East vs. West vs. The Village
by Wiley Norvell
fab magazine Toronto. Issue #250 Sept 9-22, 2004
It’s all a one-track mind down [on Church Street]. You go there to get blown,” decrees Stewart Pollock, co-owner of Spin Gallery on Queen West West. Like all good adolescents, the offspring of Toronto’s gay Village have learned the timeless art of backtalk. Residents of Toronto’s newest queer ghettos have a mind of their own. Having lived in his gallery for nearly three years, Pollock thinks West End queers are cast in a different mould. “The gay guys I meet at the Drake [Hotel] or the Gladstone [Hotel]… you’re meeting a different type of gay guy. They’re a little straighter. They’re not quite into the whole Church Street scene. They’re not wearing Body Body [Wear].”
Toronto has enough gay neighbourhoods to allow for some playful rivalry. There’s a lot of variation across the centre, east and west, especially where home ownership is concerned. Whether it’s bathhouse access, backyard barbecues or gallery-hopping, each enclave has features that attract a different queer buyer. “Our housing is our number-one marker to reveal who we are,” explains Steven Fudge, a realtor with the Urbaneer division of Bosley Real Estate with degrees in Urban Studies and Environmental Studies, focusing on identity and housing. If the home indeed reflects the nature of the buyer, what do each of Toronto’s queer real estate hubs say about the gays moving in?
Chances are a gay buyer fits into one of three patterns: In the centre, the Church and Wellesley Village is giving its long-time renters the chance to buy into mid-priced condo towers. In the east, Riverdale offers a residential sanctuary for financially secure, family-driven queer professionals. In the west, the newly minted Queen West Art and Design District offers a transitional, edgy vibe with an increasing number of lofts and amenities for culture-conscious queers.
The gay real estate market wasn’t always this hot. “When I first got into real estate, a very low percentage of people in the gay community were homeowners,” says Brian Elder, a Royal LePage realtor who’s sold houses since 1991. “Now it’s gotten to be quite a large group. Tons of people have converted from being renters.” Gay homeowners have responded to the dearth of affordable rental construction over the past decade. Developers and realtors have found a profitable marriage with an aging and increasingly affluent community of queers plagued by exorbitant rental prices.
Ground zero, of course, remains Church and Wellesley, where homeowners land in the midst of hanky codes and late-night crowds. “What I love is when I get home from work, I park the car and walk into restaurants, go for drinks, whatever,” says Darrel Zehr, a 45-year-old marketing exec and former owner in the West End. Having visited 86 Gloucester St. for a cocktail party, Zehr lucked into a vacant 1200-square-foot, two-bedroom condo suite back in 2002. The 26-year-old interior needed a few upgrades. “The dining room’s French doors with the ’70s mirrored glass - I had to rip [them] out,” recalls Zehr, a touch of horror lingering in his voice.
Most of Church Street’s housing stock comes in condo form - a mix of bachelors, one- and two-bedroom units to match the area’s rental market. It’s ideal for first-time buyers looking to replace their monthly rent cheque with a comparable mortgage payment (for every $600 in monthly rent you can get $100,000 worth of financing for a condo or house). The Village’s other properties - Victorian row houses such as those along Gloucester and Dundonald Streets - run between $500,000 and $1 million. “A lot of older gay couples are moving into Church and Wellesley and buying good, solid houses that younger guys or girls wouldn’t be able to afford,” says Elder. These buyers are typically professional gay couples moving from a profitable first home. But because these houses rarely turn over, condos are the main game in the Village.
New towers are being erected. Recent projects like Radio City and 22 Wellesley are leading the charge. With a sales office next to Timothy’s on Church, Radio City has banked on Village queers to fill its roughly 400 units. Director of Marketing Craig Taylor estimates gays and lesbians account for 80-90% of the building’s sales. Its two condo towers and ground-level townhouses start at $135,000 and will begin occupancy this fall.
Ground-level salespeople for 22 Wellesley have also been aggressive in courting queers, although the Orthodox Jewish brass at developer H&R declined fab’s interview requests. Buying condo real estate at Church and Wellesley doesn’t bring the same lifestyle changes that typically accompany home ownership. “They’re starters,” explains Linda Pressman, a sales rep with Sutton-Bayview who works in the gay ghetto. “People who buy a one[-bedroom] plus den think, ‘I might be here two, three years.’ And that’s generally how long they’re there.”
