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Where to go in Canada v. 2.0

  
 
*
17:57 / 20.07.03
So I'm applying to U. Toronto this year, hoping to get into their ancient studies program next fall*. What's the city like? It looks relatively cool and cultural and all, from what I've read about it, and yes I suppose my decision might have been partly informed by an article I read two or more years ago predicting Toronto would become the new Paris of the neo-Beat generation as young americans get disgusted and disillusioned with the political situation here. (Er, if that actually happens, Toronto, I'm sorry. Oh god I feel so guilty for living.)

Prices for apartments look more expensive than I'm used to, but I notice most of the ones I've seen in ads had utilities included, which is nice. What neighborhoods are near the uni, and which ones are nice, which ones a bargain, and which ones dangerously inadviseable?

Does anyone know already that they'll be looking for a roommate around August or September 2004?

How's the public transport? I'll not drive unless I absolutely have to; I've had to for years as there's no public transport to speak of where I live, and I figure I've contributed enough to global warming.

What about the, er, esoteric aspects of Toronto, if anyone's in a position to know?

"M. entitything must not go to UT, no, it is too dangerous... Listen to Dobbykins..."

Thanks in advance for taking the time to help me out.


*All right, I'm jumping the gun by a year and two months, so sue me.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
22:34 / 20.07.03
Two things: the crack-dog vendor out the front of the library is a fucking god, and Cora's pizza (Bloor & Spadina? I think. It's on Spadina, anyway, I think) is the best store in the world.
 
 
betty woo
00:14 / 21.07.03
Very few areas of Toronto are dangerously inadvisable, and most of those are quite a hike away from UT. The Annex remains the primo student district, but it's also pricey. Parkdale (south-west area of town) is cheap and artsy, but can be dicey in terms of cracked-out neighbours, and a longer trip to campus.

My area, aka the gay ghetto, is usually pricey as well but bargains can be had - such as my building, which is cheap, safe and about a 10-15 minute walk to campus. If you do wind up coming, let me know and I can ask the landlord if there are any open units. Rental prices have been dropping of late, but it's less that areas themselves are cheap than that you can find the occassional bargain if you look around enough. UT has some decent student housing on and around campus, beyond just the traditional dorms, so you could look into that too.

Transit is pretty good so long as you're on a major route, which means either subway or streetcar. Once you get into bus route territory, it can be a bit of a wait.

Esoteric? Depends on what you're looking for, although there's a couple of good bookstores (such as Seekers in the Annex area) that are also good nexus points for finding like-minded folk. There's a few active Wiccan groups I know of, an apparently an OTO branch, although I haven't been to any of their events in years.

Seconding the recommendation for Cora's Pizza, btw.
 
 
moriarty
01:29 / 21.07.03
Fuck Cora's. Amato!

I've never lived in Toronto, but I've visted enough. The Elmo was great, but it closed down. Blow Up is at Lee's Palace now. It was the site of a few Barbemeets. Always a good time. The Beguiling is one of the best comic stores in North America. Street dogs rock. I have a few friends that live in Crackdale and they don't mind it so much. My ex is going to U of T this year. Remind me to ask her next year if any of her friends need a roomie. They almost always do, and they're a bunch of lefty, vegan, zine making types.
 
 
fluid_state
12:23 / 21.07.03
Cora's? Amato? they're knockoffs, people. Papa Ceo's is where "it" is proverbially "at". It being pizza. At being beyond my abilities right now.

I'll second Parkdale as an interesting area to live. It wasn't very scary to me or my roommates, but we did worry about female friends wandering through. It can be creepy, but never really seemed dangerous (depending on which street you're on, and whether or not you have the good sense not to take the train tracks home past midnight). The allure of the area is the space. A friend and I got a monstrously large studio for a ridiculously cheap price. If you're hunting in Parkdale, you can find these treasures.

