A Neighbourhood Living Room

http://heartofthehammer.wordpress.com/

"We must not build housing, we must also build communities." - M Burton

Were it not for a friend that introduced me to the ever-so quaint Heart of the Hammer Cafe, I tragically would’ve overlooked it.  Driving on King St East, one is not exactly encouraged to slow down along the 4 lanes of one-way traffic to check out what’s being offered by the South Stipeley neighbourhood.  Since visiting this cafe, it quietly calls out to me every time I drive by, which is why I made my second visit to the cafe last night.
Just shy of its one year anniversary, Heart of the Hammer Cafe was birthed when Rebecca Doll saw a for rent sign in the window of the old Apollo sport’s bar.  What began as a hobby and personal interest in cafe culture, has become a 112 hour work week for the most-dedicated Rebecca.  She started out with something money can’t buy and that’s community.  From the street sign to the table lamps to the fridge in the back kitchen, everything has been made possible by the donations and efforts of the community.  Last time I checked, I couldn’t order that at Starbuck’s.  Rebecca has a very sincere and inclusive approach to running the cafe which allows for the input of anyone who visits.  Rebecca lets the community decide what they want the cafe to be, which explains the very busy schedule that includes book club, crafts, music and entertainment, art displays, and vinyl night among many other events.  She also brings to the cafe her own flare for French culture with her keen knowledge of fine cheeses, meats and wines, which was generously shared with my mom and I as the midnight shipment arrived.  Perfect timing!  My mom described her visit to the cafe as she would visiting a family member in their home, receiving the best the host had to offer us.  We couldn’t pull ourselves away from the conversation we had with Rebecca and other new friends and actually stayed 2 hours past closing.  The Heart of the Hammer certainly rings true, as this tiny space functions as any heart would, supporting life in Hamilton with every beat. 

Seeing the City

Before the fall of the World Trade Centre in ’01, there was a poster on the 110th floor of one of the towers that read It’s hard to be down, when you’re up.  The irony of such a statement has painfully proven itself wrong in the physical sense, but there are other implications that come with towering above a city, and what that implies for those under foot. In relation to Hamilton, I was up in the sense that I used to live on the Hamilton Mountain, but on the inside, I was down as I was detached from the heart of the city.  

I write this post to those who don’t frequent the downtown Hamilton area, not to condemn, but to highlight what was missing from my own everydayness lived out on the mountain.
About a year ago, my family sold our house on the Hamilton hill and bought a house downtown, to be closer to the center of the city.  I can’t tell you what great things it has done for us, despite the array of confusion received from family members.  My life experience on the mountain was secluded.  I had to get in my car if I wanted to go anywhere and that was usually to Limeridge Mall.  It was this dissatisfaction of my everyday routines that lead me to move downtown.  I often thought that Hamilton, like many other cities in the GTA, didn’t have a core to the city.  For me, downtown Hamilton was nothing more than a drive-thru to get some place else.  How very wrong I was and how very much is changing in my understanding Hamilton. 

Being downtown has freed me from seclusion.  It means I can walk to the center of the city, if only to stare at the fountain in Gore Park.  It means I can walk to the bank, the market, and the library, or check out a couple shops I’m getting to know on King St.  It means I’m getting outside and interacting with many individuals in ways that weren’t possible before.   
In the past 7 months, I’ve met quite a few welcoming neighbours on our street.  The entire area seems to be undergoing a transformation that’s had a unifying effect on all of us.  Everyone here has a story - a conscious reason why they live here. We’ve met a handful of people who came from Toronto and commute to work every morning.  We’ve met others who moved downtown because of the architectural beauty and construction of the homes.  The house to our immediate left is rented by one of the hardest working single moms of two I have ever met.  She also takes pride in the house she rents, and cares for it as her own.  There’s a current of change that my family has been caught up in and I wonder if we would’ve missed it, had we stayed on the mountain. 

Despite my new found love for downtown Hamilton living, I often hike up the Wentworth Stairs to catch a glimpse of the city from above.  There’s a certain illusion of empowerment that comes with seeing the city from its plateau; like a Celestial Eye with all-seeing powers, I can sum up the city in one quick glance.  It temporarily makes the complex readable. It’s a very different view though, one I would argue is incomplete and inaccurate.  As Warren Breckman said, when a city is seen from on high, “Its unruliness is tidied by distance, its mobility is captured in a frieze, its impact on all five senses is reduced to disembodied vision, and will always be different from the city viewed in the street, amid people, and buildings.”  To further explain this concept, think of a film that opens with a cityscape.  The camera will show the city from a distance, but has to zoom in to street level to tell the story.
So it is with Hamilton, if we want to understand our story, we have to get out and start creating it, defining it, and living it out under the figure of the city.  When we explore the secluded places of a city, we begin seeing it as it truly is.  From that place, there is nowhere else to go but up.

My Mom and Memory Lane - Practices of Hamilton Past

Look Mom! No Cavities! 

"A memory is a Prince Charming who stays just long enough to awaken the Sleeping Beauties of our wordless stories." (de Certeau 124)

To the left is a picture of me holding a picture of my mom.  When I told her about this blog, and about my search to explore the everyday in Hamilton, she had no problems sharing with me her memories of life growing up here.  I asked her to indulge us because, "Memories tie us to a place... It's personal, perhaps not interesting to anyone else, but after all that's what gives a neighbourhood its character." (de Certeau 124) If you're the reminiscent type, this one's for you.

