Bad news in

TORONTO — THE sigu along the 401 at Ajax, an indus-
trial suburb, tells part of the story. It said simply: ‘‘Court
Ordered Sale — 23 Building Industrial Portfolio.”’

If one reads the self-important
bibles of Toronto, led by The
Globe & Mail, The Financial Post,
Maclean's and other community
publications that masquerade as
“national,’’ the impression is left
that the current tale is dollars and
cents.

It is actually a story of
psychological confusion. Toronto
the omnipotent is no more.
“Toronto the Good,’’ that collo-
quial manifestation of Presbyter-
ian ethics married to sound
business principles, is no more.

Not only is the economy on the
rocks, and a highly muddled NDP
government in place, the constitu-
tional talks appear certain to
diminish Ontario forever.

Fer those who remember
Toronto at its insufferable,
patronizing zenith, it is worth a
contemporary safari.

We went first to the war zone,
where every Canadian financial
institution has erected a phallic
symbol: ‘“rhe One Canadian
Roundest Highest Shiniest Collec-
tion of Dollars Building.*’ (This is
Culture in Toronto, only slightly
less important than the Skydome
and the CN Tower.)

Each building's statement of
power is absurdly challenged by
the ‘For Lease”’ signs. In most
cases, these are discreetly placed
in the high-traffic areas of office
foyers. In more desperate in-
stances, massive banners, three
storeys in height, hang from upper
exterior flours.

The ultimate sadness is in places
such as Eaton’s Centre, and the
surrounding underground laby-
rinth connecting several city
blocks. This is Canada’s number
one shopping arcade, by any
definition. What should be a
fascinating array of shops is like a
cemetery of small business.

We sead that Eaton’s is having
a tough time paying its rent across
Canada (vigorously denied by
Eaton’s brass). During this trip
east — and in Vancouver for that
. matter — we went by many Mac's

Milk outlets with papered up win-
dows. Crayoned lettering wel-
comes visitors: ‘‘This Outlet Per-
manently Closed.’’

We have seen them in Van-
couver, and at Ontario locations -
in Ottawa, Kingston and Toronto.
Always the same crayons or magic
markers. Always the same words:
“Permanently Closed.”

At every anonymous storefront

~ in Eaton’s Centre, and every

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**Going Out of Business Sale,’ I
wonder about the faded dreams of
the owners. And the rents they
must have been charged to park
themselves next to the greatest
Eaton’s store in the land.

We knew that the so-called
czars of Canadian business, the
bank chairman, the Reichmans,
the Bronfmans, Bob Campeau
and their myriad corporations
once referred to in hushed tones:
Trizec, Bramelea, Cadillac Fair-
view, Olympia & York et.al. had
become monumental screw ups.

With a minimum amount of
research, | have now encountered
several companies that are actually
being paid handsome amounts of
money to move their offices into
otherwise desperately empty build-
ings.

Imagine that: *‘We will. spend
$500,000 partitioning and fur-
nishing your 10,000 square foot
office in our building; for the first
two years, we will pay you $1,000
a month; we will pay taxes and all
service costs; we will provide you
15 free parking spaces under-
ground, in exchange for a 10-vear
lease at $20 per square foot.”

The joke in this arrangement is
that the new tenant immediatcly
incorporates a new company to
sign the lease: if the office proves
unsatisfactory for any reason, the
new company goes bankrupt and
its one creditor becomes the
jandlord.

ist PAIR *59.99

This is the war zone,
cuphemistically known as the high
rent district.

We were escorted to our room
in the Harbor Castle Hotel by an
expatriate Vancouverite, a
Chinese beliman who tola us he
has been in Torento for five
years.

He lamented that he is fre-
quently homesick. | suggested to
him.that at this moment in histo-
ry, Toronto is not itself. When
things are good — which is most
of the time — it is a place of ac-
tion and excitement. Whatever the
city lacks in charm, atmosphere,
geography and creativity, it
replaces with energy and achieve-
ment.

But that is not 1992.

The Harbor Castle is a story in
itself. Built as one of Bob
Campeau’s self-aggrandizing ex-
ercises, it immediately excelled as
a waterfront condo development.
One tower was a success story
from day one. The hotel, which
should have been to Toronto what
the Pan Pacific quickly became to
Vancouver, has been a struggle
from its first day of business.

It has taxed the talents of not
just foolish general managers, but
some of the best the Canadian in-
dustry has ever produced (notably,
Victor T. Burt of Hilton Interna-
tional, a West Vancouver home-
owner who manages the Drake
Hotel in Chicago, and Westin’s
top Canadian personality, the cur-
rent manager, Bob McCautey).

Aside from the massive bomb
shelter known as the Toronto
Convention Centre, the Harbor
Castle is the dominant locale for
important local events. And this
means an impressive percentage of

national Canadian events.

Like the city it serves, it is sear-
ching for a new identity.

In Don Mills, North York,
Rexdale and Mississauga a similar
pattern emerged: the fancy places
are in deep trouble.

Yet we pushed the car through
some of the old haunts in the
poorer districts of Scarborough,
East Richmond Street, and west
of Yonge and Spadina along

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833 West Broadway
873-3941

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987-1611

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Sunday, July 12, 1992 - North Shore News - 9

Dundas, Bloor and up to Egl-
ington. We went into a shop on
Ossington Avenue. There was no
time for Junch in Little ftaly, but
there was time for a good fook
around.

Like one of those lightbulbs
cartoonists draw, there came a
sudden realization. In ethnic
Toronto; in basic Toronto; in or-
dinary Toronto — not one damn-
ed thing has changed. There were
no empty shops, no bankruptcy
signs, there was no sense of panic,
and no confusion. It was business
as usual. ;

It was the same artistic mess it
has always been, an explosion of
color and hand-painted signs, a
cacophonic hodge podge.

As we turned back from Cedar-
vale Park toward the downtown
waterfront and our hotel, we
began to-smile. The folks were
OK. Mental anguish has been
confined within privileged circles.

When the CN Tower and the
highrise monuments to national

°9? for Toronto the Good

exploitation came back into view,
we thought of Ozymandias of
Egypt, the Shelley poem.

Shelley describes a statue found
ia the desert sands, and a fear-
some inscription from this once
powerful ruler: ‘‘Look on my
works ye mighty and despair!"’

It concludes with these words:

**Round the decay of that col-
ossal wreck, boundless and bare,
the Ione and level sands stretch far

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