A Bit More Detail

Spotify has surpassed 50 million subscribers, extending its lead over rivals Apple Music, SoundCloud and Google as the world’s largest paid music streaming service.

The service, owned by Stockholm-based Spotify Ltd., has been growing at a breakneck pace. The company said it had 30 million subscribers less than a year ago, and 40 million subscribers in September. Apple Inc., owner of the second-largest paid service, said last month its streaming service has more than 20 million customers.

Adding paying customers will help Spotify pitch investors, who expect the company to file for an initial public offering and are looking for signs the company can convert its growing subscriber base into a sustainable business. Spotify, which is unprofitable, generates almost all of its sales from subscriptions, though the music service also has tens of millions of additional users who listen for free, supported by advertising.

Whenever Anna Maria Afable travels from British Columbia to visit her friends in Ontario, she makes a point to stop in at a Giant Tiger store.

"We don't have it in B.C.," says Afable, as she browses through the fashion section at a location in Barrie, Ont, the newest of the discount chain's 200 stores across the country. "When we see a Giant Tiger, we drop by and see the price. They have very good prices, very low, affordable for middle-class people."

Ian Ferguson lives in Barrie and is a Giant Tiger regular. "The prices are awesome," he enthuses.

Shoppers like Afable and Ferguson are driving a boom in discount retail. Giant Tiger — better known in rural and suburban Canada than it is in big cities — will add 10 to 15 stores this year, with more to come. Meanwhile, Costco is midway through a seven-store expansion. And the biggest of them all, Dollarama, is adding 60 to 70 new locations this year to its 1,000-store national network.

"At Christmastime you're going to put gold balls on your Christmas tree. Does it matter if they're Ralph Lauren, or the ones you get from Dollarama?" asks Marvin Ryder, a professor of business at Hamilton's McMaster University. "They both look the same."

9:10 a.m., February 10, 1977. Chaos reigned on the platforms of Dundas station, which was jammed beyond capacity with people eager to attend the opening of the Eaton Centre. “Passengers got close to hysteria as they were dumped out into dense crowds that couldn’t get through the single open exit fast enough,” the Globe and Mail reported.

Up above, by the entrance to Trinity Square, around 4,500 gathered for the official opening ceremony. A group of trumpeters descended from a balcony, along with 16 costumed representatives of the city’s ethnic communities. Pipers from the Toronto Scottish Regiment led in the official party, then the 48th Highlanders escorted Ontario Lieutenant-Governor Pauline McGibbon, who received the loudest cheers from the crowd. McGibbon, Mayor David Crombie, and other dignitaries cut a red ribbon with scissors presented on blue velvet cushions by Girl Guides. A planned salute to the new mall by the Fort York Guard was scratched when, following a rehearsal, it was felt musket fire would frighten elderly patrons.

The Eaton Centre was still a work in progress. The festivities marked the opening of its first phase, which consisted of an office tower on Dundas Street, Eaton’s new flagship store, and a glass-covered galleria stretching from the store south to Albert Street. The next phase, which would extend the mall to Queen Street, link it to Simpsons, and toss up another office tower, would soon begin with the demolition of Eaton’s old main store.

For Eaton’s executives, the day culminated two decades of controversy surrounding the $250 million complex’s development. A mid-1960s plan aroused public opposition when it proposed demolition of Old City Hall. For a time, the idea was scrapped entirely. There were two years of negotiation with Church of the Holy Trinity before an agreement was reached between the congregation and developers to protect the historic church’s access to sunlight. City Council placed several conditions on its approvals for the project, from timeframes for when construction had to begin to ensuring cars parked in the garage weren’t visible to pedestrians along Yonge Street. There were some councillors who didn’t warm to the Eaton Centre—Elizabeth Eayrs called it “a plastic temple of consumerism,” while John Sewell didn’t want to give the developers too much leeway. ”It’s the old question of who is running this place—Eaton’s or council,” Sewell noted in February 1974.

When Toronto’s first subway line opened in 1954, much of track north of Bloor Street was located in a shallow, open trench.

The money-saving open cut construction technique was an old one: The Metropolitan Railway, which became the Metropolitan line of the London Underground, used the same method to cut through the centre of London in the 1860s.

While it saved money versus conventional tunnelling, the result for Toronto was a large scar on the east side of Yonge Street from Church Street to Eglinton Avenue.

The most conspicuous outdoor area was in the Yonge and Davisville area, where the TTC built its service yard and train storage area. There, a tangle of tracks radiated out from the subway line, covering an area of approximately 10 acres.

Starting in the 1960s, the TTC began covering up some of the trenches due to safety concerns and noise complaints from neighbours. Between St. Clair and Summerhill stations, the line was hidden beneath a grass-covered deck (look out the window of the train and you can still see the sloped sides of the original cutting.)

Also in 1960, a Montreal-based development firm proposed the first major “air rights” development in Toronto. The Davisville Shopping Centre was to be built on stilts over the Davisville subway yard, covering almost all of the TTC tracks and buildings.

When you think of Toronto’s “Cashman” Russell Oliver, you probably think of gold trinkets, wads of cash and that annoyingly catchy jingle rather than Hermès handbags or Cartier cufflinks.

In fact you probably consider him kooky more than anything — whether covered head to toe in silver spray paint or dressed as the “Loan Arranger” cowboy in his television ads. But Oliver couldn’t care less.

