15 Year Old Rye

I first moved to Toronto in the summer of 1994. I was 19. I was on my way to study journalism at the newly-minted Ryerson Polytechnic University. The school had a great reputation for media arts and I was stoked to have passed the tests for entrance. And so I arrived, and failed, and built other things for my life far away from the city of Toronto.

Now I am back and I am amazed at the changes. Ryerson has become a veritable force in the heart of Canada's largest city. The grey, drab building of my days are receiving facelifts and the glowing name of the school hovers above the city blocks with omniscient intent. Spreading its wings, the university has crossed over Yonge Street and established the Ted Rogers School of Management (they may soon have to rename the school Rogers University as the company supported the communications building over on Jarvis as well!). The management school now occupies the space where the firts multi-plex cinema was built in the city and where I would regularly (too regularly?) skip off for movie matinees between classes.

The iconic Sam the Record Man spinning disks are finally gone and the proposed Student Learning Centre is moving in to take its position less than a block from Canada's version of Times Square. Growth is deemed inevitable but part of me is sad to see the small institution with a firm grasp on developing hands-on disciplines morph into another cookie-cutter community of commercialized academics. The other part of me is reminded of how much has changed - for me. Fifteen years and I am back in Toronto. The garden paths of my youth are overgrown and lost to concrete and I feel a sense of release in that reflection. So long Rye High.