ACCOZZAGLIA

It really took on a life of its own once variations on the original accusation started to mushroom elsewhere — with classy, original, and totally thoughtful spin-offs like “Blue Banana you ho this is all your fault” and “Times you ho this is all your fault.”

Its original appearance happened on the wall of a forthcoming Starbucks location back in 2005, at the gentrifying corner of Queen Street West and Dovercourt Road. This spray can protester remains a mystery to most — if not to everyone — even to this very day.

The accusation, “Drake you ho this is all your fault,” was of course aimed at the then-recently renovated neighbourhood installation, The Drake Hotel, itself having experienced years of rough times. This was before the gentrification of the “West Queen West” area — Queen generally west of Trinity-Bellwoods Park — had begun with relatively cheaper rents in dilapidated or low-demand housing. It was also before the generational mobilization of people seeking a place to — as the rightfully mocked Richard Florida crows — tap into creativity had started to draw themselves towards that general area. This began long before Starbucks committed to this new location nearby the Drake.

My uninformed guess — having neither lived in that neck of the woods nor really spent a lot of time researching its last half-century of history — is that the origins of West Queen West’s neighbourhood change (into something intelligible to 2011 eyes) reaches back to the late 1990s, during those few years when I was living in other parts of the world. If anyone remembers when, what, how, and why West Queen West really germinated into what it is now, feel free to post a comment.

These gentrifying pioneers — the very people who are known to speak disdainfully at their impression of who “the gentrifiers” might be (seen, perhaps, as those buying into new condos, driving nice cars, and working in a “creative class” career path, as well as those starting families in their thirties) — were not thrilled that some multinational coffee establishment had come to West Queen West. “Starbucks is the establishment! What’s next, free-range daycare and the Holga store? Now it’s all over!” But to draw any direct connection between their own place-pioneering activities and the arrival of the Audi drivers and pram pushers is often lost upon the former. The arrival of a Starbucks is not the trigger for an area’s gentrification; it is the response for affirming a pre-existing gentrification momentum already well underway due to other factors.

No matter. “Drake you ho this is all your fault” is probably one of the funniest, incisive, and acerbic pop culture remarks within probably the last generation or two to appear in Toronto in a publicly accessible space. It was removed quickly from the building’s façade, but its memory lives on. Outside Toronto, it bears no significance. Inside Toronto, it’s the emphatic “screw you” exclamation towards abstract ideas of “establishment”, domesticity, and the pricing out of pioneer-gentrifiers from their relatively cheaper dwellings — not unlike in Portlandia!

Anyway, enjoy this if you should decide to wear one. There’s even a sustainable organic cotton version up for grabs. You’re liable to get quite a few grins round town and a few perplexed faces elsewhere.