adma
Superstar
And there's also the matter of sidewalk aesthetics, as those who are distressed by Toronto's utility-cut epidemic will tell you.
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junctionist
Senior Member
People spend their whole lives walking on those streets paved with granite setts and blocks in Europe; I'm sure it's a matter of getting used to walking on them. I've never had any problems. Drum is right that concrete slab sidewalks are amazingly rare in Europe. Granite is used in prominent urban areas, and either concrete pavers are used in less significant areas or asphalt, though asphalt seems to be getting rarer.
When I visited central Europe last year, I also saw rows of granite setts along asphalt roads like the rows of red bricks used in the old city of Toronto along some streets. Slabs of granite are used for curbs. Overall, granite setts, blocks, and slabs are used quite liberally in European cities in my experience: around roundabouts, in parks, and for parallel parking bays along streets (bays like the kind on Spadina or Roncesvalles, typical in Vienna). The parking lots of new big-box stores and suburban plazas in Poland are often paved with concrete pavers, without painted lines but rather with rows of pavers in a different colour. I even saw a rest area along an Autobahn in Germany with parking stalls paved in granite blocks. Overall, it makes cities and public spaces look a lot better than when they have poured concrete and asphalt everywhere.
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Celeste
New Member
I don't get it? Why shut down the Gasworks in the first place? They should at least designate it a historical landmark so that nobody will be able to hurt it like that ever again. And it should become a night attraction again. It seems like it was a waste shutting The Gasworks down.
If I could raise the money to buy that old building I would restore it and use it as a nightclub.
If I could raise the money to buy that old building I would restore it and use it as a nightclub.
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Celeste
New Member
Another good example of a bad landlord contributing to Yonge Streets shabbiness. The building is for sale btw and the price is just under $5 million.
That's where the Gasworks bar used to be until it closed in January 1993.
This is really obscene. Someone should turn it back into a bar or some other type of profitable business instead of letting big business walk all over the City Council. I think the potential is there. I think that somebody just needs to put the time and money into bringing the potential out of it.
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ssiguy2
Senior Member
Much of this blight on Yonge Street is due to the fact that Yonge is pedestrian unfriendly. These king of buildings would not even exist if Yonge was to become a true shopping and restaurant mecca that it has the possibility of becoming.
Yonge is an ugly strip with planning based strictly on waiting for condo developers. There would be a restaurant or bar at this location if it was a desireable street to have it on but it's not. People's views on what a restaurant avenue should be has changed greatly over the years. 40 years ago a restaurant was someone you went to have a meal in a closed off restaurant and then go home, cafes and patios were non-exsistent. That has of course changed but Yonge Street hasn't.
When I am on Granville in Vancouver I see all the pedestrian traffic that wasn't there before. Wide sidewalks and cafes and bistros taking over the spaces once held by pawn shops, fast food joints, and porn theatres. Granville has become a walkers paradise. Then I look at Yonge with no restaurants, thin little sidewalks, cheap stores, ugly buildings, and a run down streetscape.
Yonge is probably the only street in the entire city where you can't sit outside to enjoy a meal or even a coffee. This is made even more obscene that none of the street is used for transit as it has a subway right underneath the whole stretch. Yonge is surviving on it's name and nothing more which is why locals don't shop there and it's busy nature has far more to do with people get off the subway to go somewhere else than it does for people actually going to Yonge street to do as a destination in itself.
Yonge is a street that is strictly for cars and pedestrians are treated as more of an anoyence that anything else. Unfortunately this true of most of downtown Toronto where sidewalks are thin and the car is priority one. Toronto is a car city and until City Hall decides to make the city the transit and pedestrian mecca that it could be, that will continue.
Yonge is an ugly strip with planning based strictly on waiting for condo developers. There would be a restaurant or bar at this location if it was a desireable street to have it on but it's not. People's views on what a restaurant avenue should be has changed greatly over the years. 40 years ago a restaurant was someone you went to have a meal in a closed off restaurant and then go home, cafes and patios were non-exsistent. That has of course changed but Yonge Street hasn't.
When I am on Granville in Vancouver I see all the pedestrian traffic that wasn't there before. Wide sidewalks and cafes and bistros taking over the spaces once held by pawn shops, fast food joints, and porn theatres. Granville has become a walkers paradise. Then I look at Yonge with no restaurants, thin little sidewalks, cheap stores, ugly buildings, and a run down streetscape.
Yonge is probably the only street in the entire city where you can't sit outside to enjoy a meal or even a coffee. This is made even more obscene that none of the street is used for transit as it has a subway right underneath the whole stretch. Yonge is surviving on it's name and nothing more which is why locals don't shop there and it's busy nature has far more to do with people get off the subway to go somewhere else than it does for people actually going to Yonge street to do as a destination in itself.
Yonge is a street that is strictly for cars and pedestrians are treated as more of an anoyence that anything else. Unfortunately this true of most of downtown Toronto where sidewalks are thin and the car is priority one. Toronto is a car city and until City Hall decides to make the city the transit and pedestrian mecca that it could be, that will continue.