Average rent in T.O (as far as I have seen, please correct me if I'm wrong) is about $750 for a bachelor apt. THis seems to apply about anywhere near the core, or along the subway lines. You may be better off going with a house and roommates (I'm unaware of curent prices). UofT's residences are decent if you don't mind tiny rooms and relative strangers in close proximity, communal bathrooms, social events (theme dances and the like), and noise restrictions. But they are clean, and fairly well run.

The Annex is lovely. A friend of mine got lucky and scored a cheap apartment overlooking Bloor st (the main east-west road, directly over the "main" subway line), so it's not all pricey... just most of it.
Definitley seconding Seekers and The Beguiling, though. The Annex seems to be the most, uh, Barbelith-frienly area of the city.

Rhymes w/Tracy's "gay ghetto" is Fun. very alive, and a lot more "good clean fun" , paradoxically enough, than parallel Yonge St., which is supposedly "for tourists", but just seems filthy.

The Beaches is a trendy SE district (much of it is nowhere near beaches, but it doesn't keep it from being expensive) that I know little about, other than that some people love living there. Kensington Market is central, near (the large) Chinatown, and is green, vegan, and highly homegrown. I may be the last area of aggresively unbranded space left here, and the food markets Cannot Be Beaten in the city (for the most part). Greek Town is the on the eastern part of Bloor (and the subway), and is also quite nice (and damnned busy on Friday and Saturday). And Queen St., the trendy part, has turned into a condo farm. If you have money, buy one now. While you can, before the already high prices skyrocket.

Avoid living in: Etobicoke (NW suburb), Scarborough (NE suburb), Regent Park (tiny central ghetto), New Toronto (West Lakeshore...nice view, brutal transit). Stay near the subway, if you can.Public transport is excellent... in places. Anywhere near the subway, you're golden. Anywhere else, buy a bike.

Oh, I've gone too far, haven't I? too much info. And to think, I hate it here.
 
 
Abigail Blue
22:28 / 21.07.03
The last place I lived in Toronto was Little Portugal, and it was the best place I ever lived. (Little Portugal runs on Dundas between Bathurst and Lansdowne). I lived between Queen and Dundas, just West of Bathurst, and it RAWKED. I could walk everywhere, I was within stumbling distance from a variety of not-so-trendy and (unfortunately) very trendy bars, and the whole place was safe as safe can be. Rent was more than affordable, too, and I was on two major streetcar lines and 5 minutes' walk from a third.

Again, though, I stress the ability to walk anywhere downtown in less than an hour. Harbourfront? Half an hour's walk. Kensington Market? 15 minutes. Little Italy? 5 minutes. Queen West? 5 minutes. Chinatown? 20 minutes. And the best part of all was being spitting distance from Trinity-Bellwoods park, the greatest park to hang out and do nothing in since parks were invented, AND you're allowed to walk on the grass AND it doesn't close at dusk the way parks do here. I swear that Trinity-Bellwoods is the biggest thing I miss about Toronto now that I live in the greater New York area.

As for pizza, I say Terroni is the best. Okay, so they don't do slices and the folk who hang out there can be a bit trendy, but the pizza is great, and so's the coffee. And don't get me started on the caprese salad...

I lived in Parkdale, and loved it. A really diverse area, and not dangerous at all, provided that you're, say, North of Queen between Lansdowne and Roncesvalles. Lived there for years and never had any problems. Go South of Queen, however, and rent is considerably cheaper but you develop a serious fear for your safety. That being said, people in Parkdale are really nice, and you can get really good roti. And there's a Chinese place called Rice & Noodle just West of Lansdowne that'll make you chiken balls with tofu substituted for the chicken, if you ask. 'Cause who says that being vegetarian means that you don't want yummy fried fake Chinese food?

Also, Roncesvalles village is a really nice place to live. Little Poland is great, and there's a life-sized statue of the pope smiling beatifically that I love.

Sorry for going on, but I'm pretty homesick and I've just found out that I'm not allowed to come back for a visit for two whole years. Which makes me very, very sad. But I wish you all the best in the T-Dot, when you go. U of T has the most beautiful campus of all the universities I've seen in Canada (and I've seen a whole lot of them).
 