Steven Fudge adds, “The profile of those buildings is dominated by singles and couples, and rarely geared to families.” They’re suited to single gay men making frequent moves, just like in the rental market.
Describing his buyers in the area, Fudge says, “They were either coming out or had been in gay relationships that had ended and they were all choosing the neighbourhood. I would say there’s a definite correlation to how ‘gay’ you are and how much you want to embrace that [area].”
Long-time residents take issue with this perception, common among their East and West End cousins. “‘I’ve been there, done that.’ I know people that have stopped saying that because they’ve moved back [to Church Street],” says Stewart Layland, a 32-year-old financial adviser with a three-level townhouse at Jarvis and Carlton (having the luxury of space ensures he and his partner don’t have to spend every waking hour in the same room). “I think some people just have a hang-up about being in the Village…but they’re always here.” For Layland, Church Street remains the indisputable hub for both the self-loathing and the self-realized.
“I went there when I came out. That was my hurrah,” says Alan Vernon, managing editor of Toronto.com and 10-year renter of a two-storey townhouse at Church and Wellesley. “I have a gorgeous place. If you think Carrie Bradshaw’s in Sex in the City is great, you should see mine!” After a long tenure, however, Vernon is contemplating buying elsewhere in Toronto to escape vagrants sleeping on his lawn and “defecating in public.” He does see a glimmer of hope in having more homeowners in the neighbourhood: greater property tax revenues.
“[Governments] start listening to taxpayers; they’re not going to listen to renters,” says Vernon. “The higher the density of ownership, the more [owners] are going to want the [neighbourhood] to reflect what they’re paying in property tax.”
Attracting more homeowners to the Village fits into a broader plan to help the area recover from losing the CBC and the Toronto Maple Leafs in the late ’90s. “We’ve lost population in the neighbourhood,” says City Councillor Kyle Rae, who himself owns a condo in the Alexis at Church and Alexander Streets. “There was an enormous number of people coming in to work and therefore going into our restaurants and bars.” Rae hopes the increasing number of residents with financial and personal stakes in the ghetto’s well-being will help boost businesses wrestling with climbing rents and fewer customers. Every new Church Street buyer means one more body in meat market Woody’s and another dinner party supplied by fine meat shop Cumbrae’s.
A move to the Village generally means no kids allowed, so family-oriented queers flee to the pastoral east. Says Fudge, “I find my buyers will say, ‘OK, I like Church and Wellesley, but there are no houses there, so that’s ruled out. Where can I go?’”
“Twenty-five years ago, the big area where gays were moving to was Cabbagetown, but that seems to have out-priced itself,” says Richard Silver, realtor for Bosley Real Estate and condo owner at Church and Granby Streets. “They want to barbecue. They want the garden. So they move to houses that need more work or houses on properties that have more land [in] Riverdale.” Riverdale stretches from the Danforth in the north to Queen Street East in the south, and from Broadview east to Coxwell. Running through the centre along Gerrard Street East is the jumbled stretch of Chinatown East, Little India and all the basic neighbourhood amenities.
“It’s a commercial strip that people can live around,” says Chris Phibbs, acting director of Toronto Artscape and former city council candidate for Riverdale. Along with her partner and then six-year-old son, Phibbs bought a three-storey peaked-roof Victorian at First Avenue and Boulton back in 1998. “It was something of a fixer-upper. We couldn’t afford to live north of Gerrard.”
“A lot of the reason why fags are just buying condos [at Church and Wellesley is] you just buy it, move in, decorate. The dykes do the carpentry, the wiring, the roofing,” proclaims Nancy Irwin (a.k.a. “Naughty Nancy”) of Toronto’s women’s leather community. Irwin bought a semi-detached house in South Riverdale two years ago. “For $180,000 you can have a two-bedroom house with a garden and a roof to repair, windows to repair, wiring to repair, plumbing to repair and a furnace to repair.”
Because of the income gap between gay men and lesbians, well-to-do boys tend to stake out the picturesque north while the girls slug it out in the south. “They’re going to move to [South] Riverdale if they don’t mind an area that’s more up and coming. If they want something that’s already fairly acceptable, then they’re going to move to the area north of Gerrard,” says Silver.
But with each renovation, South Riverdale is taking on the look of the more affluent north. Even in her short time there, Irwin has seen it change: “Doughnut shops were licensed. Fine dining was a burger and fries in this area. So it really wasn’t a trendy neighbourhood by any stretch.” North Riverdale is a different ball-game, where detached houses creep up to the $500,000 mark. Queers abound in both locales.
