Lessons learned from Moss Park

Aside from someone impersonating me and taking my uber ride then attempting to solicit money from the driver for sexual favours, my time in Toronto was a much needed break from the U.S. of America. The event happened around Moss Park on a Wednesday at about 11:45pm. A conflicted woman from the depths of Moss Park jumped into the ride I ordered, buckled in, and pretended to be me according to my driver, Imran. He started the trip and 2 minutes in 50-something year old Imran found himself being groped by the imposter Yasina. She demanded money from him for a hand job or for some other request he had in mind. Imran allegedly refused her offer and demanded she leave. Only after threatening to call the cops and finally handing her a 5 dollar bill did she agree to exit the vehicle.
I guess while all this was going down I was standing around the corner on George Street in the shared driveway of my brother’s townhouse complex tracking my driver’s whereabouts on the app. After seeing the status change to “on trip” I immediately contacted the guy. No answer. I waited about a minute or so and called again. Imran picked up the call.
I asked him in agitation “Where are you man, why does the app say we are on trip?!”
He said to me, “I’m coming, just wait there. What’s your location”. Looking back on it, I would say there was a tone of panic in his voice.
A black SUV pulled up to the tucked away complex and I get into the back. I would say my mood changed pretty drastically from pre-vehicle entry to when he explained to me what had caused his delay. I went from being sour Yas to dying of laughter as he recapped the series of events that had taken place only minutes earlier.

We turned the corner and on my left I saw before me Moss Park. This is a park that recently saw 6 victims of fentanyl abuse die from overdose, a park where substantial drug deals occur on the daily, a park where the smell of kush is seeped into the trees, grass, and soil. Casual observation of this park for an hour would be akin to watching an episode of The Wire. This is the same park that is directly opposite from homes of young families and young professionals like my brother and wife who use the tennis courts regularly. I played tennis with them almost every day this week on the courts in Moss Park.
The courts are checkered with cracked lines and the net is made from wire, but it can be played on. There is a bizarre fondness I have for this place. Perhaps because it is a stark but refreshing departure from the cookie cutter parks and manicured football fields scattered across State College, the town in Pennsylvania I am currently going to school in. State College can be summed up as a classic American college town that is predominantly white and, for the most part, liberal. The locals here host “inclusion” protests weekly and then the entire town gets shit faced whenever the university football team plays a home game. It is here that I spend my days reading literature that a mere 2% of the world has access to, and of those, maybe a few actually access. I imagine many of the locals of State College would lose control of their bladders if they ever ventured into the moss of Toronto.
Imran pointed out the woman to me who had jumped in his car earlier posing as me. She walked skittishly, winding along the park’s path. I peered closer. She was a black woman, average height, likely in her mid to late 30’s, wearing a white tank top and skirt. I looked back at her as we drove past the park en route to my parent’s suburban house in Markham, and I wondered what the rest of her night would look like.
I’ve since read up on recent projects that have been proposed by the city to “revitalize” the park and combat pending gentrification of the area. The city has proposed a 100-million dollar community center that will be backed by a private donor. What does this mean for Moss Park? Maybe a little gentrification is necessary to bring renewal to the area - drive out the crime but uphold the diversity and character. If the broken windows theory holds true it could translate to opportunity for those raised a bit too east in downtown Toronto.
