This is our second story in a short series on activating public space in the winter. Read the first story about Toronto’s Distillery District.
It is conventional wisdom in Toronto that this city is no good at winter. The moist winter air goes right through your layered defenses and straight to your bones, but it hardly sticks around long enough to truly acclimatize to the season. It’s three months of ice periodically interrupted by slush. Most Torontonians bundle up, hunch over, and—if they are lucky—relearn how to get around the labyrinthine PATH tunnels downtown.
On January 15, The Brewery Market at Wychwood Barns demonstrated that outdoor public events can be well attended and enjoyable even when the temperature is below freezing. Like the Brewery Markets that are held most Sundays throughout the summer, this special winter encore had two local brewers serving a small selection of beers paired with seasonal foods—in this case, gourmet hot dogs and artisanal marshmallows.
The market took place in the Green Barn that houses the greenhouse and garden operated by The Stop Community Food Centre. The beer and hot dogs were available in the relative comfort of the greenhouse’s entrance, and by the time we arrived in the late afternoon it was surprisingly crowded inside. Attendance must have exceeded everyone’s expectations because three of the five beers were already sold out.
We carefully slipped back out the door, beers in hand, to enjoy a little more space to ourselves in the garden. Even though the high temperature that day was -7° Celsius, with the sun shining and the garden sheltered on all sides but the south, it was completely comfortable to be outdoors. Taking our cues from the other people already outside, we sat down at an unoccupied picnic table. When I exclaimed my delight to find that the tables were provided with lap blankets “just like in Europe,” my two friends who had lived in Paris looked at me like I was excited to see a television for the first time in my life.
I am not embarrassed by my provincial delight because it opened my eyes to the potential of outdoor spaces in the winter. That afternoon at The Brewery Market, I may have been outdoors in the winter longer than at any time since I stopped wearing snow pants, and it was in no way unpleasant or uncomfortable. It was actually an awful lot like being outdoors in the summer, except I kept my gloves on. Now I can’t help but wonder, every time I pass a shuttered sidewalk cafe with a southern exposure, why more of our public spaces can’t be hospitable—even enjoyable—in the winter.
Brent Gilliard is a Master of Planning student at Ryerson University in Toronto. His current research is about the social potential of underused urban spaces. Follow Brent on Twitter at @bgilliard
photo by kcxd on Flickr (cc)
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