Waiting for Godot

Toronto is acting like a spoiled debutante keeping her date waiting while the tickets to the expensive event lose their value by each anxiety ridden minute that goes by. She can’t decide what she wants to wear, she’s reeked havoc in her mayhem, trying on different things and tossing them on the floor (and we all know who will end up cleaning it up), the house has reverberated with the echos of her distress and effort, and that powdery make-up she’s finally getting around to is clinging to everything she touches.

That is to say there are streets full of access holes (yes we know its for the water… but also for the bell fibe … jus’ sayin’), endless bike tire-swallowing potholes that don’t get filled, sandy pits that spew up dust on pedestrians, endless noise of machinery, and now, park closures galore plague this city’s sandscape so pitiful Google has abandoned Detroit for a chance to make Toronto liveable again. Personally I think they should have stuck with Detroit as the few people there wouldn’t mind some disruption but if Google thinks that big data and nerdy design can save us then sign me up. I’ll advise.

I stopped to take Colin’s photo because his sitting there like that was for me the epitome of this moment, I was shocked and alarmed when this park had been closed. Anger struck when I saw the sign dictating it be thus until December. And you can never trust those signs either.

We both agreed that the city could do better, either closing the adjacent streets to traffic to create a pop-up park on the sidelines or simply closing half the park at a time. There are many parks important to Toronto residents and visitors but I am not wrong to say that per square inch there is not one park in this city more crucial to the Toronto culture that so many visitors, residents and business owners depend on as a must-have. Taking it away for a year feels like cruel and unusual punishment, surely Google can do better than that.