The Inner Studio - Riverside Architectural Press

THE INNER STUDIO
the city and the water-born breezes arrive cooler and fresher. We
are all travelers now, setting off for another world, to a new shore.
The population on board is always a delightful mixture of immigrants
going for picnics, cyclists, wedding parties, hardcore Island
residents, and city introverts in search of silence. A nude bathing
beach at Hanlon’s Point rounds out the population of the typical
summer traffic. This simple pleasure of a boat ride ensures this
park will always be a world apart. Views back to the city have us
marvel at the skyline full of the latest towers. But later, after crossing
the island to the wooden boardwalk at the island’s southern
edge, we finally arrive at our destination: the unobstructed horizon.
Water and sky frame the distance. Unfinished business
stretches out forever and for a moment, the built world is gone.
Monuments That Move
The great monuments of this city are not buildings or boulevards
but festivals, parades, and fairs. Seen collectively these events
create instant communities of like-minded people from across the
city, North America, and around the world.
A city that at one time would not allow dancing on Sundays
now hosts an unabashedly spectacular Gay Pride parade. The
culmination of a week of events, exhibitions, and parties, the most
important aspect from an urban point of view is the route of the
parade, which includes a trip down Yonge Street, the long soul of
the city. The Gay Pride parade features slow-moving floats, many
overflowing with barely dressed dancing men. (Lesbians hold their
parade the day before.) The music is loud and remarkably, in a city
where Happy Hour is illegal, everyone has totally embraced the
event. Hundred of thousands of people line the parade route to
dance, watch, cheer, and videotape the throbbing, subwoofer-filled
extravaganza.
A few weeks later, as the summer reaches its most humid and
sultry temperatures, the Caribana festival generates a parade whose
rhythmic dancing erases all memories of big-city winter. This
event, locally created and strongly connected to the Caribbean
community, changes the soul of the city. At night the sound of
drumming rings throughout the city. While not yet sited in the
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