Later tonight, as part of the Top Comments community series, I will post a photo diary on the subject of the Toronto 2016 Pride parade. But first, the pre-game show. Or in other words, a look at the festivities on the days and hours before the parade.
The following took place from Friday afternoon through Sunday morning, on and around Church St. in downtown Toronto, the heart of the gay community. In the old days, the area was “affectionately” known as the Gay Ghetto. Nowadays, it’s just the Village.
Most of these shots were taken on Saturday.
TD Bank deployed a misting station on the street. Saturday was a pleasant day; this station was more heavily used on Sunday (parade) day when the hot sun more heavily baked the city.
The crowd filled the Streetfair on Church St. from Carlton St. stretching northward almost to Bloor St., a span of ten city blocks.
Super heroes took the day off from fighting crime to pose for photo ops.
Some people took advantage of the weather to show their stuff.
All of their stuff.
Cops posed with their rainbow colours on display.
And their K9 co-workers.
They posed with random citizens.
And walked about exchanging smiles and chit-chat.
TD’s outdoor wall of ATMs was decorated with a rainbow. The colours on the machines are a plastic peel-and-stick overlay. On the sidewalk, that’s chalk.
Another bank, CIBC, took a more low-key approach, with rainbow flags hanging in the windows.
RBC posted its Pride colours on an outside wall.
Telus, one of Canada’s major phone and internet service providers, updated its logo with a couple more colours. (This is a store front inside a major shopping mall a few blocks away).
Air Canada’s display is “Celebrating Canada’s pride around the world”.
Loblaws, a huge national grocery chain, went all in as a Pride sponsor.
You probably won’t recognize the historic building in which this store is located. Hockey, I have been told, is some sort of sporting competition, and quite popular in Canada. This building is Maple Leaf Gardens, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs for many decades until their last game in the building, in 1999. The interior was subsequently gutted and divided up for multiple use, including this store, and facilities used by Ryerson University, a liquor store, a clothing store, and others. It’s at the corner of Church and Carlton.
Inside the store, the aisles always seem to be busy as this location is both a neighbourhood food store, and something of a tourist attraction in its own right.
Rainbow cupcakes were available in the bakery section.
For those of you who remember the TV series Queer as Folk (the American edition, not the original British series), the characters often congregated at a bar named Woody’s. Though the series was set in Pittsburgh, it was actually shot in Toronto. This Woody’s bar is the actual location used in the first season; filming would take place in the wee hours of the morning after the bar closed to customers. When the series became successful enough to continue for a few more seasons, the production built its own replica of the interior on a set, so they could film as needed without disrupting the real bar. But yeah, for a while there when they went to Woody’s, they literally went to Woody’s.
Several stages were set up at locations along Church St., and were crowded during (almost continuous) show times.
The round building in the background is an ancient apartment building “affectionately” known as Vaseline Tower. It even has its own Facebook page. The nickname refers to … well, do I really have to explain?
Really, this was closer than I wanted to get to this woman and her pet.
Then this man unwrapped the snake from around her neck and put it on himself. I ended up wondering which one of them is the owner, not that it matters I suppose.
Later on Saturday night, the crowds were just as strong if not stronger, and the music from the multiple stages, bars, and restaurants was louder.
And in the darkness of nighttime, you can see into the retail floor of the Loblaws shown above.
And now a little diversion. On Sunday morning, parade day, Partner and myself went to a favourite old restaurant in Markham, a northern suburb of Toronto. We lined up for the opening moment of Sam’s Congee on this day. It’s a tiny restaurant, and very popular.
In the side window, a worker with asbestos fingers makes fresh rice noodle strips on a very hot steam tray. A cloth is laid down over the steam, and just barely covered with a ladle of liquid very thin rice mixture. When the liquid sets into a noodle form, the cloth is flipped over and peeled off.
Several fillings are available, shrimp being very popular. The long “noodle” is slashed into segments, rolled up, and served hot. This process repeats, very quickly, for hours at a time.
Just behind this station, in the main window, deep-fried dough is prepared. This is a very elastic dough.
Two short strips are cut, stacked, then pressed together with the back of a cleaver.
The dough is then stretched out and dropped into the deep fryer where it quickly sets up into the familiar shape (familiar, that is, if you eat at this type of restaurant).
At our table, I have a bowl of beef congee with peanuts. The fried bread sticks are dipped in the hot congee. Delicious. Also on the table are more bread sticks in the rice noodle wrappers. We had other dishes as well that arrived later.
Later that day, we stood curbside for the Pride parade which moved slowly down Yonge St. in downtown Toronto. Join me for Top Comments at 10PM Eastern (7PM on the west coast) for photos of the parade, and a brief dip into the controversy that arose during it.