My family moved to New York City in late 1983, settling in a neighborhood called Rego Park for about four years. In 1988, my parents, deciding that they didn’t want to raise a family in Queens, moved to Toronto, and the rest, as they say, is history.
I will admit that this reflection on my time as a child in New York City was brought upon by a wonderful set of photos by Ken that detail New York in the 1980s that I recently found through Kottke’s Remaindered Links. It is striking to see those photos now, especially since the NYC subway system now is remarkably different from the system of the 1980s, which is indicative of a general change in image and city structure that was championed by Giuliani in the 1990s.
Queens, and New York City on the whole, was a very different place in the 1980s, possibly explaining why my parents (who have not returned to the city for a significant amount of time since leaving) still associate the city as being decrepit and dirty. The crime rate had just began its slow descent, but public services were still in shambles: both private and public areas suffered a lack of care and maintenance, and the quality of the social environment reflected this physical deterioration. Still, the neighborhoods were lively and diverse, and there was a strong sense of community among certain areas of the population.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, New York has experienced a rejuvenation that I have been able to witness first-hand with my several visits to the city. Streets have been cleaned up, social structures have been put in place to strengthen community work and neighborhood activities, and the city has made a conscious effort to realign its image. The crime rate has fallen, the poverty rate has fallen, tourism has increased, and creative output has flowered. This is not to say New York in the 1980s was bad; rather, New York City was a very different place in that decade, and has since shed that image in order to portray itself as a progressive, vibrant, and creative metropolis.
I miss Rego Park, Queens, and New York City of the 1980s: after all, I discovered baseball during the Mets’ World Series win in 1986, I was there when the Knicks drafted Ewing out of Georgetown University, and it was in NYC where I discovered the glory of fast food ($0.99 Whopper!). At the risk of repeating myself…the rest, as they say, is history.
Early last week, Mayor David Miller and city council launched a website called Building a Great City, outlining some of council’s achievements over the past three years and detailing the priorities that will be shaping municipal action in the upcoming years.
As easy as it may be to discard this website as a piece of political campaign posturing for the upcoming municipal elections in November — or even as a poorly-designed attempt at assuring Torontonians that they are still important in light of a new federal government that doesn’t seem to realize the city exists — the new website is an important step in making the residents of Toronto realize that their municipal government has been working hard over the past three years and good things have come from this hard work.
Highlighted as city council’s main priorities are nine key issues:
I can’t comment significantly on all the priorities, but I will outline a few significant achievements by city council over the past three years and a few suggestions as to where to go from here.
Get a new deal for Toronto. The new City of Toronto Act, drafted late last year, was an important step in making sure that Toronto gets the recognition it deserves as one of the largest business hubs in the country. Coupled with the new gas tax and transit funding agreements, Toronto is slowly getting back some of the money it pumps into the Canadian economy every year. Looking forward, Mayor Miller needs to continue to push the federal government — which is already starting its campaign to ignore the largest city in Canada — to realize that without Toronto, our nation has a lot to lose.
Foster a clean and beautiful city. While Mayor Miller has shown dedication to the environment in through his litter reduction campaigns and the 20-Minute Toronto Makeovers, he has shown considerable slip-ups when it comes to the re-acclamation of public space. Without the efforts of the TPSC, the ill-conceived postering by-law may have been passed, and the selling of advertisements in major public spaces like Dundas Square (and our transit system) has shown a propensity for fiscal duties rather than cultural responsibilities on the part of city council. Posters and street art don’t pollute a city, they give it flavor: give us back our public space.
Create stronger neighborhoods. If council has dropped the ball on any of their initiatives, it is definitely in this domain. With violent crime rising in the city, Toronto city council has decided to build the strength of its communities on the police force, rather than the people who can ensure the future of the community effectively: the youth. The Toronto Youth Cabinet introduced the ‘Recreation Not Ammunition’ Budget Campaign in 2004, and while some of the initiatives that Mayor Miller has introduced since then - including the particularly inspired but less aptly-conceived ‘Our Common Grounds’ initiative - have been reflective of the TYC campaign, there is a lot of work left to do.
Improve the business climate. The decision to create a large film studio complex near the port lands was one of the most important but under-reported decisions city council made all of last year. I don’t know anything about business in all truth, but a film studio complex will bolster already strong reputation Toronto has for shooting movies.
