Towards a Sociology of the Toronto Filipino public space

Towards a Sociology of the Toronto Filipino public space

(Part 2)

By Ysh Cabana

In most communities today, the street has become almost exclusively the domain of the private automobile. To some, the street is only a way of going or a means of passage. Even pavements that may be present along major thoroughfares feel inhospitable and out of place.

Although Toronto neighbourhood streets offer various modes of transportation, walking and cycling are still difficult, especially outside the downtown core. As in the case of Wilson Heights, which includes six local parks, primary school, two greenbelts, and local hospitals, the suburban neighbourhood is typically separated from other uses by physical barriers and the lack of civic space. This legacy paves a quality of life in suburbia that needs to be greatly dealt with, to learn with regard to it and its broader future.

The street offers opportunities for interactions, which help build a sense of community and belonging. The exchange – either through an encounter or an engagement – among people who came, passed by, went, and those who stayed put is vital in understanding street life. Historically, towns sprung up along the sides of the streets on trading routes.

The scenography of the street allows one to observe people’s daily life and how they are differently represented through attributes that converge to create the notion of place. People transfer the perceptions of intimacy, meaning and emotions from meeting other people to meeting with the built environment. Naturally, people’s senses depends on distance and proximity. Where the ability to see, hear or become aware of something can be perceived remotely; the senses of smell, touch and taste are activated only when one gets closer.

Movement, or more specifically the speed at which people move, is also crucial. In truth, people continue to walk in public spaces at the same speed they have always done in fulfillment of the need to provide intense and emotionally powerful experiences.

The street then is representative of this at the human scale. It can help one to grasp the city’s meaning. The street transmits direct forms of exchange and expression of social forces: from public protests to friendly festivals.

Groups such as national-democratic network Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (New Patriotic Alliance) or Bayan-Canada have held information rallies, mass actions and similar protests in the parkette by the southeast corner of the Bathurst-Wilson intersection. Represented by various sectors, leaders have organized the People’s SONA (State of the Nation Address) to counter the public address delivered by the Philippine president on the situation of the country.

In May 2016, a walking tour with a theme on “Food, Migration & Identity” was conducted and participants had the opportunity to get a close encounter with the buildings in the area. From the sidewalk, people panned the scene and vehicle traffic first before crossing safely. Buildings look more or less whole entities. At close range, the experience somehow is intensified as tour conductors led the participants to stops and provided samples of local Filipino delicacies. It showed how almost everyone who participated and surveyed after had a strong sense of what was happening around. If the ground plane is interesting and varied, the urban environment becomes inviting and enriching.

To that latter point, some private interest groups held a pilot project called Taste of Manila, where a portion of Bathurst Street was closed to vehicle use from its point of intersection with Wilson Avenue up to Allingham Gardens–comparably as long as that of the stretch of Eaton Centre’s main floor. The concept was initiated by former Philippine Consul General in Toronto and now Ambassador to Russia Alejandro Mosquera, picked up by his successor Pedro Chan, and finalized formally during the term of Junever Mahilum-West in 2014.

On August 23, 2014, the intersection was ground zero to what has been claimed as the first Toronto Filipino street festival that is meant to harness creativity of the everyday. The highlight of this event was “the world’s longest boodle fight” where bench tables were lined up in the middle of the street along which about 200 people shared meals by picking up food with bare hands. While the prefix “taste of” is a hint for mini-kitchens and live cooking demonstrations, tents were hoisted also for real estate deals, insurance policies, satellite and cable TV subscriptions and everything else in between.

Fiesta-themed entertainment was also one aspect of the whole wide array of activities. Bamboo was ideally expressed as the dominant material in the setup for traditional games including pabitin, palosebo, and hampas-palayok. At Wilson Ave. end of the stretch was an entertainment stage where local Toronto-based performers and a Filipino celebrity are projected on a big LED display screen.

While there are all those “Bathurst and Wilson is Little Manila” pronouncements, the area is much more than that. Similar programmings have been remarkable in other major streets, including Danforth Avenue (Broadview to Jones), College Street (Bathurst to Shaw), Lawrence Ave. East (Warden to Birchmount), St. Clair (Christie to Winona), Roncesvalles (Boustead to Grafton) to the delight of the public even when a street isn’t necessarily designed to facilitate these “taste of” festivals.

Clearly, vernacular creative endeavours as such have the potential to alter a city and its quality of place. Their interventionist nature can lead to a permanent repurposing of public space in the urban fabric. Metropolitan cities around the world can enhance economic activity by making the street more vibrant. Fundamentally, to whom are the streets designed for?