This city is getting angrier with every day that passes. Whether you are in your car, walking down the street, on TTC or even in front of your computer, you will be able to see this anger that I am talking about. I can’t really explain why it is happening, but I have a few guesses.
Growing up in Toronto, we used to know many of our neighbours and would say hi to them, or hang out with them. As time passed, and new neighbours replaced the old, it seemed like the new ones only want to keep to themselves and it was difficult to even get a hello out of them. Even in my new building, most people really keep to themselves and it is very hard to strike up a conversation with those who live so close (and I have tried!).
I’ve lived downtown in CityPlace for 3 years now, and it wasn’t until just last week that I actually met and hung out with some of my neighbours. My condo had a party last week and once the party ended, my girlfriend Amanda and I ended up going to one of these “strangers” condo’s (which happened to be right across the hall from my own). We all had a great time and agreed to go out for one of the girl’s birthday parties the very next night at Ballroom.
Ballroom was a lot of fun, and we met a lot of new people (some others that lived in our building too). On the walk home my girlfriend and I talked about how nice it was for us to do something outside of our norm and go meet some new people. She was hungry though, and we decided to make a detour on our way home to grab a slice of pizza.
Once we hit King St. the darker side of Toronto began to shine through. Drunken people everywhere (or those high on drugs), many of whom were up to no good (yelling at random people, etc.). We had almost made it out of the King St. area when some guys grabbed another guys girlfriend’s arm and said “you don’t deserve her”. At this point we knew we had to get off King St. immediately before something else happened and decided to cut through the lane way where Spin (a ping-pong club) and F-Stop (a place that I went to once but never wanted to go back to after seeing all the Jersey Shore like douchebags in the crowd). We almost made it through the lane-way until just as we were passing F-Stop two black guys in there early 20′s said something to my girlfriend and grabbed at her. When the guy tried grabbing further up her jacket she pushed him off so that we could get out of there. The guy started pushing her back and I told him to leave her alone and that we were trying to just get home and finish our pizza (still in hand). The situation escalated quickly, and before I knew it I was surrounded by 10-15 other black guys (I only am saying race so that if you see a large group to be very careful) pleading to just let us go. Out of nowhere I was sucker punched in the back of the head and hit the ground. I don’t know what happened next, but my girlfriend said at this point the group started hitting me and stomping me while I was on the ground. At some point during all this, she was thrown on the hood of 1 of 4 cabs waiting in the lane-way to pick up passengers. Nobody did anything! Everyone just stood around watching, not even really trying to escape the area. Nobody called the police, nobody asked if we were alright, NOTHING. When we finally did get a hold of the police, they wouldn’t even come to the scene and told my girlfriend to go home and they would send someone there. WHAT IS THE POINT OF POLICE IF THEY AREN’T EVEN GOING TO COME WHEN YOU NEED THEM???
It is now been 2 days since I went in for surgery and had a metal plate and screws put into my ankle to piece it back together. Prior to the surgery I spent about 12 hours in hospitals after the first doctor didn’t even take the time to look at my x-ray and see that my ankle was clearly fractured (not once, but twice!). I can’t sleep for more than 4 hours because the many painkillers that I am on wear off and I need to take more. Basically I am at a very low time in my life, but I also feel like this has been coming for a while now.
When my girlfriend dropped me off at the hospital the day of my surgery, within a span of about 20 minutes she faced 3 more situations:
1) A women cut her off to steal her parking spot then verbally abused Amanda
2) A group of cyclist ran a stop sign then tried to vandalize my car (which she was driving) because she came close to hitting them when they were clearly at fault
3) A crazy guy was pulling his teeth out with pliers in the parking lot
This is the first time where I was jumped by a group of cowards, it happened once before when I was in high school, but no surgery was required. For my girlfriend, this is also not the first time she has been swarmed by a group of people. It happened to her before, and in that case most people just watched and did nothing. If it wasn’t for 2 brave Mamma’s Pizza employees she could have been much worse off. She has also told me of multiple scenarios of harassment by drunken indians (the ones that hang around Queen & Bathurst / Kensington Market) and squeegee kids in the area.
How is it that so many things like this are happening this often? Are we just having the worst luck in the world, or are other people experiencing similar situations?
Every time you leave bars or clubs downtown in this city, you are bound to see a fight. I live right on Spadina Ave. where all the “905ers” that come down for their one night of partying have to pass on their way home and hear all the yelling from cars every Friday and Saturday night. It has become so annoying that I am literally feeling suffocated by this city and jump at any chance to get away.
Meanwhile, real estate gets more and more expensive, taxes creep higher, food and other basic necessities get more expensive. This means your average citizen’s stress levels are ever-increasing and nothing is being done about it. More people are being shoved in smaller areas with increased condo development, which also leads to more traffic. To make matters worse, you have the police ready to give you a ticket for going a few KMs per hour over the speed limit, a parking ticket for not having enough change on you at the time, and now a ticket to otherwise responsible adults just trying to enjoy a drink in the park.
The real issues in the city have nothing to do with a certain group of people, there is a much bigger issue at hand. The quality of life is on a rapid decline in this city, and you can see this by visiting any bar or club on the weekend. People have to numb themselves with so many drinks or drugs just to tolerate life.
The scariest thing about this is it is only getting worse.
The point of this post isn’t to ask for sympathy or to scare you, but just let you know what is going on out there and to be careful. I am curious to see if I am alone in these feelings or if other people are going through similar situations and feel the same way. Also, what do you think we can do about this to make this city better, because I just don’t know anymore.
When I lived in Argentina for 6 months one of the things I looked forward to the most about coming home was how safe it is. Unfortunately I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t feel safe in this city anymore and hope that it can change one day.
We need to get back to being friendly and saying hello to strangers, helping those in need, offering a seat to someone in need on public transit and not being afraid of one another.
