Jones Avenue is Falling Down

Chapter 1

The bus rumbles past the Jones Avenue Branch of the Toronto Public Library like Mayor Rob Ford on a bad hangover morning.

There's a sink hole that been developing in the road for the past two years that when the Jones Avenue Bus hits it the whole intersection shakes - a long rumble that pools out from the epicentre. As a matter of fact, just like, the earthquake we felt here just before the Clamp Down for the G20 - only not as long.

The fact is this whole neighbourhood is built on sand. If we had a real earthquake - like the 1989 California Loma Prieta earthquake - this place would be like the Marina District in San Francisco, the ground would basically liquify. This 2nd floor room I scribble in would end up on Jones Avenue as sure as I'm scribbling now.

You see it here and there. A cone, a set of cones marking a spot where the millions of trickles that make up a river delta have found a route of least resistance, a trickle became a torrent at last weekends storm - and the street begins to sag in on itself. All the basements along Jones are wet. All the storm sewer catch basins are full of sand.

Nova Scotia fishermen's House (via flickr)

The house on the northwest corner of Jones and Dundas is listing for $750,000. It's a two story wood frame thing with a small dormer room in the attic. It has that old wooden siding like you see on all the Nova Scotia fishermen's houses. Just a box with a peak roof, too long for aesthetic proposes - the result of one too many additions.

It's corner property looks a lot wider that it is - the property line actually runs five feet from the side of the house - the other twenty feet is city property. Property that the Debt-Crisis-Theatre Mayor, Rob Ford might sell one day soon.

This house rumbles with the bus too. And there's a new sink hole eating a parking spot just down the ally around the back. But that won't stop the owner from getting three quarters of million dollars for it - after all, Leslieville's got a brand new shopping complex down at Leslie and Lake Shore Boulevard.


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