Hamilton: My Space, My Home
By Linda Quest

A proud Hamiltonian of 61 years, my earliest fond memories, sights and sounds growing up in Hamilton are:

• The warning bells of the Yummy Man coming.
• The Rag Man yelling out, “Raaags” as he slowly worked his way up and down the alley ways, collecting any give-aways to be recycled.
• Running through the various assortment of sprinklers across the front lawns of West Ave South.
• The Ice Man's pick breaking off chunks of ice for us kids to suck on.
• The clomping of the horses taking baked goods to the local Stinson St Corner Store and the clink of the round iron rings fastened to the curb where the horses would be tied up.
• The sound of ice skates carving up the newly frozen rink the Fire Dept would flood for us on cold winter nights.
• The church bells of St Patrick’s ringing out on my wedding day.
• The many thank you’s received from fellow citizens, young and old, after cleaning their teeth and helping them to overcome fears of visiting the dental office.

After 45 years I’m still privileged to practice Dental Hygiene in dental offices and Long Term Care facilities within Hamilton.  The greatest blessing though, is to be mother and friend to my daughter and son as we all enjoy family and friends in this beautiful city we call Home.

Would you like some Hamilton with your Tim Hortons?

"Good morning, my name is Amanda, thank you for choosing our Tim Hortons location, how may I help you?"  This is my second alarm clock that faithfully goes off at 8 am every Monday morning as I place my order.   I am a weekly Tim Hortons drive-thru aficionado.  (It is easy to do when you have 4 Timmy's locations within 4 blocks from your front door.) I have practiced the art of devouring sour cream glazed donuts since the tender age of 15, when I became an employee of the franchise (which lasted about 3 months.)  That was in 1998, and Tim Hortons has become even more of a Canadian cultural fix in the past 12 years extending beyond the borders of Hamilton to such places as Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Hamilton, giving birth to the first Tim Hortons location, has been defined by this cultural icon.  Within Canada, there are some who describe it as part of the essential Canadian Story.  Pierre Burton suggests, "It is a story of success and tragedy, of big dreams and small towns, of old-fashioned values and tough-fisted business, of hard work and of hockey."  Others, such as Rudyard Griffiths believe, "Surely Canada can come up with a better moniker than the Timbit Nation."
How has Tim Hortons defined you?  How have you defined Tim Hortons?  For some it is the only way to start a day, for others it is a meeting place, where everything from sports to family to business can be discussed.  For others, it is a point of tension based on the methods of coffee bean production, which is part of the Sustainable Coffee Program. Reguardless of what Tim Hortons represents to the individual, I have a hard time imagining Hamilton without Tim Hortons, and an even harder time imagining Tim Hortons without Hamilton.  Here's to being 'Always Fresh', Always Tim Hortons and Always Hamilton.

Art Crawling and the Artist’s Role in Urban Renewal

Experience Hamilton through the eye of Reg Beaudry  www.regbeaudry.com

Like I said, I woke up and I was in Hamilton and as a newby to the downtown central area, I was promptly informed that I must experience the James Street North Art Crawl if I’m to call myself a Hamiltonian.  No sooner did I hear these words, was I on my way.  When I left Hamilton 7 years ago, I had never experienced James Street North.  When I found myself in the midst of the collective that was gathered last night, I understood for the first time what the buzz was all about.  Hamilton is experiencing a renaissance, and I dare say that the local Arts Community are the trailblazers of this path. The very phrase “Art Crawl” suggests an atmosphere that invites people to create and define a given space through their own movements.  This was happening, layer upon artful layer.  I saw people of all walks, gathering from many regions of the city to this one designated neighbourhood.  I saw buildings take on new life forms, serving new purposes.  I heard new conversations between people who would not normally converse.  I was exposed to art I had never before seen, revealing to me new concepts I would not have considered.    I had conversations with people who shared their memories of what James Street used to be; the good, the bad and the ugly.  De Certeau describes this spatial experience as, “An exploration of the deserted places of my memory.” (123) Urban Renewal revives people’s dreams, myths and legends of a place, while bringing to life new ways of operating within it. 
The next morning I went back to view the street in the aftermath.  I found myself overwhelmingly thankful for those who define the space known as James Street.  This is what artists do.  They are in one sense revitalizers of the world’s debris,  moving into neighbourhoods that most would overlook.  What will happen when people start recognizing the value of these practices?  Will artists move on to other neighbourhoods due to gentrification?  Rest assured, if the initiators of James Street North move on to invent other spaces, they can be certain the rest of us will follow - crawling right behind them.

Life in Motion - An Introduction to the 'Art of our Existence'

King & James  (Photo: Paul Quest)

"The everyday has a certain strangeness that does not surface..." (de Certeau 116)

I woke up and I was in Hamilton.  My sense perceptions, of which I am a slave to, were already quick at work on my behalf interacting with the space around me.  The sights, the sounds, and the smells of the city- they came to me without any effort on my part.  I absorbed and consumed the fiber of my surroundings without any conscious involvement in the process.  
This doing is a type of passive thinking that can be described as unconscious reproduction which suggests we are constantly producing and interacting with our surroundings  in ways we do not realize. (Sheringham 127) It also suggests that we do not give ourselves enough recognition for our constant response to the world around us.  As Spinoza once said, "The ability to exist is power."  Certainly, every Hamiltonian can find their place in such a statement, as we influence our surroundings by our most microbe-like responses to them.
What is the connection then, between these seemingly insignificant functions of our everyday practices and the macro-cosmic space surrounding us?  This blog is based on Sheringham's theory that suggests our everyday practices define the spaces we live in.  If that is so, what are we doing to define Hamilton?  I'd like to propose that, "What needs factoring in if one is to apprehend the everyday is not something extra - aesthetic, subjective, or intellectual - added from the outside, but our lived experience of it, our participation and immersion in it." (Sheringham 127)  Defining a space requires our attentive engagement within it.  Walking the city, seeing sights, having conversations - these are all part of the process.  Here's to the first step...