One of the cleverest and most philosophical limericks is:
There once was a man who said, “Damn,
It has borne in upon me I am
But a creature that moves
In predestinate grooves;
I’m not even a bus, I’m a tram!”
It’s strange that living in Canada’s largest city I nonetheless overwhelmingly see the parts that are within an hour’s walk of my home, and I tend to see the same short stretches of street day after day when doing chores, meeting friends, or working on my research.
To deliberately defamiliarize myself a little I took the list of 75 TTC subway stations on Wikipedia, drew a random number between 1 and 75, and took the subway to York Mills to explore a new neighbourhood and take some photos.
Next time I’ll try to do a random journey while there is more daylight left, and perhaps with a friend in tow. As an experiment this time I only brought my keys, camera, and a TTC payment card — no phone, music player, cash, or wallet. I had a surprising number of conversations, perhaps just because I wasn’t listening to headphones or staring at a screen, but clearly actively paying attention to what was happening around me.
Here’s an alphabetical list from the current Wikipedia page:
1 Bathurst
2 Bay
3 Bayview
4 Bessarion
5 Bloor–Yonge
6 Broadview
7 Castle Frank
8 Chester
9 Christie
10 College
11 Coxwell
12 Davisville
13 Don Mills
14 Donlands
15 Downsview Park
16 Dufferin
17 Dundas
18 Dundas West
19 Dupont
20 Eglinton
21 Eglinton West
22 Ellesmere
23 Finch
24 Finch West
25 Glencairn
26 Greenwood
27 High Park
28 Highway 407
29 Islington
30 Jane
31 Keele
32 Kennedy
33 King
34 Kipling
35 Lansdowne
36 Lawrence
37 Lawrence East
38 Lawrence West
39 Leslie
40 Main Street
41 McCowan
42 Midland
43 Museum
44 North York Centre
45 Old Mill
46 Osgoode
47 Ossington
48 Pape
49 Pioneer Village
50 Queen
51 Queen’s Park
52 Rosedale
53 Royal York
54 Runnymede
55 Scarborough Centre
56 Sheppard West
57 Sheppard–Yonge
58 Sherbourne
59 Spadina
60 St. Andrew
61 St. Clair
62 St. Clair West
63 St. George
64 St. Patrick
65 Summerhill
66 Union
67 Vaughan Metro Centre
68 Victoria Park
69 Warden
70 Wellesley
71 Wilson
72 Woodbine
73 York Mills
74 York University
75 Yorkdale
Draw a random number from 1-75
You have inspired me to explore a part of my city Vancouver that I have never seen. Leaving behind devices and other distractions is another good idea.
It has been fun to explore in one own’s own city.
One way I do so is by participation in Janes Walks which generally occur in the first weekend of May. These are led by volunteers who show and talk about neighbourhoods in unique ways Toronto and Vancouver are fortunate to have many such offerings. Toronto also has walks through the year. The link is https://janeswalk.org/
Yeah, I have been meaning to try one of those, though it will have to remain in the ‘after the thesis’ category.