A Kensington Market relic nearly half a century old, the Augusta Egg Market, closed its doors last month. Not only will shoppers have to satisfy their cravings for duck eggs elsewhere, but another business will fill in the old storefront—and, if recent area trends are any indication, it will be one that caters to an entirely different breed of consumers. As a casual stroll down Augusta will attest, there’s a change in the weather. Gentrification, that nefarious force of urban transformation, is in full swing, and ain’t nobody going to slow it down.
Take the new Blue Banana Market as a forecast of a Kensington to come. Located down the road from the former egg market’s shell, Blue Banana is a glorified, gargantuan, three-storey eyesore of cutesy consumption. Under garish fluorescent lighting, fatwalleted consumers have their pick of world music CDs, touristy “folk art” pieces with unfortunate price tags, and $5 blocks of fudge. The warehouse would fit nicely in Yorkville or the Distillery District, but Kensington? Who exactly do they think they are?
There’s also the fancy-schmancy vegan sandwich shop on the corner of Augusta and Oxford (where $10 will almost satiate your hunger), and a few doors down, the upscale French bistro owned by—surprise!—none other than Shamez Amlani, the populist King of Kensington himself. While these places aren’t among the newest crop of luxurious market stops, they have nevertheless established themselves as pioneering fixtures of a palpable movement.
Though Augusta Street is becoming a veritable smorgasbord of Yuppie attraction, the rest of the marketplace is barely half a step behind. Remember Planet Kensington, that crusty metalhead dive on Baldwin? Well, its former locale is now home to the Freshwood Grill, a “fresh, local, organic” eatery that’s almost so classy it’s insulting. COBS Breads, another recent franchise addition to Kensington’s Baldwin strip, greets passers-by with a similar dose of wholesome-meetsposh audacity. With places like these popping up left and right, how can people expect to preserve the roughedged appeal of the old market?
It’s hard to replicate the past. Yet much of Kensington’s charm has rested upon its uncanny ability to do just that, by sustaining yesteryear’s alternative to the pedestrian strip mall, maintaining cozy produce stalls and small, specialized businesses. The market’s unique atmosphere is a legacy of its history, the remnant of enterprising immigrant residents who set up shop in front of their homes as a way of making ends meet. The area sprung organically into the residential and commercial hodgepodge through the initiatives of its dwellers, not voracious city planners, architects, or entrepreneurs trying to anticipate the next “hip” thing.
Nevertheless, Kensington has become just that—a viable commercial hot spot in a convenient location, cherished by artists, students, and most importantly, moneyed folks who consider themselves cultured. The area’s many mid-century immigrant homeowners are beginning to vacate the premises and, naturally, developers have their eyes on the prize. Kensington Lofts, a box of upscale condos that a Toronto real estate website flaunts as “a chic alternative to the quaint houses in the area,” likely won’t be the market’s sole housing cash-cow for very much longer; similar projects are already tentatively in the works.
True, Kensington has always been a site of metamorphosis, having made the transformation from its “Jewish Market” roots in the early 1900s to its mid-century incarnation as a Portuguese immigrant neighbourhood to, eventually, the multicultural enclave we know today. What these various embodiments all have in common is the unpretentious working-class spirit that gentrification threatens to overrun. This, above all else, is the entity most seriously at stake.
Meanwhile, the front window of the former Augusta Egg Market is still heralding a “For Lease” sign, and though I’m hoping that a worthy contender will replace it, I’m not counting my chickens before they hatch.
