I wasn't going to weigh in on this issue because, as some here know, postering just unnerves me to an irrational extent and I can rant on about it for pages on end (which I suspect I'll do here). But I have to say that going to work this morning, and seeing what was an ad-free stretch of King yesterday totally blanketed in ads today for various crap, just brought into focus what I think is the salient issue here, and that's this:
I think Toronto may be unique among most cities - at least in my experience having visited a number here and in the US, and through years of seeing shots of other cities on SSC - in having a complete and utter contempt for its public realm.
I can't think of any other city (and I've been to New York, Washington, Chicago, etc.) that tolerates the daily placing of thousands and thousands of ads *everywhere* along its main streets. I'm not just talking the Queen Street-type of areas, I'm talking about *everywhere*, the financial district, harbourfront areas, residential districts, pretty much everywhere you can think of. It's astonishing to think that there are dozens of companies, with perhaps scores of employees going around the city with the *sole* intent of placing as much street spam as possible wherever they can. I have *never* seen this anywhere else, at least to the degree that I've seen it here. Again, I acknowledge that in, say, areas like the East Village in New York you see this kind of thing. But certainly not to the extent I've seen it here on a commercial basis. Certainly, you don't see the equivalent of "Think in Spanish" or other crap plastered around Wall Street, or other major areas. And even when I stay at the St. Mark's in the East Village, that area has a cleaning crew (Partnerships is what they call them) that sweeps the streets *and* removes ads on a daily basis, at least in some areas. It's not pristine by any means, but compared to Queen or King it's positively antiseptic.
Certainly, walk a few blocks over to NYU, and you don't see ads anywhere, not one, on any pole or mailbox or other street furniture. No hundreds of ads for nightclubs, LSAT preps, Essay Experts, Think in Spanish, Avenue Road psychics, shitty $3 shot bars, and all other manner of spam businesses trying to separate students from their money. It's astonishing, I literally gaped when I saw this. Same at Columbia. It just brought home how shitty and slummy we've allowed most of the downtown to become. I mean, when I first posted these shots of Bloor and Spadina from 1963, I couldn't believe what I was seeing:
Even into the mid-1970s, it wasn't *that* bad, yet, although there were traces of this stuff beginning to appear:
Or take a look again through Mustafa's before and after threads. Aside from the cars and people's dress, the other thing that strikes me is the complete and utter lack of clutter, in the form of postering mainly, in addition to the absence of newspaper boxes (and graffiti), which really shows how much the appearance of the public realm in this city has declined. It just seems that back then, and I'd say even well into the 1980s, there was so much more...restraint...in the public realm, on the part of people who lived here and operated businesses. It clearly was respected more, and the city clearly maintained it to a higher standard.
College and Grace, 1973:
http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/show?82853
King/York, 1990:
http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/show?98224
Queen/Bathurst, 1980:
http://world.nycsubway.org/perl/show?35718
I can go on, but I find it striking how, in past years, various companies just didn't need to place ads everywhere (keeping in mind it was technically illegal, but I suspect the city just removed them anyway, as it should now, but doesn't as much as it should). Really, the only places in the city that look somewhat like this are those BIA areas that have a budget to remove this kind of thing, the Downtown Yonge BIA being the best example. Which is why I support BIAs and what they do, as they at least *try* to maintain a clean, orderly public realm such as the city used to do, and still does if you prod them enough.
What's worse, I find, is the adoption of this "spam" approach by companies operating businesses like junk haulers and plastering residential areas. In my area, they're everywhere, and I wherever I go for my walks, I take down any ad I see. If I walk for an hour, I may take down 50-60 posters, minimum, every few days. The rest I ask the city to take down, because these people just keep coming back. It's ridiculous.
I'll repeat what I've said earlier on this topic, and that is that this city has absolutely no pride, no restraint, no interest in maintaining a public realm that, even if slightly shopworn, at least isn't further assaulted by endless and opportunistic commercialism. It sucks away any dignity that the already-shabby look of the city south of Bloor has, and in my opinion is one the chief reasons, if not *the* chief reason, why the city looks as bad as it does. I'm almost certain that many of the metal poles that are rusted out haven't been painted over or replaced because I can see someone in the city bureaucracy saying, why bother when as soon as we do it, the "think in spanish" people or some nightclub or an essay mill is going to plaster them with ads the second the paint dries or the pole is replaced. I can't blame the city for that, but it doesn't make it right. It only reflects upon the timidity and cowardice of the city to tackle this problem.
Look at those old photos again. The poles along that stretch of College, for example, are in some cases fifty years old, and things looked, at a minimum, more dignified and clutter-free, if not exactly cutting edge. But add thousands upon thousands of obnoxious, ratty, peeling and fading ads slapped up everywhere, and what was shopworn, if tidy, descends into utter squalor and neglect.
But again, this seems to be what so many people in this city want. And I think this is so ingrained now that streetscapes of tired, postered-over, rusted-out, scratched-out light poles and street furniture whose function seems to be chiefly as a place to put up ads for nightclubs, language schools, essay mills, etc don't matter to people anymore, really, because we're so inured to seeing these ads glued up everywhere that I don't think many people living in this city now remember a time when you didn't see an ad put up somewhere every few feet. The shock of seeing those old pictures without these ads everywhere is like watching a hockey game circa 1980, when the boards and ice surfaces were clean and free of sales pitches. It's depressing, but what can you do? Gotta protect "public space", right? Is it any wonder that graffiti and littering have followed in lock-step with this? It’s as though there’s a generation that’s come of age over the past 15 years or so that just seems determined to bring the down the appearance of the city as much as possible.
So what other conclusion *can* I draw other than the people who run this city, and a large chunk of the people who live in it (at least downtown), just don't give a shit? I think now it seems that Toronto is now in a permanent state of semi-squalor, with some attractive buildings here and there operating as tiny islands of dignity and aesthetic aspiration in a sea of messy clutter and spam. So add this to an already pervasive air of neglect and there you are. And everyone who goes to a nightclub, or patronizes a business that advertises in this way is part of the problem. Sounds harsh, but there you have it. I do what I can to fend off this trash from my area, but clearly I’m a majority of one on this issue.
And the imbecilic Spacing crowd who defends and promotes postering don't realize that the very thing they're trying to prevent (the commercialization of the public realm) is exactly what's coming about *because* of this practice. So now we have what we have, a city wallpapered with crap, due to misplaced tolerance, indifference, greed, cowardice, and a perverse sense of selfish self-entitlement.
Feh, postering rant over.
