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I truly respect you as a valuable contributor here at UT and I'm most often on board with your comments. But not here.
I do agree with your resentment to losing the Alexander & Church space, I miss it too. If you hung out there often enough you'd know my face - and my dog who is always by my side. For 4 maybe 5 years I'd sit there with a friend or friends slowly sipping my decaf, chatting, hanging out, meeting new people and enjoying the evening (I very rarely have a drink anymore, so bars are not so much my thing for the last decade or so) - but then the corner got a little too freaky.
There really wasn't a gay village in the 80's, most of the clubs were on Yonge Street or scattered here and there between Bloor and King Street, though a lot of gay men lived in the area.
Soooo, you've never seen two drunk/stoned or SOBER drag queens going at it or a drunken lover's quarrel gone bad? It happens. But that's really not the issue. I don't want to make the Village area sound like it's a dangerous "no-go" area, that's just not true at all. But you should watch your back in and around the Village at night, well - anywhere at night really.
I've lived and haunted this area for close to 30 years, I've seen some crazy, messed up stuff. I do many of the Midnight Madness screenings at Ryerson during TIFF and I dread that walk home at 2am'ish, it's even sketchier south of Carlton - like back in The Barn days, walking from there to around Alexander Street could be a little daunting at times. Don't fool yourself into thinking that drug dealers are cool and harmless, and that there aren't some very desperate and messed up people wandering the area. That would be foolish. Enjoy your outings and be aware of your surroundings. Hopefully new spaces to congregate will come again soon under KWT's watch.
 
Never new it was that bad, seems much worse then anywhere on the west side (where I frequent quite late at night and it isn't nearly as bad ... though I agree in general you always need to be careful), but that probably goes to just how much more social housing / cheap rental stock, there is on the east side.
 
Apparently crime is higher in the Bay Street corridor area. Go figure.
 
Actually its funny (bad choice of words perhaps) but you are correct ! I've been stats for various crimes per area, this is a generalization but oddly enough Bay street ... of all streets ... is generally on this list as one of the top streets in Toronto for crime, clearly we're not referring to murder here, rather other things (e.g. theft / assault) ... but I find that so hard to believe, I frequent bay street late at night so often (just as a means to get somewhere else) and its generally devoid of anything !

Anyway, I will stick to my generic comment earlier about the east vs west side, but again, there are reasons for this, and in my opinion many are bad decisions by the city in terms of concentrating social housing in particular areas, but it seems something we've leared from given redevelopment of things like Regent Park / Alexender Park.

With that said, I don't think Church street it self has a lot of shelters per say directly in the area ? Rather just very cheap areas to rent, relatively speaking ?
 
Alfred. Dry-cleaners. Just north of Wellesley, west side. It's only a dry-cleaners, but I really like the store-front. Blue, yellow and white.

That's all. :)
 
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Not at all surprised with the by accidental on purpose running out of time for the EA about sidewalk widening. Pedestrians in Toronto are 3rd class citizens, lower than someones leased honda they abandon in the public right of way, apparently.
 
Fly to close after World Pride. Sadly, it seems the owner has no interest in KWT's efforts to re-locate the dance license elsewhere in the Village. Go Grindr!
I'm so glad - and lucky, that I had years of amazing experiences when gay culture was establishing itself and clubs were at it's true height in Toronto. In ten years people will be watching the Pride parade on 3D holographic devices instead of experiencing it on the street.
 
dt_toronto_geek said:
Fly to close after World Pride. Sadly, it seems the owner has no interest in KWT's efforts to re-locate the dance license elsewhere in the Village. Go Grindr!
I'm so glad - and lucky, that I had years of amazing experiences when gay culture was establishing itself and clubs were at it's true height in Toronto. In ten years people will be watching the Pride parade on 3D holographic devices instead of experiencing it on the street.
Click to expand...

This is really sad. Not because I'm a huge fan of the place (although it's fun from time to time), but because there's so few places left to dance. I hate to throw out the "decline of the gay village" theory but it seems more and more that we're falling onto that path.

What are we left with in terms of club space? Crews & Tango and Buddies, neither of which are designed as club spaces? That's pretty awful. Where are gay men supposed to go dance?
 
Let's be real, who's really to blame for Fly's closing? It's not like any of us have been regularly going there for the past few years. Five years ago, lineups went all the way to Yonge Street. Now they are begging people to come in with free cover and $4 drinks.

It may be because I'm young, but I won't miss Fly. At the end of the day, it was just another gross club. I know this comment will spark comments about the demise of the village, but that's a whole other debate I can go on about for days.
 
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