Initiate more citizen involvement. After too many years of a Mel Lastman-led city council that didn’t care about what Toronto’s citizens had to say, it’s heartening to see that Miller’s council has initiated the ‘Roundtables on City Issues’ as well as introduced the 311 service for public inquiries. The best thing the Mayor has done, however, is the ‘Listening to Toronto’ initiative that was one impetus for the new City of Toronto Act. I had the opportunity to assist in some of the Listening to Toronto sessions, and I will admit that although not all of them were remarkably productive, every member of the public that left the session felt inspired and empowered. Let’s hope Miller — or whoever wins the mayoral race this November — makes this a yearly event.
I’ll admit, I’m not usually a fan of the travel section of newspapers. I usually skip them over pretty quickly. However, Eye Magazine’s short and well-written travel section seems to have won me over: the articles are short and to the point, and surprisingly topical compared to other travel sections that only write about Europe adventures and South American tours.
Last week’s Eye had a little Plan B box that outlined “Five Mini-Expeditions You Can Do” in North America. They included:
- Kayaking BC’s Queen Charlotte Islands.
- Cycling the Baja peninsula, Mexico.
- Hiking the entire Bruce Trail, Ontario.
- Platform camping, Florida Everglades.
- Late-winter camping, anywhere.
I’ve done three of the five, and I must admit that I’m quite excited to get going on the other two. You don’t have to be a hard-core outdoorsman (or even rich) to do any of them either, all of the expeditions on that list are accessible and affordable.
If you’re not much of a kayaker, the Queen Charlotte Islands are fun, but try starting with a short paddle around Saltspring Island instead. Saltspring Island has a lot of places where you can rent a kayak, stay on-shore overnight, and even have some fine dining, not to mention some great organic farms where you can buy some fresh groceries for cooking.
As for the Bruce Trail, it’s quite long, so if you’re not ready to devote your summer to exploring over 850km of trail, there’s quite a few selections of the trail that are wonderful to discover. I strongly suggest checking out the Bruce Caves for some great spelunking, or Rattlesnake Point for some awesome rock climbing. If you’re into the scenic stuff, the northern tip around Tobermory is a fun part of the trail to check out.
If you’re looking into some late-winter camping (though I will admit that snow camping is much more fun — especially if you get to build and sleep in a quinzhee), you really can’t go wrong with some camping in the Rockies. All the winter ice and snow melting into the lakes makes for a muddy, but remarkably beautiful setting, and Jasper National Park is not only a perfect place to camp by the Athabasca, but the town’s not too far away in case of emergency food runs. If you want to stay closer to home, you really can’t go wrong with Algonquin Park.
I can’t comment on the Baja Peninsula or the Everglades, but do know that they’ve been put on my list of things to do in the next five years. First, I need to learn how to ride a bike.
The winners of the 2006 Lulu Blooker Prize for Blooks were announced yesterday, and Julie Powell, Zach Miller, and Cherie Priest were judged to be the best in each of their respective categories. Celebrating the best in blooks (books with content that was developed in a significant way from material originally presented on a website), the Blooker Prize is an extremely important exercise in recognizing a rapidly growing literary form that is still flying under the radar of mainstream cultural consumption.
Julie Powell’s Julie & Julia, the tales of a a 30-year-old secretary living in a bohemian apartment in Queens who spent 365 days cooking all 524 recipes from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking was taken from her Salon blog which chronicled tales from her kitchen in a humorous and compelling way. Cherie Priest’s Four and Twenty Blackbirds is a Gothic novel that was created through her serialized writing on her LiveJournal. Zach Miller, a minor celebrity because of his popular webcomic Joe and Monkey, capitalized on his web success by releasing Totally Boned, a collection of stories and drawings about Joe and his extremely-cool monkey.
I must commend Lulu for creating the Blooker Prize, and for bringing recognition to a rapidly growing form of content-generation for literature: the world wide web. As a personal publisher, Lulu has made it possible for the general public to create and distribute books, leading to rise in new names and new trends in the sphere of publishing. Blogs and webcomics, the most prevalent forms of syndicated serialized content on the internet, have been largely ignored in the literary circles because of their lack of print permanency. Luckily, blooks have been increasing the exposure of web content, and are bringing about a change in an often-stagnant literary culture.
Charles Dickens’ greatest works originally appeared as serialized works in newspapers, and blooks are no different; only the medium of serialization has changed in today’s digital world. As I alluded to in my earlier post on the Man Booker Prize, literary awards are extremely vital to fostering a culture of reading within our contemporary culture based on instant gratification. The Lulu Blooker Prize is even more pivotal, as it casts aside the notion that books are static works, and embraces dynamic content. Congratulations and thanks to Lulu, Julie, Zach, and Cherie, as well as all the other short-listed writers: you’re helping those of us creating content on the web gain the exposure that we have been sorely lacking.
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