xtra.ca / Mercurial Queen West GALLERIES / The Toronto Free Gallery tracks the ephemeral history of the city's west end
"...Queen St West is a strange animal. Since moving to Toronto in 2002, I’ve always lived somewhere along it. I landed there accidentally, and I’m still baffled by the lightning speed of its transformation. When I arrived, the Drake and the Gladstone Hotels were derelict flophouses, and the street was dotted with a few galleries and legions of outpatients orbiting around the CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) grounds. And now?
Queen West is a seeming microcosmic intersection of so many sociocultural issues that have shaped this city; an initially derelict neighbourhood populated by artists, whose transformation from the edge of civilization to the epicentre of a marketing team’s idea of urban cool was so quick, it shocked anyone with any stake in the street and its encompassing neighbourhoods. And that’s putting a strain on Queen West (or Queen West West, as it was once known — I’m talking specifically about the section of Queen West that’s west of, say, Dovercourt)..."