Huge turnout for the first Big on Bloor festival

Eroca Nicols from Dufferin Grove Park leads a children's dance class on Bloor between Lansdowne and St. Clarens. (Click on the image to enlarge it)

Judging by the enormous amount of people I saw on Bloor yesterday, I have to say the first BIG festival was a success. The organizers did a superb job of putting together this event. Having been at some of the meetings over the last year, I know there were a few bumps along the way and at one low point, it was touch and go. However, the organizers persevered and pulled it off.

When I heard at the first meeting in February 2007 that people wanted to have a street festival stretching from perhaps as far as Spadina to Lansdowne, I was incredulous. (At one early meeting, people briefly discussed a festival area stretching from Keele to Spadina.) I didn't have the courage to say this out loud, but I thought to myself, "This is nuts. They're trying to do way too much for a first festival." However, to their credit, the organizers stuck with it and proved me wrong.

As it turns out, the festival didn't reach Spadina, but Montrose (Christie Pits) to Lansdowne is still a long stretch of road. That the organizers found enough participants to fill most of the street (there were a couple empty patches) and to attract the crowd they did is quite an achievement.

I was at the festival representing CELOS, an organization based at Dufferin Grove Park. For some time now, CELOS has been working on a local history project and we put together a presentation specifically for this event. It turns out a lot of people are interested in local history. Our two tables attracted a steady stream of visitors. Some people asked questions, while others shared their memories. One told us her dad used to go to Little Saratoga, which was a nickname for the racetrack that used to sit where the Dufferin Mall is today.

An Italian man told me he remembered when the building at the northwest corner of St. Clarens and Bloor was a cinema that showed Italian films. He said there was an entrance at the back that led to a space where school bands used to practice. The old cinema is the building that Mercer Union is renovating in preparation for a move. If you're familiar with Lansdowne and Bloor, you may recognize it as the building that has some art deco on the front. At the moment the sign still reads TAOSS $ MART.

Mid-afternoon, I took off on my bike for an hour. I rode from Lansdowne to Christe and back. I judged the size of the crowd by how fast I could ride. There were a few short stretches where I could ride fast because there weren't many people, but over most of the street I had to go slowly and there were several places where I had to get off my bike altogether.