Sugary sleepy fishes and other image problems
Posted on May 24th, 2010 –
Doesn’t it seem like the west end is always getting new stuff?
Like just the other day they got new pay shitters. On top of the novelty of $0.25, self-cleaning toilets, residents get the added bonus of getting to watch tourists peepee dance as they hunt for change.
On the east end alls we got now is scrub brush, mounds of dirt, and a bunch of factories.
Kinda ironic considering this section of town predates the west end. And over there they’ve got the Island Airport which Porter Airlines has nicened up considerably (so far, it seems, not abusing their monopoly), the Music Garden, not to mention the Harbourfront Centre and all the artsy shit it barfs up on the shores of Lake Ontario.
On the east end we get the Gardiner, a bunch of container ships, and blisters from climbing on aging industry. Not the whole section of the east, mind you, just the part where I live. Right after the Don Valley, at Riverdale, it starts to pick up again and keeps getting nicer all the way to The Beach. Like there’s an aesthetic-sucking vortex in my area or something.
I mean, it’s true that we have Cherry Beach, but it has yet to shed itself of the image of being a bastion of used syringes and cheap blowjobs.
Cherry Street is admittedly quaint as a summer stroll in an off-the-beaten-path sort of way, but I always feel like I should be wearing construction boots down there.
Thankfully, waterfront revitalization is slowly creeping its way eastward. Finally.
At the foot of Jarvis, next to a new condo will stand Sugar Beach, a man-made strip of sand similar to the one on the west end.
The beach’s name comes from it’s proximity to the RedPath Sugar refinery (right). I’m told, though I’ve yet to experience this myself, that when the ships are unloading raw sugar, you can actually taste it on the air. Pretty sweet location. (C’mon, when will I have an opportunity to use that one again?!)
Next to the beach and the condo they’re putting up a new George Brown College building, and to the east of that, Sherbourne Park.
But just like the Cherry Street locale, this area can’t seem to catch a break. You know that body they found encased in concrete and stuffed in a barrel in the lake yesterday? Yeah, that was here.
Hopefully, once the dust settles and that post-apocalyptic wasteland look recedes, the crime and seediness will move out east to Scarborough where they belong. I just hope it happens within the next five years because it would really look bad on the city for a bunch of Pan Am athletes to be found sleeping with the fishes.
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May 24th, 2010 8:32 pm
Nice pictures. Hopefully all the construction didn't disturb the nature life nearby.
May 25th, 2010 4:17 pm
Totally destroying all vegetation, VanillasSeven. They're putting in new trees and grass when it's all over. So, yeah, disturbed the nature quite a bit.
May 25th, 2010 6:59 am
I was at Cherry Beach recently – took a photo of the same building & thought: "looks like Leuty a little, only a bit unloved" – and I also caught a shot of that beautiful boat as we drove by. Was just telling Jason that we need to get our butts down to see the development of the new park – before & after, hopefully.
That body by the lake thing – in a barrel in concrete – pretty gangster, eh?
May 25th, 2010 4:18 pm
Turns out, Amber Dawn, totally gangster. Ties to organized crime says the radio. Toronto Triad, I'm tellin' ya!