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"Sterling Road is newly hip," the New York Times reported in a profile of the Toronto neighborhood that is getting a second life after having been dismissed for decades as a postindustrial wasteland, thanks in part to a Banksy exhibition in an empty warehouse last summer and the arrival of Toronto's Museum of Contemporary Art in the fall.
Among the "earliest adopters" who are also "reaping dividends from the street's new profile" is independent Canadian publisher House of Anansi Press, which arrived in 2015, "transforming a former garage into its headquarters and bookstore. The move proved prescient."
"With Banksy, we saw people come from all over the world," said president and publisher Sarah MacLachlan. "And MOCA shifted everything about how people think of this area." Sales at the bookstore have grown 40% this year over the same period in 2018. "Right now, people live in surrounding neighborhoods, but nobody lives on the street itself. In the coming decade, we'll have 540,000 square feet of new housing in about 900 housing units, along with 565,000 square feet of new office space."