A Look Back: Commerce Place (sally)
(As we wind down our days at the edmontonian, We’ll be looking back at some of our favorite posts, stories, items, etc from the last 2+ years).
One of my favorite series of posts was Doorwatch ’09 – a string of posts about the broken door at downtown shopping centre Commerce Place.
Out of order for a year or better by the time I wrote about it, the posts about the Commerce Place door rank among my favorites for a few reasons: first, they gave me a means to vent my unholy fury about how much I hated the fact that no one cared enough to fix the door.
Second, I was fortunate enough to be able to find a lot of other people who had just as much of a deathwish for that door as I did. It’s a powerful thing to experience, a whole group of people saying “You are not taking crazy pills, and we feel your pain” – even if your pain is as inane as the mild inconvenience of having to walk a half-block out of your way to get to work.
When I learned that other people found Commerce Place to be just as hilariously frustrating as I did, I realized something that I hadn’t during my days working in “real news” – that stories don’t have to be big or dramatic or tragic to matter. I think it’s easy to forget, in a world with so much tabloid journalism, celebrity culture and the pervasive attitude that “if it bleeds, it leads!” – but what you do, what you experience, and who you are matters . Your story is important – even if isn’t dramatic, or glamourous or likely to be made into a W Network movie of the week (p.s. watch for Barbara Hershey in “SALLY’S DOOR: A WOMAN’S JOURNEY OUT OF COMMERCE PLACE” next fall).
There are no small stories. Thanks for teaching me that.
Carts and Couches
It certainly is a week of photo posts around here. Is it obvious that we’re cleaning off our phones and actually looking in all those folders of photos on our computers?
Here’s a post dedicated to two things I love to find in Edmonton; couches and shopping carts. (We’ve done couches before.)
It’s the best when you find them in really weird places. (more…)
Escalator Watch Begins (sort of)
This picture is actually from January.
Look, we don’t want to be typecast as the blog that points out stuff that doesn’t seem to get fixed.
(Although others clearly like the idea.)
One day I will take the LRT and not see these awful yellow notices. One day.
But it’s been five months. Five. Months.
And the escalator on the east side of the University LRT Station is still broken.
It made for absolutely jam-packed crushes up the working escalator all school year. At busy points it’s still really annoying.
LRT Station, we want two escalators!
It’s Escalator Watch ’10 – and we’re already at five months…
Do you think the escalator will be fixed by the time the new LRT stations open at Southgate and Century Park. That’s a race to watch!!!
Next time…we may actually ask the ETS what’s up…but we also like just sitting on our high horses and demanding things be in working order…
I peered into the work area months ago. It's still under construction.
Always believe
We did it!
Alright, we, as in the edmontonian or Edmonton as a whole, didn’t do anything. But Commerce Place employees, visitors and just plain everyday Edmontonians can enjoy free and easy access from the city’s premiere street to the building.
It only took forever.
Never forget.
Door Watch will always have a special place in our hearts because it was one of our first features, and one of the first stories that seemed to connect with people who would say to us “Yeah, that door hasn’t been open in a bygone.”
We talk to a lot of old people who use terms like bygone.
Our only complaint was that the door was broken for so long that it had already become lore of unfixable items by the time we hit the scene.
Gee…I wonder if anyone else is being lax in fixing major items around this town…maybe we can get on their case next.
Sadly, when they were trapped inside the boarded up door in 2008 there were 10 of them.
Supplying the regular media with ideas since 2009
We first called out Commerce Place, on their inability to fix one little door, in August.
Hey, traditional media, anytime you like one of our stories we can save you guys some time working on it if you just drop us a line. We’ll do it for standard freelance rates, nothing fancy.
Then, you know, you could work on investigative news that people (like us) with day jobs can’t do.
But it is super-flattering.
SEE jumped onto our bandwagon nearly 3 months later.
If you’ve ever wondered if good things can happen…
…they can.
(No, they haven’t re-opened the doors next to Tim Hortons. But the sawhorse is gone on the second set of Jasper Avenue doors. Just let me have this one.)
Scrambled #yeg
This is the second in a burgeoning series of Edmonton photos. Basically, I see stuff that’s weird, hilarious, though-provoking, or just plain Edmonton and it appears here every now and again.
There never seems to be a shortage of odd things.
