C M Y
THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR l THE SPEC.COM SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2013 BA9
“Will it work?” I ask.Londa smiles. Yes, she says.“I guess I just got a spell for free.”“You’d be surprised how many peo-
ple come in here and take notes.”Onward I go, past the Trocadero res-
taurant — it opened on D-Day, June 6,1944, and is still open, but with limitedhours.
Inside the little Barton librarybranch, more than a dozen people areinside on computers and reading, in-cluding Tijana to baby Lilly.
I pass a church billing itself as a Dis-tinctive Southern Baptist Church, theold Gibson School, which would alsomake a great condo/apartment build-ing, and Baltic Bread bakery.
Here is David’s Hair Design, one ofseveral hair places on Barton. DavidStewart has run the place for 21 years.He does a lot of charity work, holds aChristmas party for clients every yearwhere he collects food bank donations.
White locks of hair fall from a man inthe chair. He used to go to a barber onKing Street but the guy retired. He fig-ured David’s was the next closest.
David’s mother, Meta, who is Scot-tish, helped fund his start in thebusiness.
“I always wanted to do hairstyling. Iused to sit behind my mom and brushher hair constantly.”
At Sherman, where the old Britanniatavern sits closed, a man wearing ablack leather jacket and sunglassesstops on his bicycle at the light. Hisname is Stephen. He prefers Stef. Ateacher once called him that. He likedit.
“I grew up down here with the Ital-ians,” he says, “which was nice. Youcould get homemade wine off yourfriend’s dad.”
He worked in the steel mills, recentlyretired at 56.
He’s en route to the mall to pick up agame for his son. Hates the mall,though.
He grins. Nothing is getting himdown.
“I just smoked a joint in the sun,” hesays.
Across the street, I pass HamiltonSportswear. Cheeky message-embla-zoned T-shirts visible through the win-dow include the requisite Argos Suck,and also “I may be fat but you’re uglyand I can diet,” and “Don’t flatter your-self, I was looking at your friend.”
Further along is Harmony Furni-ture, which has been here 40 years. Theowner, John Genuardi, is from Sicily.He sells new furniture at low prices.Years ago, he sold his classic displaystore sign to movie producers in Ham-ilton filming The Hulk.
Inside the store, Sinatra croons onthe radio while Genuardi sits baskingin sunlight shining through the frontdisplay window, a pensive look on hisface, a blue and white tuque on hishead.
His best deal today?“Everything,” he says.I’ve entered the Polish-flavoured
part of Barton: popular StarpolskieDeli, Polimex Travel.
I’m not hungry, but I pop into KarlikPastry, stuff a mini cream puff in mygrill. It is a battle to stop at just one.
Glenn Garneau is here, havingparked a massive City of Hamiltontruck out front. He’s fixing it at Kenil-worth Spring, where he works. Heleaves with a bag full of pastry. He sayshe is a popular guy at coffee break atthe shop.
I PASS A USED CAR LOT andmore churches, including a golden-domed Ukrainian Orthodox at BalsamAvenue.
I haven’t done a bar yet, and therehave been several to choose from. It’stime for a beer at the Barton Touch-down Pub, just east of Gage, to washdown the cream puff, smoked meatsandwich and crepe.
To someone entering from the light,it looks as dark as the inside of a leatherglove. Bartender Jeanine shines bright-ly, though — blond hair, blue eyes,greeting regulars with a smile andtheir name as they arrive, grabbingtheir beer of choice from the fridgewithout asking their order.
“Hey, Mo.” “Hey, McGahee.”The pub has seen many lives; it was
the Dizzy Weasel, the Avon, Avondale,Johnny’s.
“They used to tie up horses out front— that’s how long this place has beenhere,” says Jeanine.
It is a neighbourhood pub, but itcounts on extra business from the CFLcrowd. With the Ticats playing homegames in Guelph this season, she’llhave fewer extra shifts, which is bad inone sense, good in another — it meansmore time at her trailer in Muskoka.
Funny, while people in other parts ofthe city avoid Barton Street, Jeanineavoids the west end of Barton. She doesnot venture down there, has neverbeen to Duarte’s, for example, althoughshe’s heard of the place. She thinks thatarea is too tough for her.
She shows me pictures of her dogson her iPad. I drink from a $4.50 pint ofJames Ready draft lager, which is icegold on the throat.
A couple named Noel and Melindasit close together at the bar. Noel is aheavy equipment operator. He’s head-ing to the airport in an hour to fly toFort McMurray, Alta., to work 60 daysstraight on hydro lines.
They tip back beers and share the earbuds of his iPod, listening to music,Melinda’s eyes growing moist as timerushes by.
I re-emerge into the blinding sun.Next stop is Mr. Used, a massive ware-house of stuff.
They rent quirky and anachronisticitems for movie sets, donate them forschool plays, and sell to anyone who
needs a statue of Julius Caesar for theirbasement, or perhaps a dusty old ATMmachine, an airplane propeller, rotaryphone or 1955 Austin Princess limou-sine (price tag for the limo: $12,500).
