News   Dec 20, 2024
 2.5K     8 
News   Dec 20, 2024
 1K     2 
News   Dec 20, 2024
 1.9K     0 

Church-Wellesley Village

I am talking about The Vic, O'Grady's, The Firkin, Mick E. Fynn's, The Blake House, The Artful Dodger, The Fox & the Fiddle. etc. It's true they don't all smell bad (some do), but they are all branded similarly and are of pretty low quality. I don't think their sameness expresses the diversity of the village and I think it is presumptuous and wrong headed to think all lower-income enjoy sitting in dingy generic pubs.
 
I am talking about The Vic, O'Grady's, The Firkin, Mick E. Fynn's, The Blake House, The Artful Dodger, The Fox & the Fiddle. etc. It's true they don't all smell bad (some do), but they are all branded similarly and are of pretty low quality. I don't think their sameness expresses the diversity of the village and I think it is presumptuous and wrong headed to think all lower-income enjoy sitting in dingy generic pubs.

Point taken, I honestly didn't realize there were so many pub style restaurants in the area. I will defend The Blake House and The Vic, good food & service and great atmosphere - and they always seemed clean to me. Keep in mind there is still a good variety of other types of sit-down restaurants in the area too.
 
The problem with the Village is that you are either stuck with expensive places like Cafe California, or places that are moderately priced pub types with low quality.
I do like O'Grady's burger, but ya, most of those pubs smell and are not very clean. Just go in the washrooms to see how much they care about cleanliness.
 
Dirty or smelly bathrooms is a very Canadian problem, and not just in restaurants. The worst is when you have to carry a piece of wood with a key dangling on the end to unlock a restroom door. Ick!
 
I'm confused. Do gay people have some predisposition to liking banal "ye olde" theme pubs with crummy food? Because it seems like there are a lot of them in and around the village and they usually smell bad and look like they haven't been cleaned properly in decades. For a demographic that supposedly has lots of expendable income and appreciates novelty and style, the local merchants seem to be providing dining options that would be more appropriate in a small-town Ontario student ghetto. They say the village is dying, but it's probably because nobody is doing anything to make the village establishments interesting or appealing - so the gays go elsewhere. Why wouldn't they?

This is so on point. The Village is a simulation of a student ghetto in small town Ontario. But maybe that's what patrons want; to be reminded of the dreary hamlet from which they came. It's mind-boggling.
 
It's a strange landscape: The Village is a crossroad where fake UK style student pubs meet a mob of men in their 40's, 50's and 60's, dressed in cargo shorts, t-shirts, backpacks, running shoes and baseball caps, all ready for a trip to an imaginary summer camp from childhood. The semiotics are peculiar.
 
It's a strange landscape: The Village is a crossroad where fake UK style student pubs meet a mob of men in their 40's, 50's and 60's, dressed in cargo shorts, t-shirts, backpacks, running shoes and baseball caps, all ready for a trip to an imaginary summer camp from childhood.

Sounds hot.
 
I sort of get ye-mediocre-pubs comparison but beyond that I take exception to what your saying here. One would not find the variety of food options available nor shopping opportunities in an anytown Ontario student ghetto.

It's a strange landscape: <snip-snip> meet a mob of men in their 40's, 50's and 60's, dressed in cargo shorts, t-shirts, backpacks, running shoes and baseball caps <snip-snip>. The semiotics are peculiar.

That would describe me and many of my friends (gay and straight, fit and unfit), so what exactly is so peculiar?
 
I sort of get ye-mediocre-pubs comparison but beyond that I take exception to what your saying here. One would not find the variety of food options available nor shopping opportunities in an anytown Ontario student ghetto.



That would describe me and many of my friends (gay and straight, fit and unfit), so what exactly is so peculiar?

A pizza place, an all you can eat sushi place, a couple of Asian joints don't strike me as a variety of food options. As for shopping opportunities, a hardware store, two sex shops, a pharmacy or two, a video store, a pet food store, 2 bath houses. On this level, you are correct Geek, I suppose you wouldn't find some of these shopping opportunities in small town Ontario.

