Leaving the Village
A new generation is finding places to live and play outside Toronto's Gay Village
MURRAY WHYTE
Toronto Star, Sunday September 5, 2004
Dennis O'Connor, whose gallery, O'Connor, is just steps off Toronto's main gay drag along Church St., can barely contain his laughter. In fact, he doesn't even try. O'Connor, who has long traded exclusively in gay and lesbian art here, has been asked to consider the blossoming of a rival gay village in the city's west end. When he regains his composure, he does.
"Well, it's always hard to be at the top - there's always someone trying to knock you off," says the volunteer chair of the Church-Wellesley Village Business Improvement Area, smiling broadly.
"I mean, I think it's great. I think there should be more gay neighbourhoods. More power to them. But you have to be able to back it up. And Church St.? Well, we can back it up. It's pretty obvious, isn't it?"
Indeed. Along Church St., rainbow flags, draped from almost every building, flutter in a warm, late-summer breeze. At Woody's, a local institution, buff, young, hairless men - mostly, if not entirely undressed - engage each other in various forms of affection on TVs suspended above the bar. At Zelda's, a endearingly shabby restaurant/bar with staccato house music throbbing inside, an inflatable sign featuring two sculpted men counsels passers-by to "Get Hard" with cruiseline.ca, a gay dating service. Half a block up, at Church and Wellesley, the epicentre of Toronto's Gay Village, a dark-haired, blue-eyed man gazes warmly down from a billboard for Botox. "The more you know, the better it is," it reads.
For decades, the Church and Wellesley area has given Toronto's homosexuals, especially gay men, a refuge, safety and community in a society that, at the very best, merely tolerated their presence. But shifting societal perspectives have moved gay culture from the fringes into prime time - witness the success of such shows as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Queer as Folk and Will & Grace.
And, for a new generation of gays, the traditional refuge is not only no longer necessary, it's outdated. Bryen Dunn has lived in Parkdale for 12 years, and he chose the neighbourhood for a reason. "It's not ghettoized," says Dunn, sipping coffee at the Easy Restaurant, a bright diner on Queen St. W. near Roncesvalles. "That's the big thing - it's not exclusively gay. Church St. can feel so limited."
Dunn works with Gay West, Parkdale-centred group with a mission to help build a sense of community among west-end gays. Where Church and Wellesley is devoutly, expressly - and, generally, solely - gay, Dunn sees the west-end scene as more inclusive.
"When we first started talking about this, there were people at Church and Wellesley saying `Why should we go out there and give our gay dollars to a straight establishment?'" he says. "Well, why not? They're being open and accepting; why can't you do the same?"
Dunn's attitude is indicative of a new generation of young Toronto gays and lesbians, for whom the old bunker mentality has fallen. "People view Church and Wellesley as the epicentre, and in a lot of respects it is," says Jon Pressick, publisher of the quarterly magazine Queer: Trade Things. "But a generation of young queer people have taken to almost boycotting Church and Wellesley. There's a stigma, and it's an odd thing; the (Church and Wellesley) Village has been so steady, but there are a lot of people that resent the idea that it has to be in only one spot, that you can only exist at Church and Wellesley."
Pressick sees the traditional Village as established now, and for a different crowd. "It's very male, it's predominantly older and it's predominantly moneyed people. They've lived the life, fought the battles, and now they're established and comfortable," he says. "Everyone worked together to fight the common fight, and what was lost in that, maybe, was that there's a lot of diversity in the community. And one idea of a gay neighbourhood can't work for everyone."
Pressick recently launched his latest issue at B Sweet, a bar on Queen St. west of Dufferin St., with an art auction. The bar hosts a range of events, some gay, some not, but is soon to launch On the QT on Thursday nights, which will join a cluster of semi-regular gay events in the west end: Queer Duck, a monthly night at the Drake Hotel; Big Primpin' at Stones' Place; Vazaleen at Lee's Palace; the weekly Here Kitty Kitty night at Ciao Edie; various events at the Gladstone Hotel; and the summer-long Planet Patio at Cadillac Lounge, a long-time fixture of the city's country-western scene.
"It's good for business, sure," said Sam Grosso, owner of the Cadillac, regarding his new - and growing - clientele. "But we're a bar that caters to a vast range of people. I like seeing different kinds of people gelling together. I don't care what they do in their bedrooms. As long as they have a good time at my place, that's all that matters."
Grosso has owned the Cadillac for five years, and he's had time to take a good look at what Parkdale offers. "You've got to be willing to accept anything if you're going to be in this neighbourhood," he says of the area, a grotty, gentrification-resistant zone with a large, visible poor population. "At Planet Patio, people come up and thank me for providing them with a safe place, and I just say that's just the way it is - that's the environment we have out here."
