Physical Demarcations of Space in Toronto

Demarcated spaces or neighbourhoods are evident in every city around the world. The rich-poor divide which has embedded class and ethnic characteristics. However in most cities the demarcation of space is an invisible barrier, whereby every neighbourhood has a pre-established use. What i found interesting in the city of Toronto is an example of a physical demarcation of space in a neighbourhood already well known for its elite status - Bloor-Yorkville. Cemented into the pavement of the neighbourhood's major intersections , for example Avenue Rd. and Bloor St. is a sign demarcating this space as "Bloor-Yorkville". The pre-established notions of the Bloor-Yorkville neighbourhood as being one of Toronto's highest end shopping, entertainment, and living quarters, transforms these signs into a much more dynamic demarcation of space.
Are these signs insinuating that once entering this neighbourhood can only certain people enjoy its amenities, thus creating a physical rich-poor divide. Or do these signs create feelings of superiority among those who are able enjoy the luxurious amenities this neighbourhood as to offer. Whatever the feelings may be among those who can enjoy and among those who simply walk through, the physical demarcation of space through the use of a sign within our city's pavement has transformed the invisible barrier of this elite neighbourhood into a physical divide, one people physical cross when the walk passed this embedded sign.
I wonder if any one could think of any other physical divides that characterize Toronto's city scape?

The Flaneur

I was in London back in February and was just looking through the Lonely Planet guide and stumbled upon a restaurant named The Flaneur. The restaurant claims to be based on the essence of the Flaneur, who is a rich person that didn't need to work and that spent their time strolling around markets to show off their wealth. "A sign of just how much time you had to idle around used to be sometimes seen by people having a tortoise on a lead! We have brought this concept back by filling our shelves with artisanal & fine foods, so bringing the essence of the "Flâneur" to Farringdon."

The owners wanted to go for a feel where you could come sit in and watch people and enjoy a slow meal. But isn't the whole point of the flaneur so that you DON'T have some restricted framework guiding your actions and thoughts? So then, in wanting to achieve what the flaneur achieves, by walking idle around the city and interacting with everything for only short amounts of time, the restaurant actually fails.

I am by no means trying to critique the restaurant but just found it interesting to our discussions in the course. In a metropolis like London, I don't find it surprising at all that some people want to recreate the feel of the old bourgeoisie class in creating this restaurant, but from what we learned about what a flaneur is and how he lives and interacts with his surrounds, it seems incorrect to call this restaurant The Flaneur. Am I wrong in thinking so? Or could the concept of the Flaneur be changing when applied to a metropolis already full of people walking idle, and having a life full of only brief and rapid interactions with everything along its path? Could we call it a new postmodern flaneur character, one that actually sits and doesn't really interact with anything, if only to watch it from afar and actually not partake in the rapid city life? Instead of walking idle and interacting with the city, like the Flaneur in Paris of the 18th and 19th century, maybe London can bring this character some new definition and into the current century.

Walking Advertisements

The other day at the corner of St George and Bloor I saw something quite new, well at least to my eyes, this might have been going on for a while already but I only recently discovered it. It was something simple really, something we always see but something that I started questioning for the first time in a different way. It was a mannequin. However, unlike most that I see in store fronts sporting the latest fashions, this one was just there, at the corner, all by its lonesome self. Interestingly though, I think it was actually there on purpose. It was positioned to look like it was running and had one foot bolted into the ground. It was dressed all in black (black tshirt and black shorts, yet it had one logo on the front of its shirt). I wish I had taken a picture because my memory fails me as to what the tshirt said, but nonetheless it looked like an advertisement.

This got me thinking about how advertising companies have really changed, especially in larger cities like Toronto, and how such an ad could change what we talked about in class regarding street life and street dynamics. On a regular basis we're subjected to ads be it on posters, pasted on buildings, on billboards, in newspapers or even on other people, but now it seems to have come to life in a sense. It's not only on a flat screen but in the middle of the road forcing us to interact with it. People would slow down, look at it, trying to figure out what it was and I think in that it succeeded as a good advertising tool. It is still novel and so people are reacting to it and taking notice of it, but it makes me question what would be the next step up after the novelty wears off of this? What new 'characters' will be added to the street next and how will our forced interactions with them change our perceptions of the street?

I don't think it is entirely new what companies are doing now in order to sell their products. I remember a couple of years back reading about how Sony was using new tactics to sell its new phone, the first of the Ericsson series. Basically it would have a confederate walk the streets and ask people to take pictures of him/her with their new phone. And as he/she would hand their phone over to the willing citizens, they would get them to interact with the phone and hopefully spark their interest into buying it or at least inquiring about it.

This mannequin has worked in the same sense. Here I am, still talking about it, and I saw it weeks ago!