No use crying over stilt milk?
Neighbours may not like Markham’s 8-metre-high cow, but it’s drawing herds of fans
“There it is! Mommy, I see it!” yells one young boy, screaming around the bend of Charity Cres. ahead of his younger sisters Friday morning. “I can see the cow!” Across the park, Theresa Pacariem holds her daughter in her arms on the front steps of her house, watching groups of people on bicycles and in cars come and go from her oncequiet street near Woodbine Ave. and Elgin Mills Rd. E. Less than two weeks after Charity was installed eight metres above the centre of the crescent’s parkette, Markham’s giant stainless steel cow on stilts has become a tourist attraction.
As soon as you turn the corner at the end of the street that boasts her namesake, she’s there, staring down at you. You can’t mistake her, with her bronze-leafed wreath, towering over the trees.
The city has now put up a fence to protect Charity from the crowds. A sign has also been installed, telling her story (Charity was a nine-time all-Canadian or all-American show cow, said to be the most productive milking cow in the world in the 1980s) and advising that landscaping around the sculpture will be completed in September.
“There was probably 200 people here yesterday taking selfies and pictures. They walk their children here and they’re in their strollers,” Pacariem says. “My angle isn’t as bad as some people. The people right in front of it have it even worse.”
“This morning there was two big groups of women out here taking pictures,” chimes in her partner, Thomas Servellon.
“Every few minutes you’ll see cars going by and people getting out to take pictures,” Servellon says, stepping out from the house to join her on the steps and watch.
Around the bend, Lita Santiago plays with her granddaughter outside one of the 19 other homes that look directly at Charity.
“It’s crazy, it’s crazy. It’s a tourist attraction now! Everyone comes over here,” she says, shaking her head and laughing.
Tom Phillips told his partner Gayle they were going for lunch and an afternoon drive when he brought her to see the controversial monument.
“If there’s any reason I would be pissed off here, it’s because idiots like us who live in Aurora who came down to see it,” he says, laughing about their 25-minute trek.
After decades in the area, he’s familiar with the Roman family — who donated the $1.2-million cow statue to the site after developing the Cathedraltown neighbourhood and insisting it remain there despite local complaints.
Still, he doesn’t understand the cow.
“There was a dynasty here. Roman was famous for spending a lot of money on livestock,” he adds, while Gayle gets closer for a picture on her phone. “A million bucks eh, good lord. Just to think if you had a million bucks, you’d spend it on something wiser.”
Pacariem says she’d be fine with Charity in her front yard if she weren’t on stilts.
“I can see it from my window,” she says, shaking her head.
“People around here don’t like it. It’s sitting right on top of those houses. You look out you see a cow and it’s on stilts,” echoes Theresa Yu, who has lived in the neighbourhood for more than a decade.
But the stilts, that’s the part Phillips gets.
“You could imagine if it was down here people would be spray painting and climbing on it — she’s a realist if nothing else,” he says of Helen Roman-Barber, who is developing the neighbourhood in honour of her family’s deep history in the area.
“She can do whatever the hell she wants.” Some Charity Crescent homeowners are concerned the “eyesore” will diminish the value of their homes.
Longtime Markham real estate agent John Procenko says that’s a matter of buyer preference.
“One person would say ‘Oh, I’ll never buy this house’ and another person could say ‘where do I sign? It doesn’t bother me.’ It’s 50/50 really,” says Porchenko, who has sold homes in the area for 31 years.
Still, eyesores often affect the value of a house, from cellphone and water towers to backing onto retail dumpsters, he says.
“It’s not something you can put a dollar value on, maybe someone else loves it,” he says. “The neighbours don’t like it that are currently there.”