[URBAN NOTE] The scene at One Bedford after the panel fell

Walking home last night along Bloor Street, I was just approaching the Bedford Road entrance of the St. George TTC station at the intersection of Bloor Street West and Bedford. When I got to the corner I saw that the front of the One Bedford condominium tower that I have photographed in the past was all taped off in crime-scene yellow with a half-dozen sweepers at work.

What happened? More falling glass from a condominium.

More glass has rained down on Toronto streets, this time from the 32nd floor balcony of a condominium under construction in the Annex.

Toronto police said Bedford Rd. has been closed between Prince Arthur Ave. and Bloor St. since 2:25 p.m., while the fire department and provincial Ministry of Labour investigate. The road is expected to reopen around 6 p.m.

No one was injured when the single, large pane of glass fell, bounced off the front-door overhang and smashed onto the ground, police said. But numerous instances of falling glass from downtown buildings have been reported this year.

Glass has fallen from a Grosvenor St. highrise in at least four instances this year, including three times in July and August. Glass from the tony condominium building over the TIFF Bell Lightbox has fallen at least twice onto John St., shattering all over the road. And in the spring, glass fell from a highrise near Yonge St. and Eglinton Ave.

The glass panel that had fallen came from building's uppermost balcony, the second panel from the left. It fell 32 stores down to the ground, hitting ground and shattering just in front one of the tower's entrances. I took a photo of the CITY-TV cameraman/journalist who interviewed me for a quick quote, but the photo shows the scene of impact and its cleaners all the better.



It was chance no one was bisected, the glass falling where it did (at the tower's entrance, just across from the entrance to a busy TTC station, on a street dense with pedestrians). I can't imagine the condo owners, or the City of Toronto's regulators, are at all pleased.

[FORUM] Do you think friendship between men is difficult in our culture?

Sesame Street's beloved characters Bert and Ernie--best friends, living together in a Manhattan apartment, doing everything together--have been subject to rumours that they're a same-sex couple for decades, as illustrated by a 1980 quote from novelist and radio broadcaster Kurt Anderson: "Bert and Ernie conduct themselves in the same loving, discreet way that millions of gay men, women and hand puppets do. They do their jobs well and live a splendidly settled life together in an impeccably decorated cabinet." A recent petition has asking for them to marry on the show to promote gay rights has been met by the official note that, well, no, that is so not happening.

Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves.

Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets™ do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.

Muppets can have sexual orientation--look at Missy Piggy's near-stalking of Kermit--but this notable point aside I agree. No, it's not just because Ernest & Bertram is so grim.

Rather, it's because I think there's I'm inclined to believe that in contemporary North American culture, there's no way for two adult men to express their closeness outside of the context of romance. It's something I touched upon only very briefly if that in a review of Joseph Epstein's Friendship: An Expose--for whatever reason, there's a gap in the language people can use, hence in the sorts of relationships that can be talked about and that could even be pursued.

Am I right? Or not?