It’s Not Like New York.
This site is dedicated to the world’s cities.
New York City is the center of the universe for approximately 8.1 million people (census 2000 numbers) and likely has grown since then. The itsnotlikenewyork team have visited NYC many times but we don’t live there. Maybe you do and if you do you can share your thoughts on why NYC is the greatest city in the world BUT remember this site is dedicated to those who love their cities that are NOT NYC.
The itsnotlikenewyork team has been to many places in the world and are testing a social media experiment. This site is dedicated to you. The city dweller. We know you are out there. There are billions of you and most of you have access to a computer or smart phone. We want you!
We are looking for contributors to send us images, video, text or by whatever means tell us about YOUR city. We know itsnotlikenewyork and it never will be but WHO CARES.
You love your city so tell us about it – regularly.
Whatever interests you about it – it’s parks, it’s food trucks, it’s restaurants, it’s public realm, it’s entertainment, it’s arts, it’s culture, whatever. Point out political and social issues. Help us understand what is going on in your world.
Start now. Don’t hesitate.
Leave a comment with a contact and we will help you show off the place you love.
Love your city.
When the lights are all on in the city– the CN Tower is glowing, the myriad of new condos are shining their rainbow colours up high, the skydome is all bright, the traffic is actually moving so headlights and brakelights are streaks of light– and I’m heading west bound on the Gardiner, I look up and think: “How lucky am I that I get to live in this amazing place? The awesome, vibrant and safe-ish place…”. I look up at those buildings and truly feel home. This is my Toronto. And I love it here.
Thanks Dayna! Thanks for leading the charge. Someone has to break the ice and we are so glad it’s you! We have posted your thoughts in the Toronto category. Go check it out!
The Toronto category should not be without at least one link to an amazing piece of video art that got so much deserved press recently, http://yourfriendryan.com/video/
This ones fun too, ‘The Joy of Books’ featuring Toronto’s ‘Type’ bookstore, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKVcQnyEIT8
Thank you Franco. We have added your contribution under the Toronto tab and thank you for the link to the awesome videos. Please check back soon as we will certainly have much more to see. Feel free to join us on our journey and we look forward to hearing from you again soon.
The tale of two and half cities.
I grew up in Montreal and Saint John, New Brunswick.
This was the seventies, a time when my mighty Montreal Canadians reigned supreme and Ballard’s sorry excuse for a hockey team embarrassed not only the city they played in but the league in general.
It was easy to make fun of Toronto back then. Montreal was still riding high with Expo 67 and the Olympics. It was cosmopolitan and had a subway that actually moved people around town. It was poised to be the most dynamic city in North America.
Then This happened.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_general_election,_1976
Suddenly the “most dynamic city in North America” became an oppressive Hell… if you were an Anglophone. My family finally gave up and moved to the east coast.
We always felt like we were in exile but we accepted the east coast and the east coast accepted us. This made our curiosity of Toronto even stronger. We could have joined the tens of thousands of anglos that left Montreal to settle in Toronto but decided to go east instead. My childhood memories of Toronto were limited to the opening sequence of The King of Kensington.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrP8mjsmy8U I thought it was so exotic. Street Markets. Clothes for sale on the sidewalk. People walking in the streets. It could have been a Morocco for all I knew. As a teenager I visited New York many times (my uncle and his family lived there) and I had this impression that from what I saw on the King of Kensington, Toronto was like SoHo or TriBeCa. For me, Toronto had a certain coolness. I can’t quite explain it but the opening sequence of the King of Kensington portrayed Toronto as a confident multi-cultural city. Watching that show made me want the visit or even live there.
But then, after ten to fifteen solid years of anglo businesses moving out of Montreal to Toronto, the big smoke suddenly became the centre of commerce in Canada, or as most Torontonians would describe it: “The centre of the Universe”. Yes, their hockey team still sucked a can of worms and yes, Montreal was still pulling in a few Stanley Cups but you cannot deny the fact that Toronto was developing a swagger. Like that rich kid in high school that would drive to school in a fancy Saab that his dad gave him for his seventeenth birthday. He was a good guy to know if you needed a ride but you didn’t hang out with him. You WANTED to hang out with that guy that could get beers and cigarettes (at a corner store) and had a wickedly slutty (but nice) girlfriend… That was Montreal.
Toronto in the eighties became this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeEV7h3mBtg
Street Legal was a complete ripoff of LA Law and everyone knew it. The CBC could have, at the very least, provided a cool opening sequence. Something along the lines of The Beachcombers or Friendly Giant but instead they resorted to the production value of “Body Break”.
Suddenly Toronto was placing itself on the same level (i.e. ripoff) of Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. That, in my opinion, was when the rest of the country developed an “I hate Toronto” attitude. Not because it was at the level of LA, Chicago, or NYC but because the kept telling everyone they were. Montrealers would NEVER do that. In fact, Montrealers made good use of their differences (good and bad) to define themselves. let’s face it, while every city in world had a personality, Toronto did not. It was boring. It kept SAYING it was great but it wasn’t actually BEING great. It had no cool history to draw from like Boston or Halifax (OK, maybe William Lyons Mackenzie was a bit of a bad ass) and yes, the world’s largest free standing structure was built there, but Toronto was so busy trying to be world class that it completely lost sight of what makes it DIFFERENT from the rest of the world. In my family, it was frowned upon to even think about moving to “Toronto the Good”. Any city that claims it is “good”, probably isn’t.
Things changed for Toronto in the Nineties. Back to back world championships for the Blue Jays finally got Hogtown out of their sports inferiority complex and for possibly the first time the little town on the lake did not HAVE to try and prove itself. It simply did. Suddenly after so many years of being in the shadow of Montreal’s great summer festivals (Just for Laughs, Montreal Jazz Festival), Toronto grew a small film festival into one of… if not THE Best international film festivals putting it on the map for big celebrities and international media outlets.
During this time an off the wall comedy troupe was gaining cult status and the opening sequence to their weekly show brought me back to the days of the King of Kensington.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVQQE5goiSE&feature=related
The Kids in the Hall were not only funny but they were confident. Confident enough to film their hometown of Toronto as the intro to their show and use the city proudly in all their skits. It was not supposed to be New York or Chicago. It WAS Toronto. I suddenly got that desire to visit or even move there again.
In 1994 I moved to Toronto and I’ve been here ever since. I’ve been to many cities around the world and the one thing, the definitive thing, that I think sets Toronto apart from other major metropolitan centres is it’s diversity. For the most part, it is very tolerant of different political points of view, different cultural customs, different religious beliefs, different sport franchise allegiances (yes, I still wear my Habs jersey here) and that tolerance is something to be proud of and something that we should share with the world. Perhaps that is Toronto’s personality. In my opinion, I would not call this town “Toronto the Good”, to me it is “Toronto the Different” and Home.
B
Bryan,
Thanks for your comments. Not sure if we post this in Toronto or Montreal or somewhere inbetween (kidding). Look out for your post on the site and tank you for your contribution. Keep ‘em coming. Would love to hear from someone in Montreal and their impressions of that city.
Apparently Batman is pretty cranky when he is in Toronto.
Very funny, sir.
hahah him running through the parking garage…….now THAT’s my Toronto!