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Toronto

Toronto just works. That’s the best way I know to describe it. It’s unlike any city of its size in the US. To begin with, there don’t seem to be any really dicey, scary neighborhoods. Some are better than others, to be sure, but I didn’t feel nervous anyplace we went, and we pretty much went everywhere. That wouldn’t be the case in an American city of two million people.

 

While Toronto is a very dense place focused on transit and pedestrians, it also manages to be very car-friendly. Driving was generally not all that unpleasant, except in a few specific neighborhoods. There are mile after mile of tightly-packed commercial districts of the sort I’d call “1920s streetcar strips” just like in Chicago, but they all seem more healthy and in tune with the neighborhood, with stores that residents would actually shop in.

Granted, it sometimes lacked the little “surprises” you see in Chicago, where the streetscape is interrupted by some infill from the 1950s or later. I always like these areas because they break up the monotony, but lots of people disagree on that.

There also seemed to be none, or very little, of the classic American suburbanization patterns of the 1950s. Apparently, while we were focused on individual ranch houses in sprawling suburbs, Canada was building dense suburban highrises that probably did much more to fix the postwar housing crisis than Levittown did. Unfortunately, these peripheral highrises apparently haven’t aged well, and many now house only those residents who are too poor to move someplace more appealing.

  

After being fortified with breakfast from a diner on Bloor Street, and after stopping at Wal-Mart for videotapes, we pretty much did the length of Yonge Street, and more. Mark got a Tim Horton’s fix. After covering large portions of the city, we made our way to the massive Loblaws at Queens Quay (because that’s what I do) and to dinner at a really cool old-style Chinese place with a moat and a bridge. Alas, I noticed that my tooth was getting more and more sensitive when I had my very hot soup.

Toronto

I’ve really only mentioned it twice, but my tooth had been getting a little worse for several days, and it peaked Monday night with me sitting up in bed at about 3AM almost reduced to tears. I decided that I had to do something about it, and that’s how we spent our Tuesday morning.

It was really pretty easy. We found an emergency dental clinic across from a graveyard on Yonge Street, and I got x-rays and a prescription for Vicodin and antibiotics within minutes. Canadian dentistry works much better than Canadian medical care, apparently, and my guess is that it’s cheaper primarily because most Canadians don’t have dental plans, making the field rather competitive since people have to pay out of pocket.

Everyone I’ve heard from says that the whole “single payer” health plan in Canada leaves a lot to be desired. Ditto for the drug plan, which doesn’t even exist unless you purchase a private plan or get one through your employer. As I found at the pharmacy, the drugs may be cheap, but the pharmacist’s fee for dispensing them can be rather steep. My two presciptions were about four bucks each for the pills and ten bucks each for the “service charge”.

Anyhow, I decided the pain was manageable and that I wasn’t going to let my tooth ruin our trip. Unfortunately, Mark was pretty much feeling like death at this point as well. His stomach was a nightmare, he was feverish, and he had chills. We had lunch at a Harvey’s in a rather bleak shopping center, took a short drive, and went back to the motel. With both of us in a sort of nether region of hell, we pretty much spent the rest of the day in our room, with him sleeping through most of it.

We did escape long enough to keep a dinner engagement with David and Jeremy, though. We must’ve seemed pretty pitiful, but we somehow managed to scarf down lots of Indian buffet before returning to the room to die.

Toronto

  

Things were better today. We’d originally planned more of a pedestrian day, but we were both a little iffy about that now, so we did another long drive instead, around the periphery of the city and then back down the west side and along the lakeshore, having lunch at a Subway because we both needed a piss and it was handy.

  

Eventually, we made our way downtown to the CN Tower.

  

After descending from the 147th story (or “storey” as the Canadians type), we went back to the room before having one more nighttime drive followed by pizza from Pizza Pizza, because we couldn’t get 967-1111 out of our heads after seeing it painted on every surface, building, and bench in town.