As for the " I'm going camping look " , it seems strange to me for adults to dress like they are in a suspended state of childhood.
 
Last edited:
A pizza place, an all you can eat sushi place, a couple of Asian joints don't strike me as a variety of food options. As for shopping opportunities, a hardware store, two sex shops, a pharmacy or two, a video store, a pet food store, 2 bath houses. On this level, you are correct Geek, I suppose you wouldn't find some of these shopping opportunities in small town Ontario.

You missed at least a dozen independent sit-down restaurants, another half dozen specialty food shops, art galleries, coffee and tea shops, another dozen retail stores and more - oh, and a dozen queer drinking spots, all on one street squeezed within 6 blocks. Could it be better and was it better in the past? - yes. It still makes for a great neighbourhood to live in, IMO.

As for the " I'm going camping look " , it seems strange to me for adults to dress like they are in a suspended state of childhood.

Seriously?! I dress for comfort in my casuals, I'll blissfully remain in a 'suspended state of childhood' then as I sail through my 40's and into my 50's.
 
Seriously?! I dress for comfort in my casuals, I'll blissfully remain in a 'suspended state of childhood' then as I sail through my 40's and into my 50's.[/QUOTE]

I found an interesting think piece about how we ended up in a place where everyday is " Casual Friday. " It shines some light on the bliss of which you speak.

The counter-culture generation of the late 60s/early 70s. Gen Xers Baby Boomers rebelled against their parents' values and mores through many means, but particular to our purposes consider their dress; out went the suits and ties of their fathers, and on came the tie-dyed t-shirts, baggy cords, modified Army jackets, and in general wild abandon of the Woodstock class. Anyone wearing traditional, conservative garb was clearly a 'square' and not part of the movement.

Fast-forward a decade or so and those same Gen-Xers Baby Boomers are having their own children. What sort of values, stylistically, do they pass to them? For many of us, this is our parents. Did they teach you how to shine shoes properly? How a suit should fit? Did they know their tailor? Or when it was time for you to get your first suit in your youth, did you and your father stand bewildered in a Sears or Mens Wearhouse and your father mumble, "I guess black suits are good."?

The "democratization" of the office from the late eighties to the early nineties. In this time frame the traditional values of a company taking care of its employees, as well as its shareholders, was being rapidly eroded. Pay was declining; benefits shrunk; health care plans slashed. At the same time, companies had to find a way to keep morale up. Why not one day a week where employees didn't require suits in the office? Call it Casual Friday!

Eventually, it became easier to relax the dress code further than offer actual benefits to employees, and so the dress code of Casual Friday became de rigeur every day of the week.

The dot-com boom. IT was rife with examples of casually dressed men who had become million- and billionaires through hard work and inovation. Gates, Jobs, Allen et al opened the door to a class of nerds who didn't have time to dress with all the coding they had to do. Eventually, the expedience of casual dress became a rejection of traditional business rules. This combined with many tech start-ups location in sunny, seasonless Silicon Valley meant that to wear a tie was an affront, to place care in one's dress a rejection of the culture surrounding them. The casual dress code became as strictly enforced as the formal dress codes before it.

 
I'm 31 now, but I guess I'll keep dressing like a child until I'm 50 as well. Jeans and t-shirt all the way, whether at the office, at home, shopping, or clubbing.
 
Pride parade route extended. Will go to Yonge-Dundas Square now, rather than turning at College. Didn't it go to Shuter or Queen (or at least Gerard?) back in the day, before they shortened it in some attempt to get parade-goers to hang out in the Church-Wellesley area pre/post-parade? The shorter route meant the crowds were more concentrated, and thus harder for people to see, and tourists in the Eaton Centre area would miss out because the parade didn't get down there. I'm glad they are extending the parade to Dundas, and hopefully they'll have some activities in YD Sqaure. Not everyone wants to hang out in the mosh pit on Church.
 

Back
Top