When I moved in, small scales were the normal; single family, one and a half story homes, hovering aroudn the one thousand sq.ft. threshold. Closer to the hill, north of Fourth Avenue, two-story homes predominated, and the large million dollar in-fills had already started appearing on Drury. My wife and I used to walk home from City Bakery on First Avenue to the tiny little house we were renting on Colgrove Avenue at the top of the hill. We would often come up by way of Drury, dreaming perhaps of living in a house with a view of downtown from the ridge (the house we were renting had a gorgeous view and only Drury offered better ones).
Once my daughter was born, we would continue to walk home the same way, but my daughter always fussed along that particular route. Eventually she told us that she didn't like walking through the "spooky forest". The blocks of 8th Street south of Fourth Avenue are heavily canopied, to such an extent that the street is mostly shadowed throughout the day. The picture above, for example, was taken at noon today, when the street gets it's most sunlight. I must admit, to a three year old it must have looked quite spooky, particularly in the Fall.
In general, I love my neighbourhood, but the I am often surprised to find myself saddened by the development of a fourplex at the corner of 8th and Fourth. It's the bright spot on the distant corner.
Prior to the fourplex, that particular corner was perhaps the spookiest part of Bridgeland's Spook Forest, comprising of not only more trees, but nestled in and amongst the trees were three or four small working man's cottages, the likes of which I had never seen anywhere else. I've include a link that gives something of an impression of what the cottages looked like, except they were smaller. One cottage was barely wide enough for a large man to extend his arms. The shae from the trees had killed most of the grass and plants, so none of them had much of a garden or lawn. Sometimes my wife and I would cross to the otherside of the street, half-expecting Boo Radley to emerge from one of them. Between ourselves we referred to the cottages as Shack Row.
Then, one summer, the cottages and the trees were gone and I've missed them ever since.
