Gerrard Square

The new and improved Gerrard Square

It was -10°C today. For a large chunk of the day I spent time backing up some images from 2004 to 2005. As the computer cranked out copied files back and forth I decided to get out to get some air, stretch the legs, maybe even grab something to eat.

But where to go? It's freezing outside. Perhaps I'd been getting used to the toasty warmth of my apartment? I decided a mall would be good. I could walk around and pick up some stuff in a nice warm environment. This led me to Gerrard Square.

Gerrard Square, when I was growing up, was the mall that time and people forgot. Sometime in the seventies it was the first mall to get a McDonalds in Toronto. I was in grade 2 or 3 when that happened. I remember going on the McDonalds tour as part of my grade school outing. Since we didn't actually get to leave school all that much that was one of the trips that stuck. From the "We throw fries out after X minutes to guarantee freshness" to the video of the Burger University. After the trip half the class wanted to work at McDonalds.

That was then when the Mall was at the peak of it's coolness. After only a couple of years of neglect the mall has become a stomping ground for senior citizens and other unemployed folk. It's dark depressing halls were... well pretty depressing. That is until recently.

Sometime last year, maybe the year before, Gerrard Square changed anchor stores. Anchor stores are the large stores (usually department stores) that sandwich the smaller stores in between them. Usually they are the ones that the mall is built around. For example Eaton's in the Eaton Centre. Although now I guess it would be Sears.

Anyhow, the Sears located at Gerrard Square was replaced by a Home Depot. The upstairs of the mall was renovated to include a Winners and a bunch of new sky lighting allowing for natural light. There's a Staples where the Bi-way used to be. The pet store, Fins and Feathers, is gone and so is the ICEMAN video game store. That and the Radio Shack is now called the Source.


Temperature -10° C

Like a footprint in the sand, places from my childhood are fading away. I wish I took more pictures as a kid.