LUNCH IN THE ‘PARK’
Skateboarders served dinner as they hang out on third level of parking garage,
When I moved next door to a garage, I didn’t know the top floor was a public park. The first time I saw the kids on their skateboards I thought, I’ve made a huge mistake.
After a year of watching the shenanigans in the parking garage park, I finally bring a meal over, hoping to hang.
This afternoon, four dudes lounge in one corner, periodically doing laps on their bikes or skateboards. They’re sipping 40s. I’m 40. So we have something in common, right? A couple more kids skate near the third-floor ramp of the parking lot. At the other end, two women lay sunbathing.
We’re conditioned to see teenagers as an invasive species. It’s easy to forget that when you’re young there’s nowhere to go, unless you have money. When we grow up, we have jobs and dough to pay for our own homes. They may be small and leave us swimming in debt but they are our private space where we are allowed freedom. Parents can’t tell us to turn it down. Cops can’t tell us to move along.
I don’t have a lawn or a balcony. I live in a loft, a rectangular shoebox in the sky. It’s on the fourth floor. Across the street is a three-storey Green P parking lot. Looking south I have a clear view over the expanse of the city, a half-dozen construction cranes perpetually moving in slow motion, as if swaying in the breeze, punctuated by the exclamation mark of the CN Tower.
On busy weekends, when locals jostle to shop in Kensington Market, the lot is full of cars. But during the week, the top level is used as a public park.
On an average day I’ll see young men and women practising tricks on their skateboards or the BMX bikes with the big wheels and little frames. There are movie crews, sometimes scrambling to get their shots before being chased off by security. Groups of teens will sit in a circle, drinking or smoking, music from a portable speaker dissipating into the sky. Couples come on dates, spread out picnic baskets or climb one of the signs that spell Kensington in big block letters.
There are regulars: the guy who parks his car just to smoke a cigarette alone; the guy who walks his dog when it snows; Karate Man. Once I watched a couple spraying graffiti together, pink and blue paint cans sketching ice cream cones and happy faces on the white wall.
This all happens right outside my front window. No one ever sees me. I’m not trying to invade anyone’s privacy. Some days it’s too distracting and I close the blinds, just to get work done.
Today I finally made time to walk over and say hello.
Jordan, Nigel, Kyle and Ishmael, who all went to high school together in the Beaches, high-five each other when I offer them fried chicken and potato salad, agreeing that this was the right place to chill today. As I set out our buffet, a group of women show up.
“Want some fried chicken?” calls out one of the boys. I’m allowed to call them boys. They were born in 1992, the year I skipped Friday classes to go see Lethal Weapon 3.
“I only eat grilled chicken,” snaps a young lady. They take a seat, not too far away, opening their drinks.
I offer again, with the lagniappe of napkins and potato salad. They accept some food, later coming over to borrow a lighter, to flirt with the boys. Ishmael goes over to skate, bumping fists with the younger kids, who welcome him to share the space.
In real estate terms, a view is supposed to be how far you can see from your windows. The value is in the lack of obstruction. But the best part of my view is what happens directly outside. Email mintz.corey@gmail.com and follow @coreymintz on Twitter and instagram.com/coreymintz
A view is supposed to be how far you can see from your windows. But the best part of my view is what happens directly outside