Quote:
Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker
Yeah, it's fascinating. I'm sure it still had its eclectic side - I hope? It wasn't all a Prebyterian Sunday. But it just wasn't as visible to outsiders back then.
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Toronto in the second half of the 20th century was a pretty conservative place...but just the right level of conservatism to create a big counter culture. The Bay St. establishment, the North Toronto WASPs, and most of the suburban denizens would have made for a pretty uptight, stifling ambiance - but that left the emptying inner city for all the eccentrics & freaky people. It's sort of the same dynamic of a little island of freedom in a sea of (palpable-but-not-quite-overbearing) conservatism that fosters big counter cultural or subcultural movements today in places like Tokyo and Istanbul.
From the beginnings of rock n' roll in the 50s to the hippies & bohemians of the 60s and 70s, punks & gays in the 80s, to ravers of the 90s - they've always had a huge - and contentious - presence in Toronto, which, fueled by immigrant, became one that got bigger and bigger as the millennium approached. I would say it was really in the first decade of the 2000s where that once counter cultural side became the dominant culture (though the flip side of that is that now we're still left with some remnants of that stodgy Protestant past as a persisting sort of subculture).
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