Two centuries ago, Toronto’s leaders set aside a parcel of land in its growing west end for the enjoyment of the public. It became Clarence Square, a classic Victorian park with handsome residences on its flanks.
They would be astonished to see it now. For one thing, the little patch of green is surrounded by an ever-rising forest of high-rise towers in glass and steel. For another, the square itself is an unsightly mess. A graveled dog park occupies one side, a homeless encampment another. The fountain at its heart is broken and encased in plywood hoardings. The lawn is full of weeds.
Old Toronto would be scandalized. We should be, too.
Clarence Square is a gem. Inspired by the design of London’s Regent Street, it was intended as the bookend of a grand boulevard, Wellington Place, now called Wellington Street. Another park, Victoria Memorial Square, was the other bookend.
That vision never quite took shape. Once an institutional hub – the home of Upper Canada College and one of Ontario’s early parliament buildings – the area became a manufacturing centre instead. The houses on two sides of Clarence Square were torn down, leaving just one row standing. A busy rail yard opened right next door.
When the area underwent yet another transition this century and became a tech and condo hub, city officials made plans to spruce up Wellington and its squares. They did a good job on Victoria, which boasts a playground, a paved pathway and a monument to the soldiers who fought the dastardly Americans nearby in 1813. Further upgrades are supposed to start next year. Once-rundown Wellington Street is coming alive, too, with new sidewalks and landscaping.
But they have botched Clarence Square thoroughly. Their first mistake was to install the dog park, which ruined its symmetry. Would London plunk a dog park in the middle of Bloomsbury Square? Not on your life.
Another mistake was overlooking routine maintenance. Even before the encampment sprung up, the park was looking tatty. Today there is a long strip of dried mud along the Spadina Avenue sidewalk. The stumps of dead trees have been left to mildew in the lawn. The dog-park fence is chipped and rusting.
The encampment itself is the usual collection of tents, tarps, sleeping bags and scattered bikes. At least two fires have broken out in recent months, one of which featured an exploding propane tank. In April, police said they found drugs in the camp and made a number of arrests.
Under pressure from frustrated local residents, the city has beefed up security and clean-up. It has found shelter for some of the tent dwellers and is working on housing for the rest. But the tents are still there, as they are in about 70 places around the city. Between last spring and this spring, the number of encampments in Toronto doubled.
What has happened to Clarence Square is especially galling when you consider what you see all around it.
Just 30 years ago, the area now known as King-Spadina was a desolate expanse of parking lots and old warehouses, the last place anyone wanted to be. Today it is a teeming live-work neighbourhood populated by tech workers and other cogs of the knowledge economy.
Scores of new towers have risen, giving this corner of Toronto almost a Manhattan or Hong Kong vibe. Just across the street from Clarence Square, developers are putting the final touches on the Well, an ambitious, imaginative mix of office, residential and retail space on the site of The Globe and Mail’s former headquarters. What must the people who live and work there think when they look over at Clarence Square?
As downtown Toronto boomed over the past generation, the city has worked hard to upgrade its public spaces to serve the hundreds of thousands of people who have gravitated to the core. It has spent many millions to hire top designers and landscape architects, often to brilliant effect. What it has often neglected to do is keep those new or renovated spaces in good repair.
Clarence Square is yet another example of this civic failure. A rich, successful city like Toronto should be able to do better.