People show up asking for the od-dest things, says employee Steve Le-gere, everything from 19th-centurydoor hardware to street signs, stainedglass, 1950s-era dishwashers and cof-fins.
“I know where 90 per cent of thestuff is.”
My last stop before hitting the finishline at Ottawa Street: Sandie’s FreshCut Fries. Sandie runs the operationout of a chip wagon that was a Purola-tor truck in a previous life.
She says she is a Newfie who lovesher customers and her neighbour-hood. The chip wagon is broken intoonce a year, the idiots never seem tocatch on that she leaves nothing of val-ue in there.
A man and woman stop by and tellSandie a couple of teenagers are up tono good down the street.
“What are they doing?” says Sandie.“I’ll kick their ass.”
She steps out the back of the chipwagon to have a look. She seems tallerthrough the window, elevated by thechip wagon and the box upon whichshe stands. Now she comes to just pastmy waist. She is 4-foot-8.
She keeps a jar on the counter fortips, which go to her friend BonnieSmith at Groovy Baby.
“Not all of Barton Street is crack-heads and hos,” she says. “Some of ustry to do good stuff, like Bonnie.”
A teenager named Jacob Burrellstops for a chili dog. The price is $5.65,including tax. All he has is a five. San-die rolls her eyes and takes the bill.
“I guess today is no-tax day for hand-some guys,” she says. “I’ll just have tocharge the homely ones extra.”
Sandie serves me some fries — thelast thing I need at this point — but thearoma of the fries and malt vinegar istoo much to resist. She says I couldstand to put on a few pounds.
I REACH OTTAWA STREET,the walk complete. I’m too tired towalk back to Wellington for my car. Iboard the Barton Street bus.
Some have told me that the “BartonBus” is another world of unusual char-acters. I wonder how many of them tryto get a deal on the $2.55 fare — becausethat’s me. I only have about a buck fiftyin coins, having plunked most of mychange in Sandie’s tip jar.
I offer the bus driver a $10 billinstead.
“It’s OK,” says the driver, a youngguy wearing cool shades. “I don’t wantyou losing the 10. Just pay what youcan.”
And I do, feeling sheepish as I listento the paltry cascade of change tinkledown the chute.
The bus is packed; men and women,all ages, women with strollers and gro-
ceries. Everyone seems quiet andpolite.
I get off at Wentworth. It’s just after 5p.m., the journey seemingly over, but Ipop back into the Mendonça café, withits white tin ceiling, olive green walls,arched mirrors, soccer game on TV.
This time, Manuela is here. Shebrings me a creamy latte. It is perfect.She tosses in a few cookies. I see thatthe Wi-Fi password I wrote on mynotepaper a few weeks ago is taped tothe mirror behind the bar.
I chat with Jen, a regular, who tendsbar at another place on Barton and livesin the neighbourhood. I tell her I was atthe Barton Touchdown Pub earlier.She used to work there.
“Who served you?” she asks.“Jeanine.”“She is gorgeous.”Jen is 34, has lived here 12 years. She
smiles when I tell her that Jeanine,down east on Barton, thinks this end ofthe street is dangerous — because, ofcourse, Jen thinks the opposite is true.
When I tell her I’m writing aboutBarton Street, she laughs wickedly, asthough she’s primed to dish dirt aboutthe place.
But that’s not what she talks about.“The rent is cheap, and it’s my area, my’hood. We stick together here and I feelsafer here than downtown. I do. You al-ways see everyone that you know.”
She loves Bella Pizza next door,where sometimes they give her extratoppings, and also the food at Tony’s —the place is actually called the Esplana-da Café, but it’s owned by Tony.
She adores the Portuguese people onthis part of the street. She’s not Portu-guese but she feels like one of them.
She makes fun of my pronunciationof Mendonça, which I say like Mendon-ka when in fact it should be more likeMendonsa.
She lives with Jeffy — Jeffy the cat,not Jeff the guy she considered marry-ing at one time. Two other cats as well,Ariel and Scamper.
A prostitute sometimes works thecorner where Jen lives and it bothersher. But instead of calling police whenthe hooker sets up shop, she tells herneighbour, and the neighbour tells thewoman to take off.
Hamilton is Jen’s city, but more spe-cifically, Barton is where her heart is.
“I feel cocooned here, it is part of me,I couldn’t live anywhere else. It’s realhere.”
It is just after 5:30. I get up to leave.“See you later,” she says.I walk back into the light, head west
toward my car, crossing the narrowstreet in traffic.
The sun is high in the sky, air warm.Faces and places run through my head,the good and the bad.
The place is a piece of work, Bartonis. Johnny would rather not be leavingjust yet.
Local wateringhole EsplanadaCafé & Sports Bar(a.k.a. Tony’s) atBarton andCheever sees alot of traffic on arecent sunny day.
Take notes continued from // BA8
SCOTT GARDNER, THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
“It’s a lost cause … from Sherman to Wellington. I know what it’s like,fights all night, crack deals, hookers and johns jostling for position.” CHRIS HARTENRESIDENT
BARTON ST. E.A CODE RED PROJECT
