Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
Three months or so after the Toronto Star predicted that it might save the “blighted” intersection of Bathurst and Queen, Starbucks is finally open on the northeast corner, the former site of a doughnut store/hangout for what outsiders regarded as degenerates, dope fiends, and all-round ne’er-do-wells.
Beauty, as always, is in the eye of the beholder. But after a couple of weeks customers seem thin on the ground, and the corner—which fond locals still regard as the true centre of Queen West—shows no sign of gentrification. The Star story called the intersection “a windswept tangle of streetcar wires and tracks, home to a Pizza Pizza, the Big Bop music venue—a hulking presence in peeling blue paint—and The Meeting Place, a drop-in centre for the homeless that attracts as many as 200 clients a day.” None of whom seem to be patronizing the new Starbucks. Queen and Bathurst is just as windswept as it always was; the streetcar wires and tracks are just as tangled. A new fence has gone up outside the Meeting Place, but people still hang out on the steps, socialize, and split a bottle if anybody has one. Panhandling is an official TMP no-no, so any that goes on is quite discreet.
“Last year,” the story continued, “after a visitor from St. Catharines was stabbed to death near Bathurst and Queen...” In fact, the killing took place several blocks away outside Trinity Bellwoods Park near the intersection of Queen and Niagara streets, which just happens to play host to another Starbucks (the chain being very fond of corners). This could prompt the chicken/egg question: Which came first, Starbucks or the blight?
The new coffee house at Bathurst looks grey and forbidding on the outside and, from casual observation over the course of a day, doesn’t seem to be attracting a huge number of people, unlike the Tim Hortons a couple hundred metres north on the corner of Bathurst and Dundas streets, which usually has a lineup at the counter.
Back in 2001 a proposal to put a Timmy's at Queen and Tecumseth, about the mid-point between the two current Starbucks, was shot down by neighbourhood protesters, led by businesspeople who were already seeing the upmarket potential of the block and didn't want the double-double crowd cheapening the deal. As the march of progress heads relentlessly into the setting sun (any time now, Mimico realtors will be listing houses in “Queen West West West”), it may be time for a rethink and a freshly baked maple-glaze. Seattle-trained baristas need not apply.
Photo by Bill Taylor/Torontoist
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queen and bathurst is one of the uglier corners in this city. 15 starbucks wouldn't improve it.
but honestly, one is a start.
and perhaps some millionaire will buy the Big Bop and turn it into a loft/condo development :)
The 2001 protest was about a potential Tim Horton's, where Future Bakery had closed -- I think the loss of Future played a big role in the emotion around this at the time. Can't recall if the hated Timmies incursion was a strong rumour or an actual impending lease.
No sign of gentrification after a couple of weeks?
We need a Royal Commission to look into this alarming state of affairs!
I think I got tired of reading articles about Starbucks opening new locations and the implications such opening may/may not have on the corner/neigbourhood/country/cosmos.
nothing original here.
i know i know, that's the point. starbucks is a chain.
I've been in that Starbucks many times, it's right around the corner from me, and I wouldn't say customers are scarce. Besides, this is obviously an investment on Starbuck's part. The area is changing, it's inevitable, and they're getting in early.
Not only is there a big condo/Home Depot going up at Portland, a block east, but the site of last winter's fire will be developed and a building just doors from the intersection on Queen has been quietly leveled for development. Rumours around the area are that Tim Hortons has snapped up a lease on the across the intersection from Starbucks, in the old Queens Head, and will open next year.
I've lived at Queen and Bathurst for three years now and, although there are people hanging out and drinking in front of Meeting Place most evenings, I've never seen any violence, or heard of violent crime in the area. There's a lot less begging here than there is further east where I used to live (and where someone was stabbed to death in my doorway.)
It has only been there a couple of weeks but all in all I would say that Starbuck's presence at Queen and Bathurst has made bugger all difference to anything.
I came here to say the same thing as Svend. Thank you, Svend!
Great. Now instead of getting hit up for a dollar for coffee near Bathurst and Queen, I am gonna need to shell out 3 bux.
