Public promenade not public enough

Uneventful Toronto Waterfront exhibition was nearly missed

The Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Group (TWRG) recently created a public promenade stretching across Toronto’s busy Harbourfront area in efforts to promote a new design connecting Queens Quay right to the waters edge for easy public access.

The unveiling happened during Quay to the City, a supposed “extravaganza” that boasted -- according to the TWRG’s website -- a weeklong series of events bound to spark general interest.

The $900,000 promenade took place from August 12 to 20, beginning with a grand ceremony with Mayor David Miller painting a stripe that completed Martin Goodman Trail -- a popular bike path that will extend along Queen’s Quay, from York Street to Spadina Avenue.

The temporary instalment replaced car traffic with bike lanes and a kilometre-long stretch of 12,000 red geraniums and picnic grass.

Michael Chong, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister of Sport, said the Quay to the City event was to “showcase the waterfront in ten days of fun, activities, and events.”

But while this was an event attempting to promote a revamping of Toronto’s waterfront, only a handful of the scheduled events happened on the premises. In fact, most were held in the Harbourfront Centre, taking away the general focus of the entire event altogether.

Upon first visit to the promenade, I walked straight past it, not noticing the geraniums at first glance.

Harbourfront Centre was holding the Ho-Hai-Yan Taiwan Festival at the time, which was listed on the Quay to the City schedule. However, there was no indication at the Taiwan Festival that it had any affiliation with the waterfront project.

Doubling back to the geraniums, I realized there was an empty white tent with the “Quay to the City” sign, situated right next to a lounging area where passers-by could put their feet up in wooden lawn chairs. I was standing right in the middle of the promenade, without even knowing.

While the lounging area was an intelligent idea on the Group’s behalf, nobody was there to acknowledge the purpose of it being there.

Upon second visit, I realized the tent was empty once more, but a small crowd had gathered around rock balancer, Daryl Maddeux, one of the few performances that took place right on the green.

When asked about the promenade, one spectator said he didn’t even know what was going on.

“Nothing really seems different to me except for the flowers,” the spectator said, refusing to be identified for privacy purposes. “Nice lawn chairs though, and what’s with that bike thing?”

The “bike thing” he was referring to was the massive four-storey archway -- arguably one the largest art installation in Toronto’s history -- adorned with used bicycles and honouring the vast amount of cyclists in the area.

“We chose to have this Arc de Triomphe to mark this as a gateway for bike paradise,” Mark Ryan, an urban designer for West 8, the winner of the design competition juried in June, told the Globe and Mail. “Our theme is 'Bicycles first’.”

The “bike paradise” seemed legitimate. However, the TWRG plans to invest about $60 million to make the promenade a reality, which some say is a pretty hefty price tag, especially when its “trial run” cost close to $1 million as it is.

The “extravaganza” ended off with a free concert by Canadian R&B artist, jacksoul, which was probably the biggest hit of the entire event. Unfortunately, most of the other interesting things were regular events, not really introducing anything new and inventive.

The Hot and Spicy Food Festival was in its ninth year, Toronto Music Garden in its fifth, and I remember catching The Wizard of Oz at last year’s Free Flicks by the Lake.

At the very least, the only thing the promenade did was obstruct traffic to keep some bikers active, even only for ten days.

The TWRG plans to have the Quay revamped by 2008, with construction beginning next spring.

Source: SceneandHeard.ca, Volume 6 Issue 6