 
Abigail Blue
22:32 / 21.07.03
Know what's funny, solid state? I've hated Toronto my whole life, and, now that I'm down here, I really am starting to buy the whole ad campaign that Toronto's the best city in the world. New York's great, and huge, and beautiful and the quintessential city, but Toronto's a whole lot cooler and friendlier and cleaner than I ever thought it was.

Then again, it might be a case of the grass being greener...
 
 
moriarty
22:53 / 21.07.03
I love how there's this Toronto pizza turf war going. We should have a tasting contest.
 
 
Abigail Blue
22:56 / 21.07.03
You should, and Terroni will win, sucka! Mwa ha ha!

(Although Amato's quattro formaggi is really, really good...)
 
 
*
02:10 / 22.07.03
Wow, I love you guys. *sniff* This is some really helpful info. I hope everything works out, so's I can be in a city where there are some lithers in the area (no offense, grant, but W. Palm's a bit of a drive).

I've heard back from the student union I wrote to for advice, and it looks like the Ancient Studies program may be beyond my reach, but I might manage the near eastern civ department if I do really well in my thesis. My little tiny liberal arts college just couldn't offer courses like beginning middle egyptian.

By esoteric aspects I didn't so much mean bookstores as how generally active the area is. My college, f'r instance, seems to sit on the site of some ancient battleground, and also has buildings which were once part of the estates of a circus tycoon who dabbled in the occult-- in a bad way, judging from the happenings around here. It keeps things interesting, and it's a constant learning experience. I'd expect much the same from Toronto, which seems to be a much older city than Sarasota. I'm sure there are areas within the city which are pretty happy, areas which are grouchy, and areas you couldn't wake up with a ritual lifted out of the pages of the Necronomicon, with a babylonian demon-god and an aztec ritual knife thrown in for good measure. I'll take freaky stories either in the thread or by e-mail or pm, if anyone has any and feels like sharing.

Thanks for the suggestion, RWTracy-- When I find out something for sure I'll let you know. It sounds like a great neighborhood. If you don't mind me asking, what's the going rate in your building?

In case you can't tell, this is my way of being nervous about the possibility of going to Toronto-- I'm afraid it might not happen, and I'm afraid of everything being all different and scary if it does, so I'm overplanning like a nut. I'm also really excited about the possibility of getting out of Florida. The overplanning at least gives me something constructive and creative to do, I guess.

Anyway, thanks for all the info. Especially about the pizza. Only one thing to do-- try all of them, and decide fore myself. Mmmm. Pizza.
 
 
moriarty
02:30 / 22.07.03
Florida to Canada. Well, that changes everything.

Have you heard about our lovely winters?
 
 
aus
02:44 / 22.07.03
Canada!? WTF ya' want to go there for—SARS ridden cesspool it is n' all. And yeah, let’s smite (not "smote") the Canadians. Those folks are thinkin’ about legalizing queer marriages, decriminalizing pot, and those whiny sombitches didn’t even fight behind (or would it have been under—again?) those brave American soldiers — with all their smart bombs and lasers, and all their depleted uranium ammunition and night vision—who were off to liberate the oi... I mean people of Iraq. Yeah, those Canadians are the worst whiners and flimsiest fuckers ever.

Let’s nuke ‘em and their damn verbs 'n' stuff!

Ref: … >0< … on the other Where to go in Canada thread.
 
 
moriarty
03:54 / 22.07.03
No, you're thinking of the Canadans, filthy nation of bastards. We're talking about Canadians.
 
 
*
12:36 / 22.07.03
What, you mean it's cold in canada? Gee, hadn't thought of that. I suppose it might also be a little warm in the Sahara, and not terribly safe to vacation in Baghdad right now.

Yes, I have heard of this thing called "winter", and having fled to NYC two januarys in a row, I'm working on getting some practice with it. Not nearly enough, but some practice. I even saw what is called "snow", although I am still suspicious-- the weatherpeople referred to something called a "Great Lakes Snow Machine" which would seem to bear up the theories of my floridian friends that snow is just a trick they play on tourists.

