Being There

Anna at The Commons

My friend Melanie has a favorite neigh­bor­hood cof­fee shop, The Com­mons, on Col­lege street in Toronto West. It’s a cozy lit­tle inde­pen­dent place, com­plete with edgy baris­tas, well-worn benches, and fine young things. It has four long tables, and a good vibe. Like most local cof­fee shops, the reg­u­lars here know each other. In this case, they’re part of a semi-urban artis­tic and pro­fes­sional class. They work together, sleep together, and lis­ten to the same bands. Some are crazy, some are nice. Some are nice and crazy. Sit at the right table, and chances are good that the stranger on the other side will have some com­mon inter­ests or friends. It is a hap­pen­ing lit­tle hub. Oh, and the cof­fee is very good.

Melanie and I talked a lot about com­mu­nity, and the value and vagaries of pub­lic space, shared cul­ture, iden­tity, race, and place. Inter­sec­tions of dif­fer­ence and com­mon­al­ity abound in the city, and cre­ate ten­sion between com­pet­ing inter­ests. It’s nice to have a place like The Com­mons, where peo­ple can come together and share the things they have in com­mon. It scares me that these impor­tant meet­ing places are increas­ingly being made pri­vate and restricted.