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When I lived in Toronto, around Dufferin Street and St. Clair Avenue, every other night an unhoused man would trudge barefoot down my street. He’d scream in broken Italian and rifle through my recycling.
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Except that’s not the whole story. Through an unspoken agreement, this man would also roll my garbage bins to the curb every Wednesday. He’d search for bottles that I had cast aside so he could exchange them for coins. When not screaming, he’d be singing and talking and keeping himself company. He’d wander into the backyard of my elderly Portuguese neighbour and they’d garden together. I eventually learned that he had always lived on this street. I was renting; he was home.
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I am a walker, not a driver. I like to patronize small local businesses rather than big-box stores. I live in a central neighbourhood of Ottawa. You might say that I am the city of Ottawa’s ideal citizen, its stated ambition being to see more intensification of the downtown core, increased use of public transit, and an overall reduction in the city’s climate footprint.
I have long cast a shadow on the ByWard Market. The district has some great anchors La Bottega, Lapointe Fish, Saslove’s Meat Market, ByWard Fruit Market, Zak’s Diner, Le Moulin de Provence, as well as, further over on Clarence Street, the elegant Paper Papier just to name a few of my personal favourites. In this year of COVID-19, I wish them all well. New apartment towers are springing up all around. I feel optimistic that they will bring new clientele to area businesses. And the market is, after all, a prime tourist destination.