Have you any idea how disgusted I am with what passes for weather down here? I realize my body is not adapted to cold weather, but it never did adapt to heat (although I've lived here all my life), so perhaps I'll be better at dealing with cold. In any case I'm used to there being six months of the year when only a fool would venture outside; they'll just be the opposite six months. And you can put more clothes on but there's only so much taking clothes off you can do before the nice policemen come to get you.
 
 
betty woo
13:44 / 22.07.03
Regarding the cold: as a friend of mine likes to say, you can always put on more clothes, but you can only get so naked.

There's some fun stuff around Toronto, vibe-wise: the city's major intersection, Yonge & Bloor, was once the site of a huge graveyard called Potter's Field, catering mainly to poor immigrants, until they routed up the bodies in order to build the roads. Parkdale has a fantastic ghost walk, and the Toronto Heritage Society does area tours that are a great way to walk the streets and learn about weird things that have happened. There's a lot of places where the old city has been replaced by new buildings, which gives a nice layering to explore if you enjoy historical research. For instance, Liberty Street is so-named because it was the road that prisoners walked down when they were released from the old jail that no longer exists, and is a nice spot for breaking-from-past-constraints workings.

I like the city's energy, for the most part, and UT in particular has an interesting energy to explore. If you can manage to strike up an accord with the concrete turkey that is Robart's Library, it can be well worth the effort. Alien but interesting.

My building runs about $750 for one-bedrooms and $950 for two bedrooms - utilities included, so if you can split the two bedroom it's a pretty good deal. Units aren't huge, though - you will get a lot more space in an area like Parkdale or Riverdale.
 
 
grant
17:40 / 22.07.03
Wow, I love you guys. *sniff* This is some really helpful info. I hope everything works out, so's I can be in a city where there are some lithers in the area (no offense, grant, but W. Palm's a bit of a drive).


Everything around here's a bit of a drive. It's all up or down the coast, or else five hours across the wilderness to the other coast.

You're in Sarasota? It's freakin' hot there. I went to school there. No sea breeze.

And you can put more clothes on but there's only so much taking clothes off you can do before the nice policemen come to get you.

Sarasota's where they led the anti-thong legislation. And still had a picture of a naked man on the side of the cop cars. (See, the Ringling Museum has a large-scale rough draft of Michelangelo's David, so that's the city logo...). I don't know what conclusions one can draw from that.
 
 
aus
02:44 / 23.07.03
No, you're thinking of the Canadans, filthy nation of bastards. We're talking about Canadians.

Or was I thinking of the Canadians and you're talking about Canadans? It's all so confusing.
 
 
*
03:12 / 23.07.03
Cold, old city, creepy history in places, pizza turf wars, filled with freaks-- I can't WAIT to go. Which could be a bit of a rough thing, since I have a thesis still to do. And I may not have the money. The job market is pretty lean in Canada right now, I hear, though correct me if I'm wrong. Especially for furriners like myself. But if I can swing it, I'll be there in the fall, provided I get into UT. Even as a "special" student (which is what they call students who hadn't the brains to go to a big university for their BA where they could take courses in middle Egyptian and syriac writing), which means I can't get nearly the funding I could if I just went into the masters program. The complex world of academic red tape is a little over my head; my college tends to be lucky if the professors can remember which students they're advising at the moment.

Thanks again for the info, RWT. I'll remember it, and use it in my neurotic attempts to plan hypothetical budgets for a situation which may not pan out in the near future-- or ever; I could be killed by rabid enforcerbots from the parallel earth tomorrow, after all.

(I think the city logo might have changed, grant, or at least it's not on the cop cars anymore. Palmetto has just changed the design for their police vehicles, however: Now it looks like "Palmetto Police- the Party People!" with brightly colored geometric shapes and confetti designs. Not sure what they were thinking. But Sarasota is at its heart a very conflicted little town.)
 
  
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