02.23.2008 – The morning of February 20 a six alarm fire consumed more than half a block of Queen Street west of Bathurst. No one was harmed but homes and beloved neighbourhood businesses were lost.
¶ The picture above is that block, taken last summer. From 609 to 625 Queen were seriously damaged or destroyed. That’s most of what is to the left of the large tree near the middle of the picture.
¶ I was glad that I was able to share the portrait of the block while it was most relevant to people. Most of the changing Queen Street I document turns over more slowly, usually with warning. We don’t notice the losses so much when they are like small cuts, but this is a big scarring wound.
¶ While I feel for the people who have had their lives uprooted — we survived a home destroying fire when I was a child — this disaster has reinvigorated my commitment to the personal project of recording Queen West, because I know there are times the pictures are relevant to others. People want to remember what has been lost, like the Suspect Video outlet.
¶ East of Spadina, Queen West is now dominated by mammoth storefronts for global brands, with only a few local joints. The big brands have already spread past Spadina. The incursion was launched with the trojan horse of American Apparel. Now a Home Depot is already slated for a parking lot on the block that burned.
¶ As the community decides how the block will be rebuilt, the struggle for the soul of Queen West moves east from the Triangle — already abandoned by the fates to developers — to Bathurst.
