Fear and Loathing in Toronto: What the Hell Happened to my Hometown?

“Living in the city, you know you have to survive.” – Living in the City, Sonic R

I’m deeply saddened and disturbed by the news reports of the current crimewave gripping the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), Toronto’s public transit system. These incidents hit especially close to home, as I’m a born and raised Torontonian. While I now live in a small city, I was always a pedestrian and I also used both the TTC and Government of Ontario (GO) Transit, a commuter train and bus system.

In fact, one of my jobs for several years was to verify the delivery of free newspapers throughout the TTC’s subway stations. I loved this job. Unfortunately, my happiness came crashing down when I was assaulted on a subway platform one beautiful summer morning. I suffered from this ordeal and was on sick leave for several months. During that period, the department I worked for was shut down and I was subsequently laid off. This was around the time that Toronto was becoming increasingly more gentrified, overpopulated, expensive, and dangerous. This wasn’t always the case, though.

Toronto in the ‘80s and ‘90s was a special place and time in the world. The city was cleaner, safer, more affordable, less congested, and had a funky vibe. There was a thriving artistic bohemian community near Queen and Spadina. You could see the CN Tower and Lake Ontario instead of just endless walls of high-rise condominiums. Downtown was chockfull of cool bookstores and record shops. The malls had something for everyone instead of just high-end boutiques. Local landmarks such as the long-departed Sam the Record Man, World’s Biggest Bookstore, and Honest Ed’s drew in crowds of tourists. It was a magical place.

Over the years, my family and I watched Toronto’s slow and gradual transformation into its current form. We stuck it out in the big city until a few years ago, when the escalating crimewave could no longer be ignored. We started having close calls. I was at Yonge–Dundas Square a few hours before a fatal shooting. I obliviously walked down Yonge Street during the van attack. We drove along Danforth Avenue on the day of the mass shooting. By the grace of God, we always managed to get out of the wrong place at the right time.

I never thought I’d leave the hustle and bustle of the big city. Unfortunately, Toronto had become too crowded, dangerous, and expensive. With my assault on the subway and our close shaves, we no longer wanted to tempt fate. It was time for us to throw in the towel, pack up, and leave the big city for a small one. Change is never easy for those of us on the autism spectrum, so my willingness to leave the only home I’d ever known tells you something of the dire situation there. Thankfully, we left Toronto before the pandemic hit, again, by the grace of God.

While we may now feel safe in our new home, we still worry for all our friends and family we left behind. Toronto’s crime and gentrification have gotten much worse in the years since we left. It’s an interesting paradox: a city for the rich under siege by gangs, criminals, and murderers amid a global pandemic. A place where excessive wealth and extreme poverty collide with little to no middle-class in-between. Perhaps I’ll do a more in-depth deep dive on this topic later.

It feels like Toronto has become increasingly more dangerous over the past twenty years. It’s a place where a serial killer stalked the gay village. Where gunshots rang out at the Raptors’ victory parade. Where a woman was immolated on a bus by a psychopath. Where a homeless man was savagely stabbed to death by a gang of teenaged girls. Where TTC commuters are now getting randomly attacked and have become victims of crime during their daily commutes. Modern day Toronto now resembles Gotham City. All that’s missing is the Bat-Signal and Batman himself.

In closing, I mourn the city I once knew and loved. I worry for our friends and family still living there. But I’ll always remember the Toronto of my childhood and teenaged years with great fondness. I listened to a CBC radio show or podcast awhile back that summed up the nostalgia of the ‘90s perfectly: “the Berlin Wall was down, and the Twin Towers were still standing”. Man, how I wish I had a time machine to go back to that simpler and safer world. I’d stay there if I could.

What the hell happened to my beloved city?

Let There Be Light: My Look Back on the 10th-Anniversary of the Northeast Blackout of 2003

“No antenna. No radio. We’re back in the 19^th Century!” – Captain Billy Tyne, The Perfect Storm

 

Today marks the 10^th-anniversary of the Northeast blackout of 2003, a moment in history that I shall never forget. I remember every last detail as if it happened yesterday: I’d finished attending a job workshop at an employment agency over on Donlands, and was planning to take the subway downtown later that afternoon to hang out at the Eaton Centre, but first I wanted to head home to drop off my papers and work on an email to a girl I’d met at the employment agency and hoped to possibly date. I’d just put the finishing touches on my email and was about to click the “send” button when the power abruptly went out.

 

I didn’t think much of it at the time (aside from being a little peeved over losing the aforementioned email to said girl I liked), until I stepped outside and spoke with a crowd of neighbours gathered on the street who mentioned that the power outage was citywide and all of the traffic lights, streetcars, and subways were supposedly down. That revelation made me worried for my grandma, as it was hot out and I’d heard that summer blackouts were really bad for seniors. Since I couldn’t phone my grandma to check on her, I decided to walk from our house in the Coxwell & Danforth neighbourhood to her apartment building in Cabbagetown.

 

Along the way, I saw pedestrians of all walks of life directing traffic across the Danforth, and spoke to various passers-by who mentioned that the blackout was occurring across the province and even in some parts of the United States. I’d been told scary rumours that terrorists had allegedly bombed a skyscraper in New York City, and hated being unable to confirm anything that was going on around us. When I reached Broadview, I saw the broken-down streetcars I’d heard about earlier, sitting empty and abandoned, and cut through the valley of Riverdale Park into Cabbagetown. A few minutes later, I stood in the entrance of my grandma’s building buzzing her apartment, and to my relief, she was fine and with my uncle.

 

I had dinner with my grandma and uncle before beginning my long evening trek home, finding a $10.00 bill along the cobblestone portion of Carlton at the edge of Riverdale Park. When I arrived back at the house ($10.00 richer than when I’d departed), my parents were there waiting and furious with me for not leaving them a note, as they didn’t know where the hell I was and had no way of reaching me. Like the millions of other people affected by the blackout, they had to walk home from their jobs downtown. We had to light candles throughout the house like our ancestors before us, open the windows for cool air, and avoid touching the fridge. We still had no way of confirming what was going on, despite the rest of the world knowing what was happening to us.

 

As there was nothing we could really do aside from sit in the dark and wait for the power to eventually be restored, we sat outside with the neighbours and looked up into a beautiful night sky full of stars (probably how Van Gogh saw it while painting), courtesy of the complete lack of light pollution. The next day, we were fortunate enough to have our power restored but had to use it sparingly. We saw the online night shots of the Toronto and New York City skylines silhouetted in black, were relieved to learn that the blackout wasn’t the result of terrorists, and got to let our relatives in Venezuela know we were okay. Before that blackout dimmed the lights of Toronto, I never gave much thought to random power failures, but now I get nervous whenever they occur.

 

In closing, the blackout taught me two very important lessons: 1.) Like the characters in WALL-E, we humans rely too heavily on technology these days, and are pretty well screwed should that heavy basket of eggs ever drop. Folks in the Victorian era knew how to function without electricity, and we should learn how to do so as well for our own benefit. 2.) Electricity should always be conserved and any lights or gadgets not in use should be switched off (if you don’t need the power, make it an Earth Hour). Instead of maxing out the air conditioning at home, consider cooling off at a shopping mall, movie theatre, your local swimming pool, or the beach. After all, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and I certainly never want a repeat of August 14^th, 2003.

Lights Out.