The borough of Scarborough is sometimes referred to as the Brooklyn of Toronto. A culturally diverse suburb with a rough and dangerous reputation. But the ‘Scarborough Meets‘ event last week was welcoming, fun and drama free. Who would have guessed?
The Agincourt neighbourhood of Scarborough has its own Chinatown, affectionately called Asiancourt. And within there’s a busy, late-night plaza called SkyCity that played host to the car meet. With all the neon signs and music playing outside the cafes, the parking lot seemed like a party.
A unique variety of cars at this show. Sure, there were tricked-out Subarus, but there was also a high-dollar Acura NSX, and a mid-80s Corvette with a tuned V8 to intimidate the four bangers.
The interesting thing was the complete lack of police presence. There were cruisers parked on the street next to the plaza, but they seemed to be banned from entering the parking lot (which is, of course, private property). Whoever runs the plaza seems to really ‘get it’. Let the gearheads hang out and rev their engines, and eventually, they’ll head inside the restaurants or billiard hall to spend some money.
The plaza backs onto a railroad track, so the parking lot was pretty noisy to begin with. But there was no mistaking the sound of an impromptu drag strip in the last row of parked cars. So many vehicles had done burnouts in the parking lot that there were now long patches of rubber on the asphalt.
The meet was busy until about midnight. Some had jobs to get to in the morning, or just a long drive home. The police only stepped in when one goof decided to peel out on Midland Ave, but he kid of left them no choice. For the rest of the gearheads, Scarborough Meets allowed them to be safe from harassment. Within the confines of the parking lot, everything was cool.
By 1:00 am, a small group had zipped across the highway to that other Scarborough institution, Johnny’s, for some late night grub. The good old days are still here, if you know where to go.
So cool!
Yeah, I like these meet-ups. I’ve been to enough now that people no longer think I’m a cop. I should have just done a burnout like that Corvette… cops don’t do burnouts.
😂