Toronto Digital Queeries - August 1, 2004
With rents Toronto going through the roof, it's time to start a new gay neighborhood. But where should it be?
When out gay men and lesbians moved into rundown urban neighborhoods in the late 90s and early 2000, they rented apartments no one else wanted, started businesses on blocks where no one else thought businesses could thrive, and had sex under bushes that no one else wanted to have sex under. Neighbourhoods in Toronto's Queer West slowly gentrified, with hordes of gays and lesbians making these once dicey neighborhoods safe for art galleries, florists, card shops, bars, cafes and restaurents.
The closest most gays and lesbians ever come to finding a promised land is moving to a Gay Ghetto -- an urban neighbourhood that is populated by, and reasonably tolerates, a large number of queers. For years, Toronto's gay village was kept lively and relevant by a constant stream of young queer migrants arriving from uptown Toronto, rural Ontario, and new Canadians. And for years, young queers moving there could rely on three things: cheap apartments, low-paying retail jobs, and lots of other young queers with cheap apartments and low-paying retail jobs with whom they could swap spit and various sexually transmitted diseases.
But all that's changing. In downtown Toronto's gay village where dirt-cheap apartments and too-trendy restaurants once peacefully coexisted, rising property values are pushing rents through the roof. The social contract that kept young queer migrants pouring into the village has been ruptured; while the average Toronto apartment rented for $449 in 1990, it goes for $900 now. Toronto's gay ghetto is slowly turning into gay retirement community, where the only queers who can afford to live in downtown Toronto are the ones who bought apartments and houses 20 years ago when they were still relatively cheap. Young, straight singles have moved on, followed by straight retirees, marrieds, and young families. Young professional queers are now forced to look elsewhere for housing. The downtown core is on the decline, sapped of its energy and sex appeal for queer youngsters.
Unfortunately, the roots that queers lay, tend to be thin and easily ripped up by the relentless tides of change. And thus the great queer migration begins. Queers set out, like herds of faaabulous reindeer, in search of the next gay village. It happened in New York, it happened in Chicago, its happening in Toronto. Young gays and lesbians priced out of established gay ghetto and are colonizing a new neighborhood, seeking out cheap rents and opening trendy restaurants and art galleries.
Toronto's old-guard queers tire of battling wannabes and colossal monthly rents, are abandoning the once sacred cow by the fistful. So what makes a new gay village? An abundance of factors, including accessibility, shopping, nightlife, reasonable rent, and at least one public park with foliage ample enough to conceal midnight indiscretion all determine a neighbourhood's potential as a gay ghetto. (A jerk-off club or two doesn't hurt, either.) Surprisingly, Toronto West fits almost all of these criteria. It does boast a couple of beautiful beaches, a trendy business area, and an abundance of cafes and restaurants. And there is one very large cruisy park in the western edges of the village and more than enough wooded areas to provide bush sex opportunities for the adventurous queer with some bug spray and a few survival skills.
Many gays and lesbians have already begun to call the new Queer West Village home. First it is important to identify the number of public schools, daycare facilities, nursing homes, community centers, churches, and similar establishments that are not only of positively no use to queer people, but may even represent a tangible threat to attaining the critical mass necessary to create a truly gay ghetto.
The number of churches in Toronto West is in itself staggering But an almost equal number of tanning salons and florists heroically stand guard, proud sentinels against the presence of the Lord. Public schools also abound, indicating not only the existence of a large population of breeder types, but illegal firearms and random violence. To most peace-loving queers, weapons-toting ankle-biters are enough of a deterrent to keep them at bay -- until one realizes that the presence of public education facilities also guarantees an unending supply of affordable and easily obtainable party drugs.
But is there actually someplace to party? One of the most fundamental elements of any true gay ghetto is the presence of at least one primarily gay watering hole and/or dance spot. Toronto's Queer West Village has at least 30 not all located on College Street, but scattered throughout the neighbourhoods, and none with a gay bar label.
Although none are exclusively gay (yet), the queer village in Toronto West is home to a few funky and potentially queer bars and lounges that are ripe for invasion: The marsbar in the Gladstone Hotel or Mitzi's Sister on Queen Street West. Toronto West is hopping and chic business district, provides many establishments indispensable to gay life: music, book, and retail stores, hairdressers, galleries, naturopathic physicians and acupuncturists for the immune-impaired, and cafes. Throw in Chinatown's cheap haircuts for $4 bucks, a coffee shop or two, and a few artsy types, and Gay Toronto's new Queer West Village has the urban-decay chic that gays love so much.
Of course, the feelings of Toronto West's current residents cannot be overlooked in the matter. While, in general, real estate agents and the owners of retail outlets tend to salivate at the thought of a queer invasion, long-standing
West Toronto establishments might have a different take on a new queer village springing up around, so far the haven't complained.
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