To Riverdale: A Photo Tour

Today's weather was a ruthless reminder of the trappings of urban living. Downtown was engulfed in a sceptic mix of hot exhaust fumes, white noise, and the body odour of the living multitudes. I picked my way through Chinatown in the mid-day sun, dodging the chive ladies and street hawkers, trying in vain not to get irritated by the seemingly more-gruesome-by-the-day Falun Gong displays. Garbage cooked in the garbage bins along the street, giving off that familiar sickly sweetness; I was convinced my own legs were slowly cooking too in my jeans.

I ended up in Riverdale Park East, the piece of land east of the Don Valley that was once Toronto's own mini-penal colony. Now as the whole wide universe knows (or Torontonians tend to think), it is a piece of prime park land bordering one of Toronto's most prettified upper-middle class bastions, whose ethos is but a faint echo of its working class past. Didn't Paul Martin buy into neighbourhood in the early 2000's? Or so I thought I had read from Toronto Life a couple of years ago. In any case, the popularity of North Riverdale (north of Gerrard) was such that poor cousin South Riverdale (Toronto's other Chinatown) was able to cash in on the good press. I'm sure more than a few eyebrows were raised this side of Gerrard.

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Riverdale (and the whole East End in general) to me has always had this sort of tangibility to it . I remember way back one year in September when my mother and I went to the Taste of Danforth. A few minor mishaps and a couple of wrong turns later we found ourselves there at the very end of the festivities (and food), stared at the few remaining bereft-looking corn cobs, and decided to just walk around. The walk took us to Broadview Ave. just when the lights were coming on--white, cold, furtive lights beckoning from the million windows of downtown skyscrapers acorss the valley, and on our side, fuzzy yellow beams streaming out of solid, squat-looking Victorians and Edwardians, more grimey-looking than I (a suburbanite then) was used to.

When Toronto takes a momentary respite from its mad dash towards being the ideal place of post-industrial cool, and re-appraises its working-class roots and mythology, this is the place it will turn to. In West Queen West and Little Italy there are hipsters galore and the latest drama in the rise and fall of indie bands, but in Riverdale there are weathered but solid two-storey houses, streetcars clunking by, and tall maple trees instead; nothing but decent lives, quiet industry and Anglo-Saxon rectitude, which, willy-nilly, pervades our history.

Stop, breathe, take stock--we can't and shouldn't walk away from history--and that's why I'm here.

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Not suprisingly, few were out in this hot and muggy day. Riverdale Park East to many downtownites is a forgotten place, and happily so. On my admittedly few trips there I'd never seen more than 10 people on the gigantic grassy slope, though many families did walk by on their way to the pool, a sudden flurry of sandals on concrete, garish swimwear, bronze flesh, white teeth, and childish giggles lingering in the distance.

Tanning on a muggy day like this definitely sounded better on paper. I fidgeted uncomfortably as the farawy cityscape simmered in the toxic brew.


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At five o'clock I packed up my stuff and headed down Broadview, intent on crossing the DVP on Gerrard. Chinatown East at Broadview and Gerrard had the same autumnal air that every dying neighbourhood seems to be infected with; not particularly interested in witnessing squalor and decay, I quickly turned on Gerrard towards the west, across that sad parody of a highway, the Don Valley Parking lot.

At Gerrard and Broadview was the Riverdale Public Library, whose front steps many able-bodied yet unproductive men had for some inexplicable reason taken a liking to. A few Chinese men in their 40s squatted on the garden terrace and gawked at me as I walked by.

Also at that intersection was the Don Jail. While taking this picture an elderly east end-type (read: forlorn-looking) named Floyd approached me. We were very happy to share with each other our views on Walkerton, world religions, and the relative merit of Toronto-area senior homes.

And I did walk past the infamous Regent Park. Beer bottles littered across the lawn was a in-your-face reminder of poverty and the abject failure of 1950s social engineering. The vast expanses of trees did look enticing enough, and vaguely recalled sylvan Stuyvesant Town. But alas, the mis-matched curtains in the windows pulled me back into reality, and reminded me that being poor was not quaint afterall.

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Half an hour of trekking landed me in the heart of hip Cabbagetown. I checked into Jet Fuel, reputedly the best coffee shop in the city. The barista smiled at me until I asked for a drinks menu--"Do we look uncool enough to carry menus?" she seemed to ask. A curt look, and an espresso landed angrily on the counter; we are back in the familiar playground of the young and the hip.

All this Riverdale expedition has managed to do was to deepen my appreciation for my expensive, albeit heavenly, espresso fixes.

THE END