Are you in Winnipeg and surrounding areas? If you are then do you know of the S.H.E.D.? This is the city’s attempt at rejuvenating the downtown experience and stimulating commerce in the core. The full schtick is “ Sports, Hospitality & Entertainment District” just so y’know. The area encompassed within the SHED includes the Convention Centre, MTS Centre, the glossed up Met, Burton Gambler's Theatre, the RWB and the Millennium Library. This area is from now and forever more to be known as the thriving SHED (as per your city)! Are you excited? Does this make you want to spend the afternoon with the family in downtown Winnipeg? If so, please peruse this factual story first, then decide.
Regardless, the facts remain consistent with the past. Winnipeggers generally avoid downtown unless they live there, work there, have a Dr’s appointment there, go to MTS or are forced to meet a friend at some SHED location to dine….otherwise…cut the bullshit…no one comes downtown of their own free will. The city has faith in you though. They feel that you will want to indulge in all the SHED has to offer from Casino’s (Shark Club) to a fancy pants reno'd MET to the safe bubble of Cop Shop HQ in the old Canada Post building. What the city also has faith in is that the common elements of downtown Winnipeg can be hidden, pushed away or at the least, kept at bay. The city hopes the commotions orbiting the Giant Tiger and other discount dumpsters around Portage can be ignored and heel clicked away. Good Luck with that. The city is relying on a common trait of most interlopers to downtown Winnipeg; put your head in the sand and pretend the socio-economic realities of Winnipeg are gone!
So let’s unite fellow Winnipeggers, let’s love the SHED and congregate by the big shitty sculpture in the Millennium Library skate park while we ignore the realities of urban dynamics scurrying in the shadows cast by big, pretentious circular screens and cab headlights. Come, let us spend our money on making Winnipeg a vibrant and energized metropolis! Oh…you’re busy? Not interested? Going to a BBQ by the Perimeter…oh well…at least the city tried.
Angry Downtownite
Regardless, the facts remain consistent with the past. Winnipeggers generally avoid downtown unless they live there, work there, have a Dr’s appointment there, go to MTS or are forced to meet a friend at some SHED location to dine….otherwise…cut the bullshit…no one comes downtown of their own free will. The city has faith in you though. They feel that you will want to indulge in all the SHED has to offer from Casino’s (Shark Club) to a fancy pants reno'd MET to the safe bubble of Cop Shop HQ in the old Canada Post building. What the city also has faith in is that the common elements of downtown Winnipeg can be hidden, pushed away or at the least, kept at bay. The city hopes the commotions orbiting the Giant Tiger and other discount dumpsters around Portage can be ignored and heel clicked away. Good Luck with that. The city is relying on a common trait of most interlopers to downtown Winnipeg; put your head in the sand and pretend the socio-economic realities of Winnipeg are gone!
So let’s unite fellow Winnipeggers, let’s love the SHED and congregate by the big shitty sculpture in the Millennium Library skate park while we ignore the realities of urban dynamics scurrying in the shadows cast by big, pretentious circular screens and cab headlights. Come, let us spend our money on making Winnipeg a vibrant and energized metropolis! Oh…you’re busy? Not interested? Going to a BBQ by the Perimeter…oh well…at least the city tried.
Angry Downtownite