Three Points on the Map
A new H&M is opening on Queen street today. Aren't we all glad? Now, instead of going ALL THE WAY up to Bloor in order to avoid the crowds at the Yonge-Dundas H&M we can just POP into the one near our work to pick up that... uh... well Vivian bought a hat for me there. but otherwise I don't see the point.
Of course I was ready to rant about "how can one city support 3 downtown locations for a moderately priced department store" until I realized that Yonge-Dundas (ie. The Eaton Centre), Bay and Bloor and Queen West already each have an HMV (or two), a GAP, a Chapters/Indigo, and a number of other stores which duplicate the shopping experience in three different locations within a half hour walk of one another.
I thought the population of this city was only 2 or 3 million. Is all the growth in the downtown being catered to tourists? If I lived on Queen west and wanted some H&M clothing wouldn't it be just as easy for me to go to the Eaton Centre as it would be to go to Queen and Spadina? Ah, but why would I want to shop among all those tourists at Yonge and Dundas? So the Queen location is actually for the residents not the tourists.
Except that, the more well known stores there are on Queen street the more tourists are likely to wander down to queen street (as far as Bathurst anyway).
God bless bathurst. They'll have to tear down The Reverb/Kathedral/Big Bop/Holy Joes monstrosity before anything resembling gentrification takes over that intersection. In a decade Queen and Bathurst will remain as a single hideous stain in the middle of a strip of hipster boutiques and department stores.
That big load of construction going on down the street from the American Apparel store on Queen is going to be an Urban Outfitters. Don't know why they didn't just buy and renovate the old carpet building next to The Big Bop (although I have an idea).
They've been talking in the papers about how Queen West and West Queen West has been in decline lately, benchmarked by the murder by panhandlers of that man from St. Catherines. Can't say I've noticed it much. Queen street used to make me a little nervous when I was a kid (back when Bakka was at Peter Street), but it was cool and grungy. Not JUST grungy. It's cleaned up a lot, mostly for the better.
But what I see as a problem for Queen street is that it's a long strip of stores that closed at 9pm at the latest and at one end of this strip is a large music venue and a handful of dive bars. Just south of this strip is a cluster of very successful and notorious dance clubs.
So there are a lot of people on the streets during the day, and an entirely different group of people on the streets at night. People who don't care about the neighbourhood because they don't live here or because they're drunk and they just want to go home. That seems like bad news to me.
I'd be happier to see a bunch of high priced condos go up right on Queen street. Condos with thin walls and bad windows so everyone can hear what's going on down below so maybe they'll call the police, or stick their heads out the windows or something. Plus, they'd have lots of blank walls and need some framing done.
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In other news: I tried to swallow a multi-vitamind today and it got stuck in my throat. I thought I was going to have to heimlich myself on the kitchen chair! but I managed to cough it up. it was horrible. Chewables only from now on!
Of course I was ready to rant about "how can one city support 3 downtown locations for a moderately priced department store" until I realized that Yonge-Dundas (ie. The Eaton Centre), Bay and Bloor and Queen West already each have an HMV (or two), a GAP, a Chapters/Indigo, and a number of other stores which duplicate the shopping experience in three different locations within a half hour walk of one another.
I thought the population of this city was only 2 or 3 million. Is all the growth in the downtown being catered to tourists? If I lived on Queen west and wanted some H&M clothing wouldn't it be just as easy for me to go to the Eaton Centre as it would be to go to Queen and Spadina? Ah, but why would I want to shop among all those tourists at Yonge and Dundas? So the Queen location is actually for the residents not the tourists.
Except that, the more well known stores there are on Queen street the more tourists are likely to wander down to queen street (as far as Bathurst anyway).
God bless bathurst. They'll have to tear down The Reverb/Kathedral/Big Bop/Holy Joes monstrosity before anything resembling gentrification takes over that intersection. In a decade Queen and Bathurst will remain as a single hideous stain in the middle of a strip of hipster boutiques and department stores.
That big load of construction going on down the street from the American Apparel store on Queen is going to be an Urban Outfitters. Don't know why they didn't just buy and renovate the old carpet building next to The Big Bop (although I have an idea).
They've been talking in the papers about how Queen West and West Queen West has been in decline lately, benchmarked by the murder by panhandlers of that man from St. Catherines. Can't say I've noticed it much. Queen street used to make me a little nervous when I was a kid (back when Bakka was at Peter Street), but it was cool and grungy. Not JUST grungy. It's cleaned up a lot, mostly for the better.
But what I see as a problem for Queen street is that it's a long strip of stores that closed at 9pm at the latest and at one end of this strip is a large music venue and a handful of dive bars. Just south of this strip is a cluster of very successful and notorious dance clubs.
So there are a lot of people on the streets during the day, and an entirely different group of people on the streets at night. People who don't care about the neighbourhood because they don't live here or because they're drunk and they just want to go home. That seems like bad news to me.
I'd be happier to see a bunch of high priced condos go up right on Queen street. Condos with thin walls and bad windows so everyone can hear what's going on down below so maybe they'll call the police, or stick their heads out the windows or something. Plus, they'd have lots of blank walls and need some framing done.
---
In other news: I tried to swallow a multi-vitamind today and it got stuck in my throat. I thought I was going to have to heimlich myself on the kitchen chair! but I managed to cough it up. it was horrible. Chewables only from now on!