 

We both rather liked Toronto, especially knowing we were on sacred ground where Jane Jacobs had recently trod (trodden?).

Toronto to Pittsburgh

 

We took the long way out of Toronto before eventually getting on the QEW somewhere in the vicinity of Mississauga. It was the start of a very long drive that took us through Niagara Falls, across the border into Buffalo, and down to Pittsburgh, where we spent the night.

Along the way, Mark was impressed by how simple the border crossing was. I got to visit my first Wegman’s. We both got to see Buffalo and decided that it was worthy of a later visit.

This being the fifth anniversary of the night we met, we also had our obligatory dinner at Denny’s. This year is was at the location on the New York State Thruway service plaza just south of Buffalo. And if that doesn’t sound romantic to you, then you don’t know us very well.

Pittsburgh and Home

  

After a quick drive through Pittsburgh and a quick breakfast at my favorite diner there, we hit the road for home. As is the case on most days like this, the excitement was largely gone and was replaced by the drudgery of driving. To make things more fun, it was pouring down rain all the way from Pittsburgh to Winston-Salem. We had dinner at a diner and Beckley, and we went home.

Drama aside, it was a great trip.

Richmond

My sanity required a road trip this weekend, and the victim was either to be Knoxville or Richmond. The latter won, since a room at the Red Roof Inn was six bucks cheaper there.

I hadn’t spent any time in Richmond in about twenty years, the last time being a 1987 visit to my, ummm, friend Art when he was attending VCU. You know, of course, about “ummm, friends”, right? They’re friends with whom you’ve been a bit more than, ummm, friendly.

Anyhow, I had a rotten weekend back then (I think it was actually the last time I saw Art) but I loved Richmond. I waited far too long to return.

I left the house about 9:30 and didn’t really make any stops, save for a pilgrimage to South Hill, where my parents and I always used to have dinner on the way back from King’s Dominion or Washington. Alas, the diner where we always ate is now an Asian buffet in a rather bad state of disrepair.

 

I drove through Petersburg, which I’d only done once before, on a road trip to New York with my friend Jeff in 1988, when we were looking for a motel at 2AM. Petersburg is more pleasant in the daytime. Slightly.

I took US 1 rather than the freeway, which allowed me to see Colonial Heights and Chesterfield County, and to enter Richmond on the wrong side of the tracks (or the river, as it were). Richmond can seem to be a thriving place, but it’s also got some decaying pockets which can seem just plain creepy.

The whole city is full of contradictions like that, which is why I like it. It’s a strange synthesis of hyper-urban north and semi-suburban south, of decaying and depopulating rust belt city and booming sun belt metropolis. It’s got texture that places like Charlotte and Raleigh and even Atlanta will never have, yet its fringes can also exhibit a rather reassuring blandness. Like so much of Virginia, it’s comfortable, but just a little tired and worn-out looking. Richmond is where the south becomes the north. Or vice versa.

   

I made my way in through downtown, heading outward on US 60, through gentrified Shockoe Slip, gentrifying Shockoe Bottom, and the border vacuum surrounding some large park, to my motel near the airport in Sandston, a town which just screamed “hick”. But they did have a Golden Skillet there, and I had a lunch I hadn’t had since I was a kid. Predictably, it wasn’t as good as I remembered. There was also a very nice former Safeway from the 1950s, Richmond having once been part of the Safeway empire.

After lunch, I began exploring. Most of the afternoon was spent downtown, and in The Fan and Carytown.

  

I vaguely remembered downtown as being more active and populated last time I visited, but it seemed pretty well bereft of all retail or street life this time around. I did take some pictures of the old Miller & Rhoads department store, which is now being converted into something. Overpriced condos, I imagine. I also shot something that I assume was J.C. Penney.

  

The Fan is a neighborhood dating from the 1800s, apparently so named because of the way its streets “fan out”. It’s mostly populated by VCU students, yupsters, and other assorted gentrifiers. It’s a pleasant enough place.

