{"id":28135,"date":"2014-10-06T18:18:10","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T22:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=28135"},"modified":"2014-10-06T18:18:10","modified_gmt":"2014-10-06T22:18:10","slug":"mars-aint-the-kind-of-place-to-raise-a-kid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/10\/06\/mars-aint-the-kind-of-place-to-raise-a-kid\/","title":{"rendered":"“Mars ain\u2019t the kind of place to raise a kid”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kathy Shaidle<\/a> on the decline of Toronto’s “Village”, once the second largest gay neighbourhood in North America:<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t exactly \u201cthe only straight in the Village\u201d but sometimes it felt that way. Back then, the stretch of Church Street from Bloor as far as Gerrard was replete with rainbow flags, gay-owned\/friendly establishments, and their sometimes disturbingly clone-y patrons. Alongside bars like Sailor and the Barn Stables, gift shops dealt in pink triangle lapel pins and Joan Crawford-themed birthday cards. Zelda\u2019s, with its drag-queen-trailer-park-themed d\u00e9cor, was a beloved brunch destination.<\/p>\n

On residential offshoots like Charles and Maitland, homes and gardens were lovingly, even competitively, tended. For Pride (which grew in length from a single summer day to a whole month during my tenancy) and \u201cgay Christmas\u201d (Halloween), festive decorations were hung early and often. \u201cAny excuse for a party\u201d was a phrase you heard almost as frequently as \u201cIt\u2019s five o\u2019clock somewhere.\u201d Even the rare misanthropic gesture screamed \u201cgay,\u201d like the fellow who strung colored lights on his balcony to spell out \u201cFUCK XMAS.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, slowly, over the course of a decade, \u201cpop and pop\u201d neighborhood anchors like the Priape sex shop gave way to tacky \u201cbreeder\u201d franchises, like fake British pubs and pizza joints. Perversely, the Second Cup demolished its famous \u201csteps,\u201d which had long served as the Ghetto\u2019s 24\/7 public square.<\/p>\n

The Village took on the grim, grimy atmosphere of an off-season amusement park.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re thinking \u201cAIDS,\u201d think again. I would have predicted the same cause once upon a time, as the 1990s saw more and more skeletal figures shuffling along the sidewalks, until they became names inscribed on the memorial in the same notorious park where the living still stubbornly cruised for sex and drugs.<\/p>\n

But gay and straight observers alike agree: it wasn\u2019t low T-cells but low interest rates that emptied out the Ghetto. Lifelong renters \u2014 like me \u2014 could suddenly afford homes of their own, but not in Boystown, where even a dilapidated house listed in the high six figures. Gays started colonizing (and, predictably, beautifying) new neighborhoods where buyers could get more house for their money: Cabbagetown, Leslieville, and even the once unthinkable Parkdale (now nicknamed Queer Street West).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathy Shaidle on the decline of Toronto’s “Village”, once the second largest gay neighbourhood in North America: I wasn\u2019t exactly \u201cthe only straight in the Village\u201d but sometimes it felt that way. Back then, the stretch of Church Street from Bloor as far as Gerrard was replete with rainbow flags, gay-owned\/friendly establishments, and their sometimes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,73],"tags":[196,190,207],"class_list":["post-28135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-randomness","tag-lgbt","tag-samesexmarriage","tag-toronto"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7jN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28136,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28135\/revisions\/28136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}