“There certainly is a huge, growing gay population in parts of Riverdale,” says Linda Pressman, noting that rainbow flags proliferate on Pride Day. Rather than anchoring themselves around gay bars or other commercial spaces, Riverdale’s queer exiles gather around gay-friendly institutions like the Metropolitan Community Church near Gerrard and Broadview. “It’s still progressive, [but] it’s family-oriented,” says Steven Fudge. He offers the crowd at Oxygen Fitness at Danforth and Pape as an example. “There are all these moms that are putting their babies into the daycare and working out, [and] there’s lots of gay guys who live in that neighbourhood.... It’s not a ‘gay’ gym.”
Riverdale is enticing queer couples and families with well-established traditions of trimming rose bushes and walking the kids to school. Its family-oriented character still dominates and most queers move there with the intention of nesting. Beware if you don’t. “I sold a couple of houses for people who moved into that area single, and if they don’t have a partner and if they don’t have a dog, they just feel totally lost,” says Richard Silver. For city queens unprepared for the reality of the Riverdale Wives, he remarks, “They’re not as happy as if they were living in the Village.”
Though it’s not the suburban bliss of Connecticut, property values in Riverdale are still driven by prestigious public schools and a reputation for serenity. For those Village exiles who dream of owning a home but need a little street crime to “keep it real,” there remains but one last alternative.
“At three in the afternoon there will still be hookers out from the night before. My mother stops her car beside them and yells, ‘Go home!’” laughs Mandra, co-editor of Katalogue zine and long-time resident of Queen and Roncesvalles. “It’s part of the flavour of the neighbourhood and I think people like that grit.”
“Gritty” doesn’t quite capture the former dead zone between 1001 Queen Street West, now a site of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and rugged Parkdale. The Queen West Art and Design District, commonly known as Queen West West, is an eclectic mix of galleries and bars with a sprinkling of methadone clinics. Once redlined by banks, the area’s dirt-cheap rents got the neighbourhood rolling.
“[Artists] came out here looking for affordable places to paint, some of them being gay,” says Stewart Pollock of Spin Gallery. “It’s always the artists first, then the galleries second, then everything else plows it over later.” Now lined with more than 25 galleries, Queen West West has retained an alternative queer vibe all around, boasting nights like the Drake’s Queer Duck (for “bent folks of all persuasions”) and the Stones Place’s queer hip-hop night Big Primpin’. “I see men walking hand in hand down Queen Street now, which is totally out of place down here, but it works,” says Pollock.
“The Thursday night of Pride, everything on the whole strip - galleries and bars - were having queer entertainment and queer-themed shows,” recalls Andrew Harwood, owner of Zsa Zsa Gallery. That week, the usually refined Edward Day Gallery on Queen ran an exhibit of fetish-themed documentary shots from strip club Remington’s, alternative night Vazaleen and Pride 2003. “It was pushing the limits [between] porn and documentary photography,” muses gallery assistant Wil Kucey. “It probably wouldn’t have happened when we were up in Yorkville, that’s for sure.”
West Enders are quick to point out their differences from the Church Street crowd. “A lot of the gay people who live out here got sick of going to ‘capital-G’ gay clubs,” says Jacob Niedzwiecki, 20, two-year renter of a one-bedroom at Queen and Dufferin. “They go out to whatever appeals to them, not on the level of just being gay.” Queen West West has no explicitly gay bars; queers are just one prominent element in the coarse mix.
Despite impeccable gallery displays and window signs that read, “Opening Soon!” Queen West West remains an unpolished neighbourhood in transition. A ballet dancer, Niedzwiecki describes it as an area where “everything is just slightly twisted.” Even the street prostitution is a little off. “It’s all older hookers,” laughs Niedzwiecki. He imitates his favourite 2am wake-up call from the prostitutes working the alley behind his house: “‘Hey! I’m tryin’ to take a piss here!’”
There’s been some gentrification as new tenants and owners restore the old Victorian and Edwardian houses along residential side streets north of Queen. It’s still a strong Portuguese neighbourhood, with a Caribbean population thrown into the mix (okra is about the only fresh produce available at the grocery store). Heading south towards King Street West and Liberty Village, old light industrial buildings are being converted into lofts or replaced by cookie-cutter townhouses.
