The Rooftop Manifesto

When I was in high-school, looking around for spots to hang out, the downtown core has been, essentially, a bunch of decorative buildings that don't really do anything. Of course there were shops, and offices, and stores and all sorts of nice places, but none of it really interested a bored teenager. Only one thing kept drawing me and my friends back to James Street to hang out day after day - we loved the Jackson Roof.

We could tell by looking at it that it'd seen better days; the closed-off remains of the City Centre Mall looming to the North, the frozen corpse of the FirstOntario Centre fenced off to the West, but beyond it all there was an energy in the air.

Being a story above street level, surrounded by Cold-War era concrete architecture was just so undeniably cool that we had to come back, time and time again. There wasn't much to do up there, but the spirit of the mall made conversation come easy.

When this town's revitalized, I'll be excited to see it flush with life again, but there's something magical about being having that giant roof space all to yourself as the sun sets. I hope that Downtown 2.0 does something awesome with the space. Make more stuff above ground level! Turn it into a plaza! Open a lemonade stand or something! Capitalize on how amazingly rad the roof already looks, and turn it into a gathering place! A central hub for people to chill at while they think of all the other awesome downtown spots they can visit in 2035.

Viva La Jackson! Viva La Rooftops!