The recent “Cabbagetown Cultural Festival” moves me to submit one of my pet peeves to your readers: namely, the appropriation of the name “Cabbagetown” by the “trendies” who have come into the area in the last several years.

I find it nauseating to have to witness all this “Old Cabbagetowne” ballyhoo and puffery emanating from a fashionable clique who don’t even know where Cabbagetown actually was (it certainly wasn’t up around Parliament and Carlton) let alone what it was. These people who are now calling themselves “Cabbagetowners” would never have set foot in Cabbagetown, and have nothing in common with the real Cabbagetowners. All they represent is a middle-class and business ripoff of the heritage of the people of this area.

Peter Parker
Ontario Street

Published in Seven News, 23 September 1978 (Volume 9, Number 10)