The north end of Bathurst Street in Toronto is a canyon of highrises and quiet spaces where seniors try to stay ahead of the speeding traffic.
The area’s heart is Westminster-Branson, covering the west side of Bathurst from Steeles Avenue to the Don River Valley south of Finch Avenue.
Toronto Life somehow ranks it last among the city’s 140 neighbourhoods. The city called Westminster-Branson a “priority neighbourhood” because it lacked social services, but dropped that label years ago.
These days, some residents are reimagining the area, calling it Bathurst-Finch, but agree a big problem is that its residents, divided by ethnic background and length of stay in the neighbourhood, don’t talk to each other.
Knitting, it seems, is a small part of the solution. Each week at the Artsy Craftsy Club, older adults make connections they otherwise wouldn’t.
“I find knitting and crocheting is a universal art form,” says Retchel Morales, a resident who started the drop-in group at the Bathurst-Finch Unison Hub, a new community centre, and saw it draw people together.
“I got to know people in the neighbourhood only through this program.”
Differences between Bathurst in North York and the fast-developing Yonge Street corridor are jarring. Mojgan Rasouli, an urban planner, and Amitis Nouroozi, an architect, both moved to the area some years ago and saw “something is not working” along Bathurst.
“It’s not walkable. The vitality (seen around Yonge and Finch) is missing,” Rasouli said.
Both are from Iran and find the mixed-use buildings around Yonge and Lawrence Avenue feel more like cities of their homeland, but they embraced their adopted neighbourhood, leading walks and workshops at the Hub for residents, a project of the Bathurst-Finch Action for Neighbourhood Change group, continuing this year, called “You Are Where You Live.”
Revitalization is happening along Bathurst but at a slower pace than in neighbourhoods downtown, where more people participate in the planning process, they say.
“We don’t have enough voice in this neighbourhood, partly because of language barriers,” Nouroozi said last week, as the pair looked at the Bathurst-Finch intersection.
Around them were two plazas, a gas station and, behind Northview Heights Secondary School on the fourth corner, Esther Shiner Stadium, which, like many public spaces along this part of Bathurst, does not get used nearly enough.
The stadium, typically, sees little use, Nouroozi said. “If there’s a programmed plan, people are there.”
Both women said residents want small changes to give Bathurst-Finch more of a neighbourhood feel, “a sense of belonging.”
Nouroozi and Rasouli want to keep bringing longtime residents and newcomers with fresh eyes together this year, to establish an advisory group which shares their passion for the area and to have those people meet with planners, politicians and investors.
The area has many seniors, and some struggle to reach supermarkets far apart at Sheppard Avenue or Steeles. Many struggle with isolation.
“A lot of them, basically, are not the rich type,” said Arnold Spevack, a retired man who’s lived in the neighbourhood for 20 years. “If they get socially isolated, they get depressed.”
Spevack, a member of the Bathurst-Finch Social Action Group, said local seniors need more places to go, and protection from impatient drivers who seem to see red lights as signals to pick up their speed “and go for it,” he said.
At some traffic lights, seniors crossing “can’t even make it halfway,” Spevack added.
Morales, also a member of the group, which meets at the hub, said the area has few child care centres, and renovated apartments require more rent from newer residents.
Many apartment tenants in a two-bedroom will rent out the other room to make ends meet, she said.
Newcomers can be very educated but, without work, “after a while, they fall into poverty,” said Mandana Attarzadeh of the Hub’s ANC office.
Her group noticed the area’s people stay mostly with their own kind, but it tries to break down the segregation, she said. “We say, ‘We have just one community, the Bathurst-Finch community.’”
The Hub opened in 2013, and on the night a reporter visited the social group, Poolad Abdurlrahami, a painter who has won national awards in Iran, exhibited some of his work downstairs.
Cultural activities are not frequent at the hub – fitness classes for seniors or job-finding seminars for newcomers are more common – but a survey found people want more.
Manager Simon Cheng said roughly 350 people come to the building each day for scheduled events as well as services such as dental care and legal aid. “We want to see more artistic activities in the hub,” he said.
The building has an open house during Family Day week, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 23, and University of Toronto students will be volunteering, distributing material about the hub door to door.