The days of getting in dirt cheap have passed; houses now generally start at $300,000. They offer essentially the same space and charm as Riverdale without the well-known schools or neatly mowed lawns. Loft space fetches over $300 per square foot with small studios on the market for $150,000.
The Argyle Lofts will soon fill the shell of a five-storey bakery from the 1870s. Situated on the sleepy corner of Argyle and Dovercourt, the renovated loft space is relying on Queen West West’s cultural vibe to fill the 86 units. “Lots of artists bought into this building, lots of singles, young professionals - [a] very mixed clientele,” says Helena Sedlak, the building’s marketing manager. “Gay and lesbian is…maybe 20%.”
“There’s a strong creative component to my buyers who are buying in the Queen West West area: writers, film, television, advertising, technology,” says Steven Fudge. “I would say that the profile is creative professional as opposed to financial professional, which would probably be more the case in Riverdale.”
Queer West End buyers find themselves in a community of minorities where no one group predominates. That appeals to those trying to cast off labels. Rather than blending into Church Street’s well-defined social circuit or Riverdale’s domestic quietude, queers buying on Queen West West are altering the chemistry of a neighbourhood still finding its voice. The changes can be subtle. “If you go to the Gladstone [Hotel], you’ll notice the bartenders are the same bartenders that were bartending there before it was hip,” says Mandra. “They’ve started wearing glittery makeup and everything!”
“[Queen West West] would have a lot more appeal to the pioneering spirit, in particular of a gay couple who are creating and starting their new life together. There is a blank slate [on] which you can now begin to create who you are,” says Fudge. “Riverdale, by virtue of its price point, has a certain conformity to it because you need to be in a certain income level to live there.
“Church and Wellesley has a broader income level,” admits Fudge. “[But] there are many gay singles and couples who choose not to live at Church and Wellesley because it’s too conformist by virtue of the gay identity politic of it. Their creed or spirit is reflected more in a rundown Victorian that they can restore and make their own than in the steel and glass tower [of] Radio City.” The decision for queer buyers has always been a life in the Village or exile abroad. Now, choices abound among various properties and queer communities, each with a distinct flavour. As Toronto’s gay ghettos proliferate, even diehard renters are contemplating dropping anchor.
Says Queen West gallery owner Stewart Pollock, “If I could buy lunch, I’d probably buy a building here.”
by Wiley Norvell
fab magazine Toronto. Issue #250 Sept 9-22, 2004
It’s all a one-track mind down [on Church Street]. You go there to get blown,” decrees Stewart Pollock, co-owner of Spin Gallery on Queen West West. Like all good adolescents, the offspring of Toronto’s gay Village have learned the timeless art of backtalk. Residents of Toronto’s newest queer ghettos have a mind of their own. Having lived in his gallery for nearly three years, Pollock thinks West End queers are cast in a different mould. “The gay guys I meet at the Drake [Hotel] or the Gladstone [Hotel]… you’re meeting a different type of gay guy. They’re a little straighter. They’re not quite into the whole Church Street scene. They’re not wearing Body Body [Wear].”
Toronto has enough gay neighbourhoods to allow for some playful rivalry. There’s a lot of variation across the centre, east and west, especially where home ownership is concerned. Whether it’s bathhouse access, backyard barbecues or gallery-hopping, each enclave has features that attract a different queer buyer. “Our housing is our number-one marker to reveal who we are,” explains Steven Fudge, a realtor with the Urbaneer division of Bosley Real Estate with degrees in Urban Studies and Environmental Studies, focusing on identity and housing. If the home indeed reflects the nature of the buyer, what do each of Toronto’s queer real estate hubs say about the gays moving in?
Chances are a gay buyer fits into one of three patterns: In the centre, the Church and Wellesley Village is giving its long-time renters the chance to buy into mid-priced condo towers. In the east, Riverdale offers a residential sanctuary for financially secure, family-driven queer professionals. In the west, the newly minted Queen West Art and Design District offers a transitional, edgy vibe with an increasing number of lofts and amenities for culture-conscious queers.
The gay real estate market wasn’t always this hot. “When I first got into real estate, a very low percentage of people in the gay community were homeowners,” says Brian Elder, a Royal LePage realtor who’s sold houses since 1991. “Now it’s gotten to be quite a large group. Tons of people have converted from being renters.” Gay homeowners have responded to the dearth of affordable rental construction over the past decade. Developers and realtors have found a profitable marriage with an aging and increasingly affluent community of queers plagued by exorbitant rental prices.