I think they call that "trickle up" gentrifriction.
just mean the crackheads'll have a cleaner loo to fix in now than they did at the Mr. Sub!
#7- That gets my vote for comment of the week. LOL.
vis-à-vis Svend and antiboy, this article is naïve on the matter of gentrification, and the writer is doing poorly as expressing his contempt for the change to this long-abandoned property.
Gentrification, in case you're not sure, is not a light switch you just flip on.
As gentrification on Queen West was sparked quite a long time ago, it was only a matter of time before changes at Bathurst would advance. And as proprietor surveillance (as Jane Jacobs and Nicholas Blomley put it, this is basically the "eyes upon the street" by people who will there and look out their window now and again) increases with the gentry moving into the immediate area, it's going to change the social dimension of the intersection. Sure wardnikoff, you might get hit up soon for shelling out three loonies, but on the upside, fewer people will be approaching you for ched after the social fabric changes.
Chances are, at least for the near-term, so-called provincial Safe Streets Act-type activity now ascribed to Queen/Bathurst will probably migrate, possibly westward to the far side of Trinity-Bellwoods -- say, near Shaw or Ossington. Of course, this could be totally wrong and migration could go to Dundas/Bathurst. Take a wait-and-see approach, I guess. That's all you can do, really.
And Bill? Give it a couple of years before you write another article on the implied demise of Queen/Bathurst, okay?
Of course, it's entirely possible the coffee shop in question will fold as they might get sick of being the local public bathroom.
That corner defeated Mr Submarine, there's no reason to think it can't beat Starfucks too.
It is interesting to see this article juxtaposed to the one regarding the opening of a Starbucks in Kensington. Surely there are vast differences in the two areas that make it two completely different stories but the one commonality is the potential for the relentless developmental "improvment" that everyone sees happens whan an area goes "Starbucks".
“Outsiders” didn’t “view” the former hangers-on that way. They actually were.
I would prefer an orbital-nuke scenario for Queen and Bathurst, in which all buildings for 10 m in ever direction are torn down and rebuilt. I believe that radius would exempt the community health centre.
I think the over-simplification of the article's been discussed well enough, but here's what I'm wondering.
"... several blocks away outside Trinity Bellwoods Park"
"the Tim Hortons a couple hundred metres north"
What's interesting is that, according to Google Maps, T-B Park is a 0.7 km walk while Bathurst & Dundas is 0.6 km away, by foot. Pretty equal, if you ask me. Good job on the superlatives, even though they ring false.
they should close up the Starbucks and build a second Meeting Place.
It's the Souvlaki place that used to be a Donut shop, the building the Starbucks was in used to be a Mr Sub.
@joeclark: Daaaaang, that's the urban restoration strategy I've suggested for years for the entire region of Houston, Texas — a concrete shockwave in its own right. :P
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I enjoy the new Starbucks at this corner--have yet to go, but SOMETHING needed to open there. I'm sorry but Queen and Bathurst is the one intersection in the whole city that consistently freaks me out. It's just too jarring a change of atmosphere in an otherwise okay area.
joeclark, accozzaglia: What would you do with the survivors? Would you imprison them in a POW camp, or just send in the guys with bayonets?
The creepiest place near the intersection is Michael's Lounge.
I've got a lot of fond memories of the Big Bop though.
Those overhead wires and the wooden pole look like something out of 1908.
@Ben: I would forward them all to your house so you can manage it. </mild_sarcasm> As it pertained to H-Town, I'm speaking to the way its residents express little regard for zoning (still the largest city in the world without zoning by-laws) or planning initiatives and basically build whatever, wherever, as much as they like so long as they've got the money and tax breaks to do it. If Toronto's strain on our region's environment is a sprained ankle, then Houston's in theirs is a shattered leg. "Let's rebuild on land that was washed away by a major hurricane! That'll learn Mother Nature and all them bad hurricanes!" And that people hardly pay it mind there is a bit unnerving. They have Starbucks there, too, of course, should this somehow tie into the original point (note: which it doesn't, nor did yours).
@pman: In 2008, those poles are a distinctively Toronto feature. I really kinda like them. Same goes with the street lamp design.