The fact that the west end is less aggressively, overtly gay is a drawing point for some gay people, says Jeremy Laing, who started Big Primpin' a year and a half ago. "It's really mixed, actually, which is something we were going for," he says of the event, a campy dance party set against the faux-luxe tapestries and couches of the Rolling Stones-themed bar. The traditional Church and Wellesley area "tends to be pretty homogenous," he says. "For people looking for an alternative to an alternative, this is the place."
It's an idea that can only make O'Connor shake his head. "Who ever would have thought that old Church St. fags can now be seen as the Establishment?" he says, laughing. "But it's true. We've been here a long time. People all over the world know that Church-Wellesley is where you go to see the boys. It will always be the start, the beginning, the historical footprint of gay culture in Toronto. And we have a duty here to preserve that, because that's what makes us unique."
Cultural preservation has become an issue in the Village recently. Church St. grew as a hotbed of gay life when the mainstream refused to accept it. Now, growing acceptance is transforming the Village into an established, gentrified and expensive place.
Corporate chains - the O'Grady's restaurant, Starbucks and Timothy's coffee shops - have shouldered in, pushing commercial rents up. "I'm just waiting for a Gap to appear," says Shaun Proulx, editor of Gay Guide Toronto, a popular web site for the city's gay community. "I live in the Village and I'm very loyal to it, but the corporatization of the Village is stripping it of its vibrancy. Gay's one of the coolest things on the planet right now, and these companies are just being smart. But the culture here created the community, and that's being lost."
Still, Proulx finds a sense of comfort here that he hasn't found anywhere else.
He lived in Leslieville for three years, surrounded by gay and lesbian neighbours - the area became a gay annex of its own - but he had to come back. "I missed it. My next-door neighbour was homophobic, and I just thought: `This is my life. Do I really want to come home to that?' I want to live in an area where I feel comfortable, surrounded by like-minded people. And if you leave the Village, as a gay man, you're rolling the dice. You have to think twice about being yourself, and that's not for me."
Granted, the gay west remains a nascent community at best. At the recent Parkdale Pride event, staged a week before the massive Toronto Pride event, which draws almost a million spectators a year, Dunn proudly says they had their best year yet - 130 people.
Still, much progress has been made. Big Primpin', barely a year and a half old, began as an outpost. "When we started at Stones' Place, we were the only thing going," Laing said. "Now there's something every week." Pressick agrees. "Even a year ago, I wouldn't have said this, but gay culture is well-established in the west end now. It used to be a novelty, but not anymore. It's a community."
Maybe so, O'Connor says. But rival? "I think it's great if young gay people have found a place to feel comfortable out there," he says.
A new generation is finding places to live and play outside Toronto's Gay Village
MURRAY WHYTE
Toronto Star, Sunday September 5, 2004
Dennis O'Connor, whose gallery, O'Connor, is just steps off Toronto's main gay drag along Church St., can barely contain his laughter. In fact, he doesn't even try. O'Connor, who has long traded exclusively in gay and lesbian art here, has been asked to consider the blossoming of a rival gay village in the city's west end. When he regains his composure, he does.
"Well, it's always hard to be at the top - there's always someone trying to knock you off," says the volunteer chair of the Church-Wellesley Village Business Improvement Area, smiling broadly.
"I mean, I think it's great. I think there should be more gay neighbourhoods. More power to them. But you have to be able to back it up. And Church St.? Well, we can back it up. It's pretty obvious, isn't it?"
Indeed. Along Church St., rainbow flags, draped from almost every building, flutter in a warm, late-summer breeze. At Woody's, a local institution, buff, young, hairless men - mostly, if not entirely undressed - engage each other in various forms of affection on TVs suspended above the bar. At Zelda's, a endearingly shabby restaurant/bar with staccato house music throbbing inside, an inflatable sign featuring two sculpted men counsels passers-by to "Get Hard" with cruiseline.ca, a gay dating service. Half a block up, at Church and Wellesley, the epicentre of Toronto's Gay Village, a dark-haired, blue-eyed man gazes warmly down from a billboard for Botox. "The more you know, the better it is," it reads.
For decades, the Church and Wellesley area has given Toronto's homosexuals, especially gay men, a refuge, safety and community in a society that, at the very best, merely tolerated their presence. But shifting societal perspectives have moved gay culture from the fringes into prime time - witness the success of such shows as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Queer as Folk and Will & Grace.
And, for a new generation of gays, the traditional refuge is not only no longer necessary, it's outdated. Bryen Dunn has lived in Parkdale for 12 years, and he chose the neighbourhood for a reason. "It's not ghettoized," says Dunn, sipping coffee at the Easy Restaurant, a bright diner on Queen St. W. near Roncesvalles. "That's the big thing - it's not exclusively gay. Church St. can feel so limited."
Dunn works with Gay West, Parkdale-centred group with a mission to help build a sense of community among west-end gays. Where Church and Wellesley is devoutly, expressly - and, generally, solely - gay, Dunn sees the west-end scene as more inclusive.
