For Ginelle Skerritt, the Golden Mile was “the place to be” when she was growing up in Scarborough in the 1970s.“It was home to the biggest movie theatre in the area,” says Skerritt, who remembers the excitement of going to the Golden Mile Cinema on her 9th birthday and standing in a block-long lineup that stretched along Eglinton Ave. E. from Victoria Park to Pharmacy.“Whenever I hear the words Golden Mile, I think about that time. It is such a happy memory for me.” The Eglinton strip from Victoria Park Ave. to Birchmount Rd. is not such a happy place anymore.The once bustling avenue — heralded in the 1950s as the heart of Canada’s first industrial park, made possible by the purchase of former federal munitions properties by then-Scarborough reeve Oliver Crockford — is now a sea of parking lots, car dealerships and big box retail outlets.Construction equipment and concrete barriers that clog Eglinton as part of the Crosstown transit project only add to the general unsightliness of the area.But Skerritt sees the possibilities.On Tuesday, BMO Financial Group and United Way Greater Toronto are launching a new initiative that will see the leaders of some of Canada’s biggest corporations invest their time, money and expertise to ensure the revitalization of Scarborough’s storied Golden Mile puts area residents in the driver’s seat.And Skerritt, in her role as executive director of the Warden Woods Community Centre, is among a handful of local community leaders who have been invited to help make it happen.“Certainly in all my years, I’ve never been invited to a table like this,” Skerritt said of a meeting in October co-chaired by BMO chief executive officer Darryl White and United Way Greater Toronto president Daniele Zanotti.“We normally don’t get to have a chance to sit down with the corporate community and have a chance to think about what it means to create a des ...
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