Last September my wife and I attended the free Youssou N’Dour concert at Yonge-Dundas Square. N’Dour and his band were, as usual, simply fantastic. It was thrilling to see him again, his voice filling the square like aural mother-of-pearl, his presence commanding and compelling.
But within a few moments I found myself looking around the square and wondering what he thought of what he saw. And I felt a sudden rush of shame and embarrassment, because there was nothing there for him, or any of the rest of us, to see.
Think about it for a moment.
Yonge-Dundas Square (YDS) is smack in the centre of Canada’s largest city, at the intersection of two of the world’s longest streets. And there is nothing there.
When I say there is nothing, I mean there is nothing either meaningful or beautiful. By no stretch of the imagination can a collection of oversized televisions, which only play ads, be called “something.”
And, as my wife pointed out, there isn’t even anything distinctively Canadian either.
Clearly YDS was modelled on Times Square. But when I was in New York this past spring, I concluded that Times Square is quite possibly the single worst spot in the entire city. It is hardly worthy of emulation. It consists entirely of flashing lights and garish images. No New Yorker worth their salt goes near the place. I hope the inhabitants of New York, Toronto or pretty well any other city actually require more than a bunch of brightly coloured lights to keep them entertained.
At least in Times Square there is a statue to George Cohan, who was an important figure in the history of New York theatre. At YDS there are no markers, plaques, statues or anything to indicate that the place matters in any way whatsoever.
While I definitely applaud the idea of a public space at that location, to simply turn it into an ad-filled hole is a colossal failure of imagination. This could be one of the key civic spaces in the entire country, but right now it is only an amphitheatre devoted to the following message: consume, consume, consume.
As personal and corporate debt spiral out of control, surely the last thing we want to do is devote our central gathering place to the siren call of consumerism. And besides, with few exceptions everything you see for sale will just end up as more garbage for landfills.
The space is utterly devoid of significance, though I suppose the revenue generated by those ads means something to the clever people who managed to bamboozle the city into allowing that space to be so criminally subverted. Still, I am unsure what meaning the rest of us, the citizens and taxpayers of Toronto, can garner from a visual cacophony of ads for shoes, cell phones, underwear and gum.
As we watched the concert, high above the stage – on a three-minute rotation – 12 ads played over and over again. Jennifer Aniston’s empty face flashed at the crowd repeatedly. It conveyed nothing.
Contrast this with the sublime artistry of N’Dour himself, who is a person imbued with meaning and purpose; he is an ambassador for his culture, and an artist who uses his international stature to advocate for human rights. Aniston and the various other lingerie models and vapid television stars whose blank gazes regard us from high above the square, say, mean and do nothing.
The walls of YDS can be so much more than what they are. They could be hung with art; yes, even Canadian art. There could be displays of words that mean something, quotes from great literature and from great men and women. We could display something simply thought provoking. Anything that indicates there is more to this life than endless consumption.
This is not only a matter of aesthetics; it is ultimately about creating a culturally and intellectually aware society that is prepared to respond to the considerable challenges facing us today. I’m not a religious man, but it is clear to me that the modern secular world has done little to fill the gap in people’s lives left by the decline of faith.
These days religious fanatics bomb innocent human beings and yet still attract followers. As heinous as their message may be, they at least have a message.
In response we need to create a cultural environment that offers something significant and positive to the masses. Our public spaces are a good starting place.
Nick Van der Graaf is a Toronto writer and urbanist.
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