Since moving to Toronto over five years ago, lots has changed around the city. Yonge and Bloor has been demolished, there’s an aiport on the island, and Queen between Degrassi and Coxwell is cool.

I first moved to the city while I was finishing an e-Journalism program at Loyalist College in Belleville, doing an unpaid internship at the old CTV.ca news website in Agincourt. I stayed at my then girlfriend’s parents house in the East side of town, just half a block south of Lahore Tikka in Little India, near Gerrard and Greenwood.

Eventually I moved out to Queen and Bathurst in a small, cheap, one bedroom basement apartment and because we were on the Queen line, we’d take that epic ride West on the 501 when I visited. At the time, it was a sketchy thing going out that way… once you passed by Yonge and the Eaton centre, you passed by Moss Park, Parliament, Regent Park, then over the DVP. South Riverdale rolled by with Jillys, Dangerous Dans, the Real Jerk and the Opera House, then a whole lot of mechanic shops and nothing until I’d eventually get to Greenwood.

It seems overnight that things at Queen and Greenwood have changed, and I think it started with Film Buff and the Red Rocket coffee place. After the hood survived the “No Box Stories in Leslieville” movement, the new identity cemented itself this summer with Chino Locos, Cream and Celil Cottage all popping up and just exploding with popularity, drawing a crowd like the strip has never seen before.

So now, in September 2009, it seems like Leslieville has hit a tipping point, and is on the verge of maybe changing for the worse. Unlike Ossington, which has seen it’s own explosion of change in the last couple years, Leslieville never had the “party problem.” Sure, there’s lots of places to grab a drink down there, even in the newly opened Cottage and Roy Roy, but Leslieville has never had a real “venue” where live music or DJs could hold spin deep into the night.

It makes sense that it hasn’t happened yet; the east end is still very family focused… it’s quiet, and people are generally hanging around, waiting to be scene. You’ll find students living there, sure, but I would wager it’s alot of young adults looking for a little peace and quiet, some good food and art, without getting caught up in the so-called pretensiousness of life West of Bathurst.

But all it will take is one live venue with a half decent booker and all those hold-out store fronts will convert and the party will finally come. And I’m looking square at the Duke at Queen and Leslie as ground zero for this to happen… it already has dive bar cred, and if it needs to, I imagine it can pack in a crowd.

For now, Leslieville remains an indie version of the Beaches, and will probably always be a little less cool, and a little less dangerous than Riverdale South, just to the West.