Testy of the Danforth
Posted by gigantichound on 22 Aug 2007 at 08:21 pm | Tagged as: Toronto
We missed Taste of the Danforth, except for the first night, when we got to enjoy the all-night whooping afterparty in Withrow Park. (1) Needed. 2) More. 3) Cops.) We went camping after that, not at all coincidentally.
But Val Dodge went, and wrote a satisfying rant for Torontoist:
So the question remains, why do people come to the Taste of the Danforth? It’s absolutely the worst way to experience the neighbourhood because much of what is imported for the event is so generic that it could be called the Taste Of Some Random Place Where We Happen To Be Holding The Corporate Branding Festival This Week. The restaurants are too crowded for all but a lucky few to get tables, the stores are too packed to enjoy shopping, and it’s impossible to walk anywhere along the street without merely flowing with the crowd. It can’t be for the live shows, which you can get any Friday or Saturday night at more than a dozen venues along the strip, running the gamut from bouzouki and blues to flamenco and belly dancing, with a dash of comedy for your enjoyment. It can’t be for the bargains, which are harder to find this weekend than any other. And it can’t be for the atmosphere, which is best described as, “walking down the street with 100,000 of your most disappointed friends.”
The comments are worth a look: #13 claims the local restaurants lose money on the thing.
I read that thread of comments the other week and resisted chiming in then, but will now. What Taste-haters seem to miss is that people go *because* of the crowds, *because* there are lots of people crowded together and enjoying themselves at the same time, *because* you can walk around in the middle of the street and run into someone you know from someplace you worked 11 years ago, or check out someone cute who’s buying a funnel cake. It’s certainly not particularly Greek in tone (and that would go for the Danforth these days in general), but it is a large, highly functional, and extremely typical street festival.
I think it’s probably ’cause it reminds half the city that the Danforth is a cool place to be… the rest of the year. I wonder what the restaurant business is like for a month or two afterwards, vs. a month or two before?