Bye bye, Big Bop
Yet another Toronto institution is closing its doors forever.
In January of 2010, the iconic Big Bop will be no longer. Located at Queen and Bathurst, the Bop is the home of Kathedral, Holy Joe’s, and Reverb, and is known to many as a favourite venue for Toronto’s indie music scene.
A cold wind seems to be blowing through Toronto’s west end these days. In the past year or so, we’ve seen a major stretch of Queen West’s historic district burned to the ground only to be replaced by a Home Depot. Then Pages Book Store went under. More recently, the Cameron House went up for sale, and the beloved Lee’s Palace Mural has been torn down to make way for a burrito stand (although, to be fair, the latter is being repainted by the original artist, so that’s not really a total loss.)
What’s happening to TO’s underground scene?
MartiniBoys describes Queen West’s transformation as going from “boho haven to Lulu Lemon mid-level retail paradise”. Personally I’m never one to stand in the way of progress, but this trend of sacrificing the bohemian culture upon which QW was built seems to be anything but.
A point best summed in the last paragraph of MartiniBoys’ post:
Rumour has it that the conspicuous [Big Bop] building will house the first Canadian outpost of Crate&Barrel’s new furniture store brand, CB2.
The horror.
More furniture stores on Queen West? Ugh…
BTW, Lee’s is on Bloor West. 🙂
“Lee’s is on Bloor West”
Yup, which is why I just referenced “Toronto’s West End” in that bit 🙂
Which is a little unnerving, as it makes me worry that the Annex might be next 🙁 Sure you can already get a Starbucks there and it’s a great place to buy an overpriced futon, but as soon as someone comes along wanting to put a Williams Sonoma in the Bloor Cinema, the whole area will go from “Poverty Chic” to just plain “Chic”
With it’s proximity to the University, I doubt it’ll transform as much as Queen West. University students are always going to need a cheap outlet. 🙂
You’re probably right…which is to say, I hope to hell you’re right.
Everyone’s beef with Toronto is that it has no culture of its own, and that simply untrue; you just have to know where to find it. But when these same people that are making that kind of complaint clap their hands excitedly when another old building is razed to put up a C+B, or put a grocery store in the Gardens, or let the Lakeshore Swimming Club sit unattended as it rots away, and so on and so on…it makes me a little sad.
A city’s culture is built on the spirit of the people that inhabit it. If that spirit dies, the culture will die with it.
I’m moving to Montreal.
This is definitely happening all over the west end (if not north america)… how many generations ago was the brunswick house cool before it started attracting 905 clubbers? mels delicatessen is closed, there is a duff’s wing’s eatery in the heart of little italy.
Stores that make neighborhoods neighborhoods are being forced further and further away. Hipsters are having a tough time too as the city of toronto put a ban on new bars in the newly hipsterized ossington/queen area
looking forward to low-income subterranean housing developments to make way for downtown outlet malls
“Hipsters are having a tough time too as the city of toronto put a ban on new bars in the newly hipsterized ossington/queen area”
More than that…there’s a sound ordinanace on Ozzy now saying no loud music after 9 on weekdays, no patios PERIOD, and a couple other things I can’t think of at the moment.
“looking forward to low-income subterranean housing developments to make way for downtown outlet malls”
C.H.U.D. T.O.
Jesus, the Big Bop? Good f’n riddance, seriously! I went there exactly once and it was one of the most desperate displays of humanity I’ve ever seen.
On a more relevant note, I saw a movie at the last weekend for the Carlton and then followed it up with all-day breakfast at Fran’s, the final act for an old tradition. But you know what? The Carlton sucked too, the screen was shitty, the admission fee too expensive, and the snack counter its usual corporate pit of hell. So really the Carlton completely deserved to die almost as much as the Big Bop. Plus, some bitter woman behind us totally jumped the gun on shushing us even though we were only talking during the previews WHO CARES.
/mood. 8)
P.S. Turn off the censoring software, dudes — it’s embarrassing.
I personally hate it when ppl are yapping over the coming attractions but that’s just me I guess 🙂
Ya I saw the Carlton was shutting down to, and I kinda shrugged that off. Was the Carlton ever a Toronto institution? I’d say the Uptown was, for sure. It’s a condo now. :sadface:
We weren’t “yapping”, we were whispering. They were sitting directly behind us, and the *whole rest of the theatre was completely empty* (literally, there was just us and them, and they choose to sit directly behind us in an empty theatre — who does that? — and *then* they immediately morph into whisper-Nazis in the first few minutes that the lights are down. I hope you are never that much of a dick.
And re: the Carlton. Yes. Yes, it was.
Personally, I talk over the coming attractions as well. 🙂
My worst Carlton story was when I went to see Lost Highway there (pretty empty), some idiot sat 2 rows behind me with a bag of peanuts STILL IN THE SHELL, and proceeded to crack them open even during the movie. IIRC he started in on them after the movie started.
He’d pause when I’d look back with the evil eye, but then a minute later there would be a faint *crack* then it would get louder and shells would drop to the floor again.
When I raised my voice to loud talking levels, he finally stopped it, then moved a minute later (I could tell because of the shells crunching under his feet).
Who the hell brings peanuts in the shell to the movies?
137581 657749Um, take into consideration adding pictures or more spacing to your weblog entries to break up their chunky appear. 152758