Ground zero, of course, remains Church and Wellesley, where homeowners land in the midst of hanky codes and late-night crowds. “What I love is when I get home from work, I park the car and walk into restaurants, go for drinks, whatever,” says Darrel Zehr, a 45-year-old marketing exec and former owner in the West End. Having visited 86 Gloucester St. for a cocktail party, Zehr lucked into a vacant 1200-square-foot, two-bedroom condo suite back in 2002. The 26-year-old interior needed a few upgrades. “The dining room’s French doors with the ’70s mirrored glass - I had to rip [them] out,” recalls Zehr, a touch of horror lingering in his voice.
Most of Church Street’s housing stock comes in condo form - a mix of bachelors, one- and two-bedroom units to match the area’s rental market. It’s ideal for first-time buyers looking to replace their monthly rent cheque with a comparable mortgage payment (for every $600 in monthly rent you can get $100,000 worth of financing for a condo or house). The Village’s other properties - Victorian row houses such as those along Gloucester and Dundonald Streets - run between $500,000 and $1 million. “A lot of older gay couples are moving into Church and Wellesley and buying good, solid houses that younger guys or girls wouldn’t be able to afford,” says Elder. These buyers are typically professional gay couples moving from a profitable first home. But because these houses rarely turn over, condos are the main game in the Village.
New towers are being erected. Recent projects like Radio City and 22 Wellesley are leading the charge. With a sales office next to Timothy’s on Church, Radio City has banked on Village queers to fill its roughly 400 units. Director of Marketing Craig Taylor estimates gays and lesbians account for 80-90% of the building’s sales. Its two condo towers and ground-level townhouses start at $135,000 and will begin occupancy this fall.
Ground-level salespeople for 22 Wellesley have also been aggressive in courting queers, although the Orthodox Jewish brass at developer H&R declined fab’s interview requests. Buying condo real estate at Church and Wellesley doesn’t bring the same lifestyle changes that typically accompany home ownership. “They’re starters,” explains Linda Pressman, a sales rep with Sutton-Bayview who works in the gay ghetto. “People who buy a one[-bedroom] plus den think, ‘I might be here two, three years.’ And that’s generally how long they’re there.”
Steven Fudge adds, “The profile of those buildings is dominated by singles and couples, and rarely geared to families.” They’re suited to single gay men making frequent moves, just like in the rental market.
Describing his buyers in the area, Fudge says, “They were either coming out or had been in gay relationships that had ended and they were all choosing the neighbourhood. I would say there’s a definite correlation to how ‘gay’ you are and how much you want to embrace that [area].”
Long-time residents take issue with this perception, common among their East and West End cousins. “‘I’ve been there, done that.’ I know people that have stopped saying that because they’ve moved back [to Church Street],” says Stewart Layland, a 32-year-old financial adviser with a three-level townhouse at Jarvis and Carlton (having the luxury of space ensures he and his partner don’t have to spend every waking hour in the same room). “I think some people just have a hang-up about being in the Village…but they’re always here.” For Layland, Church Street remains the indisputable hub for both the self-loathing and the self-realized.
“I went there when I came out. That was my hurrah,” says Alan Vernon, managing editor of Toronto.com and 10-year renter of a two-storey townhouse at Church and Wellesley. “I have a gorgeous place. If you think Carrie Bradshaw’s in Sex in the City is great, you should see mine!” After a long tenure, however, Vernon is contemplating buying elsewhere in Toronto to escape vagrants sleeping on his lawn and “defecating in public.” He does see a glimmer of hope in having more homeowners in the neighbourhood: greater property tax revenues.
“[Governments] start listening to taxpayers; they’re not going to listen to renters,” says Vernon. “The higher the density of ownership, the more [owners] are going to want the [neighbourhood] to reflect what they’re paying in property tax.”
Attracting more homeowners to the Village fits into a broader plan to help the area recover from losing the CBC and the Toronto Maple Leafs in the late ’90s. “We’ve lost population in the neighbourhood,” says City Councillor Kyle Rae, who himself owns a condo in the Alexis at Church and Alexander Streets. “There was an enormous number of people coming in to work and therefore going into our restaurants and bars.” Rae hopes the increasing number of residents with financial and personal stakes in the ghetto’s well-being will help boost businesses wrestling with climbing rents and fewer customers. Every new Church Street buyer means one more body in meat market Woody’s and another dinner party supplied by fine meat shop Cumbrae’s.