That’s a nice basket of rocks you’ve got there.
The next one was kind of funny at first. Then we found a second cough syrup bottle at Clareview Station and it wasn’t as funny.
Spotted on the Clareview LRT grounds.
This cough syrup bottle was on the LRT tracks.
I’ve had this one for a while. This mask was found at the University. Surely that means it has something to do with education of some sort. Right?
In case of emergency, find this mask at the U of A.
Remember when this guy (and his pal) were on the main level of the City Centre mall? Now they’ve been relegated to the back corner of the smaller food court. Sorry buddy.
It ain't what it used to be, because they put you in the basement.
I think, by this point, our love-hate relationship with Commerce Place and its Jasper Avenue doors is documented. That they have but one door, of four, operational on the city’s main downtown street is funny, but not “ha-ha” funny. Oh, Commerce Place…
Two doors broken, one door saw-horsed. You're next, remaining door.
And for those wondering, #yeg is a Twitter reference. Get on Twitter, already.
Opinion: Are you f&*!ing kidding me with this, Commerce Place?!
A nice week off, and the first thing I come across on Monday morning is this. What is this, you ask? This is the third of what were once four functioning doors at Commerce Place. Now there is one functioning door. That’s right, 75% of doors at Commerce Place’s Jasper Ave entrance are now down for the count.
Look, I know this is stupid. I know I have a functioning body and a low-to-average intellect and thus, I should be able to just immerse myself in other pursuits and let this go. Commerce Place has every right to spend the rest of time not fixing their doors, if they so choose.
And that is just what I thought to myself as I called GWL Realty Advisors to ask WTF is the deal with these stupid doors.
The person who answered the phone was very nice. I assume she was the receptionist, though she didn’t say, and I kind of felt like she couldn’t get me off the phone the fast enough once I identified that I was calling on behalf of the edmontonian. She told me that they are waiting for parts for the doors. I asked if parts typically take more than a year arrive. She said no, and told me it’s just kind of been one thing after another with the doors. First the parts, then the contractors. They may have to remove the doors entirely and put in new ones, she said.
Now, I would be lying if I said that I believed this was all just an honest mistake. Unless part of those doors are being smelted in the fires of Haley’s Comet, they should’ve been fixed, oh, A YEAR AGO.
But I would also being lying if I said that talking to a real live person about the real live constraints of their job didn’t kind of ruin my feud with Commerce Place. :( So, to that end, I’ve decided that the time has come for me to put the whole thing in more of a “glass half full” kind of perspective.
What do you guys think?
Doorwatch ’09: Day 7
I know you think you’re winning this, Commerce Place. You think I can’t go the distance – but you’re wrong. There is one thing you must never underestimate about me: I am an incredibly petty. I’m so petty, I’m practically Dini Petty over here. This is UNEQUIVOCALLY a hill that I will die on.
So let’s discuss the “Please excuse our appearance, we’re renovating” poster. Because I don’t see any renovating going on anywhere else in Commerce Place. It’s just this door. And after months of being “under renovation”, this door had better be pretty spectacular when it’s unveiled. I’m thinking like, a thin film of pure energy that protects us from the elements without requiring us to open or close it. It also hydrates us and heals any minor cuts and scrapes we may have acquired throughout the day. I’m talking like the Osmosis Door 3000 brought to you by Polysporin(patent pending).
G.D. it, Commerce Place, it’s been 7 days. Just fix the door. 
Opinion: that g.d. door at Commerce Place
Look, I’m not one to criticize, y’know … people in glass houses and all that jazz. But Commerce Place, you’re killing me.
I’m pretty sure that the last time I used this door was in 2008 (and yet, I still forget it’s blocked off, every time I try to exit onto Jasper Avenue).
So I am sincerely asking: WHAT IS THE HOLDUP WITH FIXING THIS DOOR?
Are we waiting for breakneck advances in door science to level out, so we don’t get stuck with out-of-date door technology?
Are we unsure about the future of the west side of the building?
WAS IT REALLY LESS WORK TO BOARD THIS UP THAN TO JUST REPLACE THE DOOR?
Starting today, Commerce Place, I’m keeping track of how long this door remains blocked off at the bottom of each post. You even get a clean slate – today is day number one. How long until you fix the door?
