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| Proposed "Film Set" Neighbourhood |
Would you ever consider living in an actual permanent film set? Sounds interesting and exciting right? It would probably not be feasible, let alone desirable for the long term however. What if though, the film set was a fully mixed-use vibrant neighbourhood with cafes, restaurants, grocery stores, and was located right downtown on the waterfront with promised LRT access? What if it was next door to the future site of the Pan Am games amenities and sport facility, and the neighbourhood would be a very faithful replica of famous neighbourhoods in New York, Chicago, and London? If you are even slightly interested, or at least intrigued, welcome to the future of approximately 13.5-hectares of Toronto’s waterfront revitalization. On November 14th Pinewood Studios Toronto in partnership with a group of investors including Build Toronto (which is completely city owned) announced its “go-ahead plan, it’s not a dream plan” vision to build a fully realized complete neighbourhood including condominiums, low rises, a hotel, a public plaza, and a mixture of retail, all of which would be in various parts modeled after famous international locations and used as film sets throughout the year, while simultaneously being operational as lived-in city neighbourhoods. Ambitious, daring, and perhaps genius - or a fiasco in waiting? If such a lifestyle interests you, the apartments will apparently be priced at approximately $500/sq. ft, which is a hundred dollars less than the current average of $600/sq. ft for waterfront condos in Toronto. The catch is, of course, since the whole area including the streets are privately owned, Pinewood studios would be able to close down the streets to film whenever and as long as they wanted without permission.
Now that we’ve gotten the preliminaries out of the way lets consider the odd and perhaps exhilarating new relationship living in such a neighbourhood would create with one’s sense of place. What would waking up everyday in New York or London and then transiting (or walking!) to work in Toronto be like? If you loved living there would you love it because it’s Toronto or because it mimics another city? Would walking down several streets that span not only architectural styles but the context of continents be disorienting; or perhaps worse, a jarring pastiche? Logistically would the clash of pretend realities have fateful real implications such as whether the European sections would have opposite roadside driving? On a neighbourhood level, would it simply be the epitome of the worst impulses of post-modern architecture, familiar of everywhere but belonging to nowhere? Could such a neighbourhood of blatant and deliberate imitation ever develop a sense of identity of its own? What would you call your particular sub-neighbourhood/street? Little New York, maybe Faux Soho, perhaps London Lakeside? What about the rest of the city’s relationship with the film studio neighbourhood? If that neighbourhood becomes the most desired in the city, would that odd predicament add yet another level and degree of insecurity and want-to-be-a-world-class-city-but-isn’t neurosis onto our fair Toronto? Would the film studio neighbourhood perhaps become disdained, the butt of jokes from the rest of the city, perhaps robbing Yonge and Dundas Square of the infamy of being the worst cringe inducing New York rip off? Perhaps the city would be proud of it and show tourists how much we too can be like London or Paris, even if it is in a distressingly literal sense? If the concept becomes a massive overwhelming success, will we soon be planning neighbourhoods based on even further reaches of the world?
If we do, such neighbourhoods will be far different in essence than Chinatown or the Gerrard Indian bazaar, because they will become, on a very real level, not China in Toronto but Toronto as China. What would become of Toronto then - a city more somewhere else than it is here? Ultimately the places we inhabit and more importantly call home are safe and welcoming because they are ours. They are a part of our identity. What would living in a perpetually displaced and rented microcosm do to someone’s ability to feel at home, to make a home? Toronto or Hollywood North has over the last few years become the stand-in for almost every other major city in North America. Every time we as Torontonians see our city, our street corner, our building, local cafe or library on screen pretending, being labeled as somewhere else, what does that do to our sense of home? Are we proud? Angry? Perhaps we are even wistful that it isn’t known widely and loudly as Toronto? The concept of a living film set, to be able to visit New York on a TTC fare, is nothing short of romantic. I don’t know if the film neighbourhood will be a success, or if it will even be built, but the concept excites me even as it troubles me with concerns. Many of us know, like, and celebrate Toronto as a city of neighbourhoods, of worlds collided in harmony. The mere fact that such a project is possible as a welcome addition to the city is because Toronto is a city of possibilities. Ultimately, in my opinion the success of the film studio neighbourhood, at least on a symbolic level (which when we speak of home is perhaps the only level), will depend on the strength of the sense of place, the sense of context, and the sense of the wider Toronto that those who will live there and those who will go there, will bring to it. Its success will depend on when we inevitably see the film neighbourhood on screen; will we recognize it as “wherever” or will we identify it as Toronto and react to it as home?
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