Is Toronto Cool? Or, Looking for Fun in the Lucky Charm Moose Village

I have already determined that Toronto is not New York. Nor is it London, Berlin, or Tokyo. We lack the history of a city like Paris or the charm of Montreal. We have neither the scenic beauty of Vancouver, nor the raison d'etre of Los Angeles. We do however have the largest tower that resembles a circumcised penis. But what is Toronto beyond a town of phallophiles? It is a city that is used so often to stand in for New York, Chicago, and Minneapolis that it suffers a city-wide identity crisis. What is Toronto, and more importantly, is it cool?

 

While Toronto has many tall phallic-shaped structures, it lacks the density of New York. Toronto sprawls out from the lake in all directions. The city limits cover an area ten times the size of Manhattan. As a result most of Toronto is low-rise, and it is a series of neighborhoods stitched into one city. The above neighborhood is Kensington Market. Imagine St. Mark's Place in the East Village without the crusty punks and needle drugs, and this is what you get. Vintage shops, authentic Asian food, "colourful" local characters. Is it unique? Mostly, (aside from being derivative of St. Mark's Place, it's the posterchild for a working class neighborhood undergone a "hip" bourgeois gentrification.) Is it cool? Mostly!

One of my favourite things in Berlin was the street art, every vertical surface was covered in some kind of visual expression. Of course, Toronto the Good frowns upon graffiti, but Kensington Market is home to interesting murals and illicit tags. Above, Mona Lisa stands watch over a thrift store alley.

The above "Cirque du Poulet" is a favorite street mural of mine. It takes a novelty t-shirt level pun and elevates it to a rather clever piece of street art. It also makes me wish there was a real Chicken Circus, one where trained chickens could perform to adoring crowds. If this whole legitimate profession thing goes belly-up, expect to see me hustling a traveling circus of performing chickens in the not to distant future. Overall I would deem Kensington Market to be cool, and relatively telling of what Toronto is.

Like other major metropolitan areas, Toronto is home to a large Chinese diaspora who inhabit a part of town we have cleverly named "Chinatown".  Yes. other North American cities have Chinatowns, (Most notably New York, San Francisco, and Vancouver) but Toronto's is large, vibrant, and sells a bunch of food I don't know the name of. What would distinguish Toronto's Chinatown from others is that it is relatively free of tourist trappings. Of course at night the restaurants are filled with Asians and White families alike eating dim sum, but unlike NYC one won't find bootleg "Guggi" sunglasses or "LW" bags. Toronto's Chinatown is also relatively bright and spacious, on broad Spadina Street, and I would rate it to overall be slightly more pleasant than the community in NYC.Another interesting development is that Toronto's Chinatown is not so Chinese. The Spadina strip is increasingly Vietnamese while the Chinese move to suburban Chinatowns like Markham. Koreans have also taken up Bloor West. I for one welcome the availability of Pho and Bibimbap, but I will miss you dim sum.

Of course. the Chinese immigrants were ecstatic to arrive in Toronto, this land of good fortune, and so when they arrived they named the town "The Lucky Charm Moose Village" or something, because that makes sense in Chinese. Moose are considered a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, and so it was auspicious to arrive in such a moose-dense location. Of course the moose are not so common in Toronto anymore, and likely number in the mere thousands, but still the name remains to this day. (Or Lucky Charm Moose Village is the sweatshop in which moose are made to create all of the Lucky Charms for that greedy leprechaun and the General Mills corporation. I forget which story is the true one.) But yes, Toronto is a Lucky Charm Moose Village, no combination of four words so aptly describes this geographic location. (Except perhaps for "Everywhere Smells Bad, Different" it is true each streetcorner in Toronto possesses a foul odor, but one that is completely unique from each other. Front Street gives off "backed-up sewer and toilet water" while College Avenue may be a lesson in "Homeless person BO and last week's lunch". It's an urban potpourri.)

Toronto is often asked to stand in for other cities in low-budget made-for-TV-movies and independent films. Even the movie Chicago was filmed, where else, but Toronto! Here we see a bit of New York's Harlem come to life on the streets of Toronto. Notice the Bad-era Michael Jackson mural, very authentic. This background will likely be graced by such stars of stage and screen as Vivica A. Fox or Rob Lowe. We truly are Hollywood North. (Except for when people call Vancouver that, then they are Hollywood North.)

Toronto has quirky things! Like this, the True Love Cafe, which you think might be a diner or something, but it's purple inside and serves Spaghetti and French Toast (not on the same plate, however.) Toronto is big and bohemian enough to have those weird sorts of places that don't really make sense but are cute anyways, like the True Love. It's also a convenient meeting place for hookers and their johns in the heart of the Prostitution District. Nothing says "I value this sexual exchange as a commercial transaction, wholly mercenary rather than romantic in nature," than splitting a French toast breakfast with your working girl at the True Love Cafe. Love, it's real!

In some parts of Toronto, the street life is a little dodgy. Above is a working girl decked out in professional attire, awaiting an independent contract.

In another part of T.O., a transsexual rock band is held captive in a storefront window to play for others viewing pleasure. In fact, the above scene is giving me vapors of a non-existant Beyond the Valley of the Dolls sequel, in which Misty, Dolly, Foxy and the gang must escape the evil clutches of Dr. Sturgis Strange who will use rock music to wicked ends, all the while having a sexy and gender-bending trip on California's better hallucinogenics. That is what that is saying to me.

One of the coolest things of all in Toronto is its urban beach - Sugar Beach! Unfortunately, the beach is not made of sugar (I tasted it) which is for the best as that would just attract ants. Despite the misleading name, Sugar Beach is a breath of fresh lakeside air in Toronto, a city that is on a lake, but you wouldn't know it to see it.

Sugar Beach is just moments from downtown Toronto, although currently those moments include walking alongside an abandoned railway track past some construction sites. I think they will improve access in the future. Sugar Beach takes its name from the neighboring sugar factory, which should make the area smell like warm candy. But it doesn't, instead Sugar Beach smells like seaweed and smoldering garbage, apparently sugar does not smell good on its way to refinement. Still, it's a cool and unique thing in Toronto! I had always heard about Paris' urban beaches on the Seine with some jealousy - if the beach is fun, and the city is fun, combined they must be the most fun! While Toronto is not Paris, its excursion into the world of urban beaches is a good thing. Except for the sand fleas, those were gross. Best of all, a liquor store is across the street! Sugar Beach was made for maximum fun.

And did I find hipness and fun? Why look:

 

There I am posing in front of some very authentic looking street art, and I look quite hip and cool, and appear to be having some fun! That is Lee's Palace, a concert venue which I haven't been to, but I appreciated the mural. It was giving me the right kind of Berlin flashbacks, now if only I could get a decent doner in this city I would be OK. Bloor West is quite fun, and I intend to explore the area more fully when I have the chance. All in all, Toronto impressed me once again, and proved that if you're willing to lower your standards, you can be pleasantly surprised.