Piazza, Piazza
From Toronto Life, January 2003

The downtown leg of the world's longest thoroughfare is a traffic-jammed wind tunnel bounded by crowded sidewalks and hostile cliffs of skyscrapers. After a couple of centuries of life on the straight and narrow, Yonge is being opened up by two recently completed plazas: Scrivener Square, next to the Summerhill liquor store; and, farther south, the unimaginatively named Yonge-Dundas Square. Will these agoras draw people, like the Muskoka-rock square in Yorkville, or become expensive reflections of their planners' egos, like, say, Mel Lastman Square? Below, we compare these new spreads, the one privately funded, the other paid for out of the strapped city's budget. Who comes out on top? No surprise here: the Rosedalers scored better real estate at a lower price.

AREA
SCRIVENER: 16,000 square feet
YONGE-DUNDAS: 40,000 square feet

COST
SCRIVENER: $650,000, paid by the developer Equifund
YONGE-DUNDAS: $10 million, paid by the city, which is peddling naming and advertising rights to recoup some of its investment

MODELLED ON
SCRIVENER: Venice's Piazza San Marco
YONGE-DUNDAS: New York's Times Square

RESEMBLANCE TO MODEL
SCRIVENER: The 42-metre tower on Scrivener's train station turned liquor depot is distantly related to the elegant campaniles of Venice, home to flocks of pigeons. The dirty doves also roosted in the Toronto tower, leaving behind nine tons of dung
YONGE-DUNDAS: The Toronto and Big Apple squares both have discount theatre ticket kiosks, and both are wallpapered with gaudy ads

DESIGN
SCRIVENER: A ''water table'' that fills, then tips and empties (inspired by devices the Japanese use to scare deer); three reflecting pools, each tiled in different colours (blue, green and yellow); eight trees and a rusty overhead train trestle
YONGE-DUNDAS: An array of 22 programmable ground-level fountains hidden under steel grates, two zinc canopies (resembling highway off-ramps), six (count 'em, six) trees (four ginkgo, four boulevard)

AMENITIES
SCRIVENER: Canada's largest liquor store (slated to open in February), black granite benches, two nearby parking lots with 120 spaces, a cafe with a patio spilling onto the square
YONGE-DUNDAS: A concert stage, a 273-space underground parking lot, public washrooms, drinking fountains, a subway entrance

NEIGHBOURS
SCRIVENER: Purveyors of the finest foods at the most exalted prices (the so-called ''Six Thieves''), antiques emporia with names like Absolutely and Marie Antoinette, unsightly big-box retailers (Sleep Country, Radio Shack and Staples)
YONGE-DUNDAS: The Eaton Centre, video arcades, Ryerson, the Hard Rock, strip clubs (the Zanzibar and Remington's), grand old theatres (the Elgin and the Canon), music stores, street youth centres

LIKELY USERS
SCRIVENER: Stroller pushers, rubbies (wearing last season's Prada cast-offs), running and reading groups, suits, nannies
YONGE-DUNDAS: Pushers, buskers, skateboarders, street kids, undercover cops, foreign exchange students

THE GOOD
SCRIVENER: Strong visual impact while the sun is up: the tipping water table draws the eye at ground level, while the newly repaired and cleaned clock tower acts as a beacon from afar
YONGE-DUNDAS: Its clean lines have already won it an architectural design award. The canopies will provide shade and shelter. Security guards and high-wattage illumination should prevent the area's many criminals from congregating here

THE BAD
SCRIVENER: Minimal shade and shelter mean it will attract only fair-weather friends. Shopping is the area's sole draw, so the square will empty out after business hours and may become a no-go zone
YONGE-DUNDAS: Construction on the Metropolis entertainment complex on the north side of Dundas is still stalled, creating a scaffolded-over eyesore

THE BOTTOM LINE
SCRIVENER: Like many of its Rosedale patrons, conventional but likely to succeed
YONGE-DUNDAS: A design triumph, but it won't feel complete until the Metropolis is finished -- and who knows when that'll be?