After 40 years in the gold-buying game, the veteran pitchman from those corny commercials is not only in expansion mode, he’s also changed his tune recently with a return to his retail roots at his new store on Yonge St. north of Wellesley.

“It’s like I’ve come full circle,” he says.

In his decades of buying bling like gold chains (Mr. T was both a customer and appeared in an old commercial) watches, coins and even teeth, and then shipping them off to a refinery for profit, Oliver also set aside some of the nearly new trinkets in his safe because “they were just too beautiful” to send to a smelter, he explains.

In its last retail gasp, Honest Ed’s finally showed its age.

Before closing for good Saturday, what was left of the once-great titan of the retailing industry in the final week was literally the bottom of the bin: 10-cent dish sponges so old they were turning to dust in their packaging; garish 99-cent tableware; off-brand children’s toothpaste for 77 cents . . .

Toronto’s iconic bargain department store, which held court on the corner of Bathurst St. and Bloor Ave. W. for the past 68 years, was scant; barren even. The west building, with its memorable “Welcome to Yesterday” mirror, was off limits to the public. In the east, white display cases and shelves — once overflowing with thrifty household items — sat mostly empty on the ground floor.

Ed’s eerie emptiness seemed to highlight the limp garland still hanging from stained ceiling tiles and the dust bunnies creeping their way across off-white surfaces.

As many shoppers noted solemnly after their final tour: “It’s sad.”

It's closing time at Honest Ed's, the discount institution that's operated on Bloor just west of Bathurst for almost 70 years. Those hoping to get a last look at the iconic retailer before the new year will find a store that's been almost entirely cleared out, save for overpriced bits of ephemera and a variety of near-useless items being offered for pennies.

It's a depressing sight saved only by the customers who have come to pay their last respects. Strolling through the now-empty aisles, you hear various refrains like "it's so sad" and "what a shame" mixed in with revelations like "I can't believe how awful it looks in here."

If there's one thing that's happened since the bulk of the products were sold off and shipped out last weekend, it's that a certain sentimentality regarding the contemporary state of the store has become complicated. Everything here looks as though it belongs in a previous decade, right down to the bin of cassettes being sold off for 99 cents.

Truth be told, the interior of the store was never much to look at, even as its snaking aisles promised a deal or two on some item that you were sure to pay more for somewhere else. The gaudiness just seemed more fitting when there was an array of bins filled to the brim with "fancy panties," "fashion pants," and "men's classic sweaters."

honest eds closingThe last bit of retail activity here is a collision between nostalgia and commerce. You can still buy one of the hand-painted signs, though the quirkiest ones have been snapped up. Small versions will run you $12, which isn't exactly bargain basement pricing considering thousands still remain as the store lives out its final hours.

Still, the pull to own a piece of this place is strong. So many of us remember shopping here at one point in our lives, often because we didn't have much money to spare. There's a shared experience in that economic reality that activates powerful feelings that extend beyond merely personal narratives.

Zahra Dhanani never imagined she would become the owner of a convenience store.

She’s been a lawyer, social justice advocate, community activist — and even a DJ, organizing monthly Funk Asia nights.

But since last year, she and Mariko Nguyen-Dhanani, partners in love, life and business, have become the proprietors of a little corner store in East York.

Working 16-hour days for more than 400 days (they’ve just recently hired some part-time staff), the two women have a vision of turning their business at the corner of Lumsden and Westlake Aves., into a community gathering place.

Regulars are already coming in for daily lattes, along with cigarettes, bread and milk, but also unique gifts, local produce in warm weather and handmade goods featuring iconic images of Toronto.

The music industry in Toronto is ever-changing, but 2016 was a particularly difficult year for HMV.

The Eaton Centre location announced its imminent closure when its lease came up for renewal, which was the same story at the Bloor Street store. A company that was once ubiquitous in Toronto is now down to a handful of stores.

It leaves many wondering about the future of 333 Yonge St., the 4,000 square foot flagship store near Yonge and Dundas. It's been around for 30 years and can't help but feel like a bit of a vessel for movie merch and bargain bin pop cultural items.

Nick Williams, the president and CEO of of HMV Canada has a status update about the store and the main message is that it's not going anywhere.

"Every time we have to close a store or move a store we get lots of letters and emails from our core consumers who don’t like that change," he says. "The reality is the problem in some of our downtown markets, the rental markets are so prohibitive for retail in the malls.

"The big landlords and Cadillacs of this world command such high rent that we just get to the point where we can’t afford to pay them anymore. Our business model doesn’t allow us to."

He was a dreamer and his store was the dream.

After dinner at home, served at precisely 6 p.m. by his wife, after the dishes were cleared, Edwin Mirvish would sit at the table writing slogans — “Honest Ed’s is for the birds, cheap, cheap, cheap” — and as he pushed down on the pen with a new idea it would carve itself into the dining room tabletop.

Forty clowns playing trombones, roller derbies, dance contests, free turkeys for free publicity. People had to line up for those turkeys and the queue snaked through the store, across three floors of tchotchkes, kitchenwares, clothing, boots, toys. Buy low, sell cheap, but to thousands of people.

On weekends the streets around Bloor and Bathurst were choked with so much traffic that drivers would get out of their cars and into fistfights.

The neighbours complained. The store was too brash, too bright, too noisy.

Honest Ed was pulling in $14 million a year — in 1968.

“My father didn’t want to be dependent on one fancy client, he’d rather make a little bit of money from each sale,” said his son David Mirvish, in an interview with the Star ahead of the store’s closing on Dec. 31.