THE PARTY'S OVER, ALMOST, AT 48 ABELL

Last Call: Loft Crazies Have Had A Great Run, But Landlord Is Going Legit

It's an age-old story. A lamp factory gets into the landlord
business. Then the tenants throw parties so wild they'd make Caligula
run into the night.

Within vomiting distance of Queen and Dufferin, 48 Abell St. party
palace is owned by Aristocrat Lamps and Lighting ... and ... um ...
Property Management Inc. It's an old factory revamped into 85 lofts
where, for 25 years now, partying tenants have thrown open their
doors and invited in the night crowd to rock and rattle the
chandeliers stored in the basement.

It was in the late '70s, when the lamp and lighting business had
started to dim, that Aristocrat's Mervin Hollander, the arts-loving
son in the family business, got his great idea. Why not downsize the
factory and rent out the extra space to starving artists?

Then and now, starving artists like a bit of fun.

"The big party we had was the Green Party," recalls Sea Ansley, whose
web media company, Universal Metropolis, until recently had a studio
at 48 Abell. "We got evicted."

That was on May 7, 2005. Ansley says the "green" theme was a
celebration of green tea and environmental awareness -- but mostly
pot. Universal Metropolis set up a hip-hop room, a rave room and a
"chill" room with chefs making quiche and fondue. There was a contest
for the best strain of pot. "The prize was a giant Indian glass
bong," said Ansley.

But Ansley and pals hadn't realized their party was on the same day
as the city's Marijuana March. "Our party turned into the afterparty," he said.

Ansley, who had briefly worried nobody would show up, watched in
horror from sunset to sunrise as about 700 people packed the halls of
48 Abell, dancing, getting high, puking and passing out. A scary guy
with a meat cleaver ran around hacking pineapples.

Aristocrat had issues with the Green Party. For one, the pipes burst
in the basement where they kept their lamp stocks. Universal Media
got the boot.

Mervin Hollander wants to put 48 Abell on the right side of the law.
The building is zoned for studio workspaces, although it's an open
secret that people live there. Hollander wants to upgrade the
property, make the transition legal.

Except for the dead, rusted cars outside, the pit bulls who don't
pick up after themselves, and the smell of wet paint and pot leaking
into the hallways, 48 Abell is downright homey. Behind closed doors,
tenants have decorated their loft walls with huge, bright, splashy
canvases. The vast spaces have fat, cushy old couches and chairs.
Ladders lead up to bedrooms on wooden platforms. There's plenty of
heat. No mice. No cockroaches.

But Hollander says engineers keep telling him it would cost a fortune
to bring the building up to code. Tear it down, they say, and start
from scratch.

So he hired a development firm to rethink the property. The
developers propose two towers to replace the old building. One would
offer low-income housing with a mind to the art crowd. The other will
offer snappy condominiums to hipsters who can afford real estate.

People in the neighbourhood are opposing the revamp, saying it'll
force out 48 Abell's current tenants.

And a shiny new condo tower might wreck the classic low-rise
Victorian look of Queen West.

In the meantime, going legit means cracking down on the nuttiness.

"We've done a lot to curb the reputation of booze cans and parties,"
says Nancy Estrela, who works in Aristocrat's ground floor office.

Estrela plays the unhappy role of party pooper.

"Everyone knows who I am," she says. Her day ends at 5 p.m., but if
there's a party that night, Estrela hears about it. "You always have
a neighbour who's ticked off. So there's snitching."

The rising profile of the neighbourhood is also forcing Aristocrat's
heavy hand.

The revamped Drake and Gladstone hotels have attracted a stampede of
new partiers. Estrela says after last call at the Drake, the still
thirsty find 48 Abell just a hop, skip and a stagger away.

Estrela has safety concerns.

"It's a wood structure building so we can't have people smoking," she
says, then adds: "The fire department has no sense of humour."

Estrela says there's a negative vibe at work that has nothing to do
with management. "The tenants changed. They got older."

Friendly rents of $800 to $1,500 per studio have produced "not much
flip," as Estrela puts it -- meaning some tenants at 48 Abell are
overstaying their own scene.

Take, for example, David Park, 28. He and his roommates threw a party
in their loft last summer, featuring a giant inflatable pool. Door
crashers from a bachelor party down the hall added to the mayhem.

The wet floor the next morning wasn't as bad as what happened to the
neglected pool after a couple of weeks. "Algae started to form," says
Park. "It smelled funny. It started to get kind of browny green." He
looks sick, recalling it. "I don't want to talk about it any more."

Park regrets the party. The crazy stuff is getting old. "I guess the
party's over for me," he says. "I'm kind of tired more, don't want to
go out as much."

If the development plans go through, the building will be razed
within a couple of years. One tenant, illustrator Clayton Hanmer,
predicts the art crowd will build a new bohemia somewhere else.

"It's not really my neighbourhood any more," he says, a reference to
the weekenders "from Woodbridge and stuff" drawn to the reno hotels.
He misses that golden age of cheap beers among old men at the
Gladstone. And "the Drake was just boarded up and nasty," he recalls.
"Crack whores used to go there. It was awesome."

Ex-tenant Ansley says there's already a buzz around 48 Abell about
the hypothetical "last party" if the loft crowd gets displaced. One
last shout in a building about to be torn down.

"It'll be Toronto's biggest party of the decade," he says confidently.

Aristocrat might want to move out the chandeliers this time.