"When we first started talking about this, there were people at Church and Wellesley saying `Why should we go out there and give our gay dollars to a straight establishment?'" he says. "Well, why not? They're being open and accepting; why can't you do the same?"
Dunn's attitude is indicative of a new generation of young Toronto gays and lesbians, for whom the old bunker mentality has fallen. "People view Church and Wellesley as the epicentre, and in a lot of respects it is," says Jon Pressick, publisher of the quarterly magazine Queer: Trade Things. "But a generation of young queer people have taken to almost boycotting Church and Wellesley. There's a stigma, and it's an odd thing; the (Church and Wellesley) Village has been so steady, but there are a lot of people that resent the idea that it has to be in only one spot, that you can only exist at Church and Wellesley."
Pressick sees the traditional Village as established now, and for a different crowd. "It's very male, it's predominantly older and it's predominantly moneyed people. They've lived the life, fought the battles, and now they're established and comfortable," he says. "Everyone worked together to fight the common fight, and what was lost in that, maybe, was that there's a lot of diversity in the community. And one idea of a gay neighbourhood can't work for everyone."
Pressick recently launched his latest issue at B Sweet, a bar on Queen St. west of Dufferin St., with an art auction. The bar hosts a range of events, some gay, some not, but is soon to launch On the QT on Thursday nights, which will join a cluster of semi-regular gay events in the west end: Queer Duck, a monthly night at the Drake Hotel; Big Primpin' at Stones' Place; Vazaleen at Lee's Palace; the weekly Here Kitty Kitty night at Ciao Edie; various events at the Gladstone Hotel; and the summer-long Planet Patio at Cadillac Lounge, a long-time fixture of the city's country-western scene.
"It's good for business, sure," said Sam Grosso, owner of the Cadillac, regarding his new - and growing - clientele. "But we're a bar that caters to a vast range of people. I like seeing different kinds of people gelling together. I don't care what they do in their bedrooms. As long as they have a good time at my place, that's all that matters."
Grosso has owned the Cadillac for five years, and he's had time to take a good look at what Parkdale offers. "You've got to be willing to accept anything if you're going to be in this neighbourhood," he says of the area, a grotty, gentrification-resistant zone with a large, visible poor population. "At Planet Patio, people come up and thank me for providing them with a safe place, and I just say that's just the way it is - that's the environment we have out here."
The fact that the west end is less aggressively, overtly gay is a drawing point for some gay people, says Jeremy Laing, who started Big Primpin' a year and a half ago. "It's really mixed, actually, which is something we were going for," he says of the event, a campy dance party set against the faux-luxe tapestries and couches of the Rolling Stones-themed bar. The traditional Church and Wellesley area "tends to be pretty homogenous," he says. "For people looking for an alternative to an alternative, this is the place."
It's an idea that can only make O'Connor shake his head. "Who ever would have thought that old Church St. fags can now be seen as the Establishment?" he says, laughing. "But it's true. We've been here a long time. People all over the world know that Church-Wellesley is where you go to see the boys. It will always be the start, the beginning, the historical footprint of gay culture in Toronto. And we have a duty here to preserve that, because that's what makes us unique."
Cultural preservation has become an issue in the Village recently. Church St. grew as a hotbed of gay life when the mainstream refused to accept it. Now, growing acceptance is transforming the Village into an established, gentrified and expensive place.
Corporate chains - the O'Grady's restaurant, Starbucks and Timothy's coffee shops - have shouldered in, pushing commercial rents up. "I'm just waiting for a Gap to appear," says Shaun Proulx, editor of Gay Guide Toronto, a popular web site for the city's gay community. "I live in the Village and I'm very loyal to it, but the corporatization of the Village is stripping it of its vibrancy. Gay's one of the coolest things on the planet right now, and these companies are just being smart. But the culture here created the community, and that's being lost."
Still, Proulx finds a sense of comfort here that he hasn't found anywhere else.
He lived in Leslieville for three years, surrounded by gay and lesbian neighbours - the area became a gay annex of its own - but he had to come back. "I missed it. My next-door neighbour was homophobic, and I just thought: `This is my life. Do I really want to come home to that?' I want to live in an area where I feel comfortable, surrounded by like-minded people. And if you leave the Village, as a gay man, you're rolling the dice. You have to think twice about being yourself, and that's not for me."
Granted, the gay west remains a nascent community at best. At the recent Parkdale Pride event, staged a week before the massive Toronto Pride event, which draws almost a million spectators a year, Dunn proudly says they had their best year yet - 130 people.
Still, much progress has been made. Big Primpin', barely a year and a half old, began as an outpost. "When we started at Stones' Place, we were the only thing going," Laing said. "Now there's something every week." Pressick agrees. "Even a year ago, I wouldn't have said this, but gay culture is well-established in the west end now. It used to be a novelty, but not anymore. It's a community."
Maybe so, O'Connor says. But rival? "I think it's great if young gay people have found a place to feel comfortable out there," he says.
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