A move to the Village generally means no kids allowed, so family-oriented queers flee to the pastoral east. Says Fudge, “I find my buyers will say, ‘OK, I like Church and Wellesley, but there are no houses there, so that’s ruled out. Where can I go?’”
“Twenty-five years ago, the big area where gays were moving to was Cabbagetown, but that seems to have out-priced itself,” says Richard Silver, realtor for Bosley Real Estate and condo owner at Church and Granby Streets. “They want to barbecue. They want the garden. So they move to houses that need more work or houses on properties that have more land [in] Riverdale.” Riverdale stretches from the Danforth in the north to Queen Street East in the south, and from Broadview east to Coxwell. Running through the centre along Gerrard Street East is the jumbled stretch of Chinatown East, Little India and all the basic neighbourhood amenities.
“It’s a commercial strip that people can live around,” says Chris Phibbs, acting director of Toronto Artscape and former city council candidate for Riverdale. Along with her partner and then six-year-old son, Phibbs bought a three-storey peaked-roof Victorian at First Avenue and Boulton back in 1998. “It was something of a fixer-upper. We couldn’t afford to live north of Gerrard.”
“A lot of the reason why fags are just buying condos [at Church and Wellesley is] you just buy it, move in, decorate. The dykes do the carpentry, the wiring, the roofing,” proclaims Nancy Irwin (a.k.a. “Naughty Nancy”) of Toronto’s women’s leather community. Irwin bought a semi-detached house in South Riverdale two years ago. “For $180,000 you can have a two-bedroom house with a garden and a roof to repair, windows to repair, wiring to repair, plumbing to repair and a furnace to repair.”
Because of the income gap between gay men and lesbians, well-to-do boys tend to stake out the picturesque north while the girls slug it out in the south. “They’re going to move to [South] Riverdale if they don’t mind an area that’s more up and coming. If they want something that’s already fairly acceptable, then they’re going to move to the area north of Gerrard,” says Silver.
But with each renovation, South Riverdale is taking on the look of the more affluent north. Even in her short time there, Irwin has seen it change: “Doughnut shops were licensed. Fine dining was a burger and fries in this area. So it really wasn’t a trendy neighbourhood by any stretch.” North Riverdale is a different ball-game, where detached houses creep up to the $500,000 mark. Queers abound in both locales.
“There certainly is a huge, growing gay population in parts of Riverdale,” says Linda Pressman, noting that rainbow flags proliferate on Pride Day. Rather than anchoring themselves around gay bars or other commercial spaces, Riverdale’s queer exiles gather around gay-friendly institutions like the Metropolitan Community Church near Gerrard and Broadview. “It’s still progressive, [but] it’s family-oriented,” says Steven Fudge. He offers the crowd at Oxygen Fitness at Danforth and Pape as an example. “There are all these moms that are putting their babies into the daycare and working out, [and] there’s lots of gay guys who live in that neighbourhood.... It’s not a ‘gay’ gym.”
Riverdale is enticing queer couples and families with well-established traditions of trimming rose bushes and walking the kids to school. Its family-oriented character still dominates and most queers move there with the intention of nesting. Beware if you don’t. “I sold a couple of houses for people who moved into that area single, and if they don’t have a partner and if they don’t have a dog, they just feel totally lost,” says Richard Silver. For city queens unprepared for the reality of the Riverdale Wives, he remarks, “They’re not as happy as if they were living in the Village.”
Though it’s not the suburban bliss of Connecticut, property values in Riverdale are still driven by prestigious public schools and a reputation for serenity. For those Village exiles who dream of owning a home but need a little street crime to “keep it real,” there remains but one last alternative.
“At three in the afternoon there will still be hookers out from the night before. My mother stops her car beside them and yells, ‘Go home!’” laughs Mandra, co-editor of Katalogue zine and long-time resident of Queen and Roncesvalles. “It’s part of the flavour of the neighbourhood and I think people like that grit.”
“Gritty” doesn’t quite capture the former dead zone between 1001 Queen Street West, now a site of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and rugged Parkdale. The Queen West Art and Design District, commonly known as Queen West West, is an eclectic mix of galleries and bars with a sprinkling of methadone clinics. Once redlined by banks, the area’s dirt-cheap rents got the neighbourhood rolling.
