A little background

This neighbourhood originated in the early 1800s and was a home to many Irish emigrants from the County Cork. Across the street from me is the first Catholic parish built in Toronto in 1887 named St. Paul’s Basilica, and around the corner is the oldest church in Toronto, Little Trinity Church which was built in 1843. Since these early years this community has undergone many changes unfortunately not all for the better and with successive ‘Ward 28’ governments the whole lower east side of Toronto has been a dumping ground for the highly medicated or impoverished of Toronto. But things are hopefully changing.

And Now

At the CRBA I am tasked with membership and communication. To this end I am using my passion to help improve and promote the area as a family community and get more neighbours involved with improving our streets and homes. One of my specific responsibilities is the Corktown newsletter which I recently branded ‘The Corktowner’. The newsletter is basically an eight page black and white document with a run of about 1200. Besides from my skill set, my reasoning to tackle this eight page quarterly publication was to bring some professionalism and consistency to the most read voice of Corktown. My thinking is simple; more people will get involved, advertise and promote Corktown if there is a sense of maturity and pride that emanates from its image.

My aspirations are that this newsletter can act as one of the major catalysts to not just a Corktown revival but resurgence. I do enjoy this area and hope that my efforts will contribute a sense of pride and commitment that all my neighbours will act upon.

Mourning the Suburb Detail

The symposium asked the question “how we know ‘the suburb’’” and aimed for a reflection on the legacy of the suburb through the concept of dwelling. “Dwelling” can have different meanings and in this case was understood not just as different types of architecture but as different relationships between subjects and space which have changed throughout history. For various reasons, this was a last minute project and the poster was needed ASAP.

With an understanding that this was to be a quick albeit whimsical last minute job, I accepted and went to work. After spending hours on the first skeletal iteration, Aleks emailed me with feelings of disappointment that it was not like she had imagined and that she needed it to be completely different. Yep, a true last minute project, no prep, no initial proposal and no state of common understanding before the work began. So after a few hours of back and forth about what she liked and was used to seeing I got back to work with what would end up being the final product.

Moral of the story? Even for a friend with a quick, last minute job it is always important to educate them to save you time in the end and produce what they need the first time. Next time…