odeur de quelquechose to the air. And barriers, barriers of all kinds everywhere:
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If you're parking in the neighbourhood, please be careful. Wedging your car into a small spot will not endear you to the residents of the neighbourhood.
I don't mean to sound negative but while I appreciate the quick clean up of the street during the wee hours of the morning, I'm ashamed to see so many people just using the street and our lawns as a giant receptacle for trash.
I'm glad that you are enjoying the 'hood. But please be neat and considerate; this isn't just a festival; we live here and had no say about having this festival take over our lives.
I sympathize with thosing living on the Danforth, having already had my own neighbourhood invaded once this summer by Woofstock and again this weekend by Buskerfest, wherein roughly one quarter of a billion people will gather between me and my liquor store in order to watch some asshole in tights juggle knives.
For the summer of 2007, I propose a new Toronto festival: No Fucking Festivals Weekend, when locals and tourists alike are invited to wander around our serene, peaceful, non-crowded neighbourhoods, free from the hassle and garbage of lame cashgrab events.
I agree. Epilepsy Toronto should totally abandon this free-for-the-public busking event and ask for donations the traditional, uninvasive way: over the phone, and out on every sidewalk with binders.
I’m assuming that was sarcasm. Frankly, roping off supposedly public streets in my neighbourhood and trying to guilt me into donating money just for the privilege of doing my regular weekly grocery shopping does not endear me to a charity, no matter what it is.
These festivals are fun for those who come visit them for a few hours and then head home at the end to their own quiet neighbourhoods. They are not so fun for those who have the misfortune of living in one of those neighbourhoods that are gridlocked from Friday evening through Sunday night, multiple times every year. To expect me to appreciatively donate money for this wonderful convenience makes the situation worse, not better.
Sorry if this sounds callous, but that's how I feel. I donate money to various charities every year, but never to those who try to guilt me into it by barricading my neighbourhood, or who assail me with clipboards in front of my favourite coffee shop every single goddang day while I’m minding my own business.
That means you, Greenpeace and Sick Kids. I’ll add Epilepsy Toronto to my list, too, thanks for the tip.
Congratulations Gary, you win the dumfuckingest blog comment of the year award. I'm sooo sorry you have to occasionally share your neighbourhood with your fellow humans.
As much as it is annoying to have to put up with that stuff (and in my neighbourhood it's not just the taste, it's also road hockey and the various and sundry annual commemations of important Greeks) I thought getting people out of their cars and walking on the streets was supposed to be a good thing? or at least that's the impression I get from all the waxing rhapsodic about PS Kensington, make up your minds kids.
"Assailed" by those rotten clipboard-wielding Sick Kids bastards, eh? Have you ever just politely said "no thanks, sorry"? It's only a minor inconvenience to open your lips and let those words escape - and it always seems to do it for me.
TOTD was probably a manageable street festival at some point in the '90s, but it's gone far beyond the neighbourhood's carrying capacity. How do you actually fit a million people between Broadview and Pape?
For us it just means traffic problems and drunken assholes whooping it up in the park all night. Our neighbours have all left town, and now I know why.
I knew for years before I moved to the east end that while it was fun to go to the Danforth strip, the TOTD weekend wasn't the time to do it.
I'd be interested to know at what point the idea of cancelling it becomes a viable political position. It's all down side for the residents, and for a lot of Danforth businesses, too - the Star mentioned today that the local grocery stores lose up to $50,000 this weekend every year.
It wouldn't happen, probably, but be a fun debate to watch in a cage-match sort of way.
I'll plead guilty to often getting out of town on the Taste weekend, it is after all usually the same weekend as the Perth Garlic Festival. We're just far enough away that we don't get the worst.
In reality I think they have done small things to thin out the crowds a little, not having a name headliner (Vasyl Papaduke?? Whodat?) certainly helps.
Reality is, as soon as the Greektown BIA decides it isn't worth doing or Krinos pulls sponsorship it will fade away.
hee!
you're forgetting the massed bands of the Naval Reserve.
no, I think we're stuck with it forever.
Hope to see everyone tomorrow night at the gladstone hotel for Bawdy House Burlesque: A sex worker extravaganza.