“[Artists] came out here looking for affordable places to paint, some of them being gay,” says Stewart Pollock of Spin Gallery. “It’s always the artists first, then the galleries second, then everything else plows it over later.” Now lined with more than 25 galleries, Queen West West has retained an alternative queer vibe all around, boasting nights like the Drake’s Queer Duck (for “bent folks of all persuasions”) and the Stones Place’s queer hip-hop night Big Primpin’. “I see men walking hand in hand down Queen Street now, which is totally out of place down here, but it works,” says Pollock.
“The Thursday night of Pride, everything on the whole strip - galleries and bars - were having queer entertainment and queer-themed shows,” recalls Andrew Harwood, owner of Zsa Zsa Gallery. That week, the usually refined Edward Day Gallery on Queen ran an exhibit of fetish-themed documentary shots from strip club Remington’s, alternative night Vazaleen and Pride 2003. “It was pushing the limits [between] porn and documentary photography,” muses gallery assistant Wil Kucey. “It probably wouldn’t have happened when we were up in Yorkville, that’s for sure.”
West Enders are quick to point out their differences from the Church Street crowd. “A lot of the gay people who live out here got sick of going to ‘capital-G’ gay clubs,” says Jacob Niedzwiecki, 20, two-year renter of a one-bedroom at Queen and Dufferin. “They go out to whatever appeals to them, not on the level of just being gay.” Queen West West has no explicitly gay bars; queers are just one prominent element in the coarse mix.
Despite impeccable gallery displays and window signs that read, “Opening Soon!” Queen West West remains an unpolished neighbourhood in transition. A ballet dancer, Niedzwiecki describes it as an area where “everything is just slightly twisted.” Even the street prostitution is a little off. “It’s all older hookers,” laughs Niedzwiecki. He imitates his favourite 2am wake-up call from the prostitutes working the alley behind his house: “‘Hey! I’m tryin’ to take a piss here!’”
There’s been some gentrification as new tenants and owners restore the old Victorian and Edwardian houses along residential side streets north of Queen. It’s still a strong Portuguese neighbourhood, with a Caribbean population thrown into the mix (okra is about the only fresh produce available at the grocery store). Heading south towards King Street West and Liberty Village, old light industrial buildings are being converted into lofts or replaced by cookie-cutter townhouses.
The days of getting in dirt cheap have passed; houses now generally start at $300,000. They offer essentially the same space and charm as Riverdale without the well-known schools or neatly mowed lawns. Loft space fetches over $300 per square foot with small studios on the market for $150,000.
The Argyle Lofts will soon fill the shell of a five-storey bakery from the 1870s. Situated on the sleepy corner of Argyle and Dovercourt, the renovated loft space is relying on Queen West West’s cultural vibe to fill the 86 units. “Lots of artists bought into this building, lots of singles, young professionals - [a] very mixed clientele,” says Helena Sedlak, the building’s marketing manager. “Gay and lesbian is…maybe 20%.”
“There’s a strong creative component to my buyers who are buying in the Queen West West area: writers, film, television, advertising, technology,” says Steven Fudge. “I would say that the profile is creative professional as opposed to financial professional, which would probably be more the case in Riverdale.”
Queer West End buyers find themselves in a community of minorities where no one group predominates. That appeals to those trying to cast off labels. Rather than blending into Church Street’s well-defined social circuit or Riverdale’s domestic quietude, queers buying on Queen West West are altering the chemistry of a neighbourhood still finding its voice. The changes can be subtle. “If you go to the Gladstone [Hotel], you’ll notice the bartenders are the same bartenders that were bartending there before it was hip,” says Mandra. “They’ve started wearing glittery makeup and everything!”
“[Queen West West] would have a lot more appeal to the pioneering spirit, in particular of a gay couple who are creating and starting their new life together. There is a blank slate [on] which you can now begin to create who you are,” says Fudge. “Riverdale, by virtue of its price point, has a certain conformity to it because you need to be in a certain income level to live there.
“Church and Wellesley has a broader income level,” admits Fudge. “[But] there are many gay singles and couples who choose not to live at Church and Wellesley because it’s too conformist by virtue of the gay identity politic of it. Their creed or spirit is reflected more in a rundown Victorian that they can restore and make their own than in the steel and glass tower [of] Radio City.” The decision for queer buyers has always been a life in the Village or exile abroad. Now, choices abound among various properties and queer communities, each with a distinct flavour. As Toronto’s gay ghettos proliferate, even diehard renters are contemplating dropping anchor.
Says Queen West gallery owner Stewart Pollock, “If I could buy lunch, I’d probably buy a building here.”
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