Carytown is one of those classic low-rise 1920s streetcar strips, a lively retail and restaurant strip that has fared well over the years, especially as urban living becomes trendy again. It’s the kind of scene you find in all real urban places, but that boosters in wannabe cities (like Charlotte) invariably want to bulldoze or “densify” with bland, bulky condo developments containing chain steakhouses on the ground floor.

Carytown is also home to the Cary Court Park & Shop. Opened in 1938, this is one of the oldest planned shopping centers in the US. It’s been tarted up and made rather upscale now, but it was once a fairly utilitarian retail center with supermarket.

Dinner was at the Piccadilly Cafeteria near Westland Shopping Center, because they have the best roast beef of all the cafeterias. I came back into town via Broad Street. I’m working on an essay on cities that have one dominant main street , like Broad Street in Richmond or High Street in Columbus or Peachtree Street in Atlanta. I’ll link it when it’s done. Suffice to say, though, that I like it.

Richmond II

As I had a very bright motel room, I woke up about 6:30, which sucked, but which also allowed me to get moving early. I had breakfast at Ma & Pa’s Diner, which was OK, but not really worthy of a review. I stopped by the Kwik-E-Mart to stock up on Buzz Cola since we don’t have Kwik-E-Marts (formerly 7-11) in Winston-Salem. This one didn’t have Krusty O’s at all. Alas.

   

I did the whole Broad Street tour today, starting in East End, going through downtown, and ending in the suburbs. Along the way, I saw the only Extreme Pizza east of Texas; Extreme Pizza is a San Francisco chain, which had a location a block from my old apartment South of Market. I had lunch at the Richmond outpost later in the afternoon.

  

I covered most of the city, looking for old supermarkets and shopping centers and cool things to take pictures of. As is often the case, I shot more video than stills. But I really like Richmond; it runs the gamut from old row house neighborhoods to 1960s suburbia, and reads like a much bigger city than it actually is. But traffic and parking seemed really manageable, although it was a weekend.

   

I wandered back downtown and saw the Confederate White House, but I didn’t go in. I’d seen it as a kid too, although I don’t remember it being surrounded on three sides by a giant, ten-story hospital complex. There is no good angle where you can get far enough away to take a decent picture of it. But I found myself vaguely embarrassed as I tried to shoot it anyway, sort of like I was wearing a rebel flag T-shirt or something.

Last but not least, I ventured back into the south side, to see some old supermarkets I was ultimately too nervous to stop and photograph. I left town via Hull Street Road, pondering (as I always do in Richmond) why they feel the need to call so many of their streets (Cary Street Road, Broad Street Road, etc.) both “street” and “road” once they leave the city.

I was worn out from the heat and my lack of sleep when I got home. I was very happy the air conditioner is working again.

Photo Tour >>>

Winston-Salem to Charleston

We both needed a vacation. I needed to be surrounded by something a little more urban and Mark probably needed to be someplace a little less, well, San Francisco. We had a new (to us) Buick to break in. Charleston and Pittsburgh proved to be the perfect choice.

I’ve had a fetish for Pittsburgh since my very first visit in 1997. Even then, I thought it was both more aesthetically pleasing than San Francisco and also a more realistic place for mere mortals to live. I love the diners, the variety of neighborhoods, the fact that a viable working class coexists with a major collegiate presence, and that whole Rust Belt vibe. Pittsburgh has a very undeserved bad reputation as an ugly, grim, depressed sort of place. It’s not. It is, however, one of my favorite cities, and it’s probably the most likely big city I’d ever consider relocating to.

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But the trip started in Charleston, following a drive up a series of back roads that took us through Mt. Airy, Princeton, Beckley, and the Kanawha River Valley,a nd offered several Kroger locations for our convenience. Once in Charleston, we found an ancient Italian restaurant and had dinner before retiring to out stylish accommodations at the Kanawha City Red Roof Inn.