Celeste
New Member
I know.. I see it has the potential to be a great area and instead they're waiting for someone to come and destroy the historical signiffgance that it was designated as.
Nobody sees the potential like I do because nobody has taken the fact that Yonge Street was declared to be a historical site very seriously.I guess that's where you and I differ. Where you see a "rundown landscape" I see a potential for bars and resturaunts and businesses that wouldn't have otherwise considered Toronto.
The shabbiness of Yonge Street comes from people not taking the time to come and see what business could be like on Yonge Street. A street that has a history.
Well, I think that Yonge Street can be a lot more than that if just given half the chance for businesses to come in and see what the city has to offer. I think that it can be the nightlife that it once was.
I don't think people have even seen the potential that Yonge Street has because all they see are these ugly old buildings. I see a part of the city that has a lot of history that needs to be preserved.
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Celeste
New Member
I would also like to add that the patio out where the old Gasworks was doesn't face Yonge Street. It faces Dundonald Street so I don't think going outside to have a good meal would be too much of an issue.
Softee
Active Member
A lot of the things you said here are way off the mark or just plain incorrect. There are tons of restaurants and interesting businesses along downtown Yonge, the street is constantly packed with pedestrians and activity, and there is a busy bus route that runs along the street in addition to the subway. Despite its shabby appearance along certain blocks, downtown Yonge is still brimming with life and activity in a way that few other streets in the city can even come close to, and over the last few years I've been noticing improvements along the street on a monthly basis. Car traffic isn't even that busy along downtown Yonge.
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Celeste
New Member
Exactly. I think that there's a lot of pontential for businesses to enter or even expand business in the downtown core. It doesn't have to be a corridor of condos.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
Yonge does have huge potential and that is the sad part. City Hall's urban planning design for Yonge seems to be little more than waiting for condo developments to buy all the ugly buildings. This it exactly what shouldn't happen. If it continues Yonge will lose it's character and become nothing more than a gaudy neon strip a la Asia and condo developments rarely allow any retailers that offer anything outside the mainstream. The last thing Toronto needs is for it's once main drag to become little more than an elongated CityPlace with all the banality it entails.
Yonge will never recovery until the City decides that pedestrians should take priority over the cars.
As for Yonge having a bus route, big deal. Granville has a study stream of buses going down it.......7 different bus routes and buses going by literally every 30 seconds all day long but it works because the busiest stretch is bus-only and they did this by getting rid of the other lanes and doubling the width of the sidewalks. Granville is full of patios and cafes and there isn't one on Yonge from Bloor to Front.
As far as pedestrian only routes not being feasible in our cold climate and auto dependent cities, no one look an further than so-called auto haven Calgary with it's attractive and extremely vibrant pedestrian only Stephen Avenue Mall.
Yonge will never recovery until the City decides that pedestrians should take priority over the cars.
As for Yonge having a bus route, big deal. Granville has a study stream of buses going down it.......7 different bus routes and buses going by literally every 30 seconds all day long but it works because the busiest stretch is bus-only and they did this by getting rid of the other lanes and doubling the width of the sidewalks. Granville is full of patios and cafes and there isn't one on Yonge from Bloor to Front.
As far as pedestrian only routes not being feasible in our cold climate and auto dependent cities, no one look an further than so-called auto haven Calgary with it's attractive and extremely vibrant pedestrian only Stephen Avenue Mall.
Celeste
New Member
Celeste
New Member
No this shouldn't happen. Yonge Street needs to recover and the historical signiffgance of the buildings and everything.
True. Pedestrians need to take priority over cars and buses.
I don't know anything about Granville but I know about Yonge Street and it's stupid that they're not doing anything to keep the historical nature of Yonge Street.
I think it is feesible. But the City has other ideas. Either way they're hurting the historic nature of Yonge Street
RC8
Senior Member
Except literally across the street from that building there's BarVolo - arguably the best bar in Toronto and wildly successful, too.
We all agree that the current state of Yonge is disgusting and unacceptable, but the reason why this building isn't in good condition has everything to do with a negligent vision-less excuse of a landlord, and little to do with its location.
devjohnson
Active Member
+1
As much as I think Yonge Street's buildings are rundown due to incompetent landlords, there is some hidden charm to Yonge Street. The Gloucester Mews building is one of the prettiest buildings in the city, and also houses Brownstone Bistro and The Red Bench (both amazing). Like said above, BarVolo is also great and is one of my favorite bars in all of Toronto. Going north there are some great cafes along Yonge like 7 West and Cafe M, and along the stript awesome longtime local businesses like Cats Cradle. These are all quality businesses that Torontonians still go to, despite Yonge Street looking like a piece of trash.
Arguably a lot of them do really well BECAUSE of the Yonge Street location being right off the subway line and being a very central street. There is so much potential along Yonge, it kills me to see so many of these two storey buildings fall apart and house D-list retail.
I don't mind the condos going up along Yonge, they certainly are more aesthetically pleasing than whats currently there, although I do love a lot of the well maintained older buildings that give Yonge it's charm. Perhaps Five St. Joseph can set a good example for Yonge Street.