Robin Hale, the Toronto Zoo’s chief operating officer, remembers riding the Domain Ride and is often asked whether the Zoo plans to bring it back. Better known as the monorail, the distinctive ride opened with the Zoo in 1976 and travelled along a 5-kilometre concrete guideway in a loop around the grounds. But after a couple of severe accidents in the early 90s and financial inability to ensure its safety, the Zoo closed the ride. Now, more than 20 years later, the Zoo is considering bringing back the monorail, complete with some significant, notably futuristic, upgrades.
In 2014, Edmonton-based company Magnovate began courting the Toronto Zoo with the proposition to retrofit the old guideway, equipping it with a magnetic levitation (maglev) train. The new technology would feature sleek, driverless single vehicles hovering above an electromagnetic track. Two years after approaching the Zoo, Magnovate submitted a full proposal in March.
The plan outlines how the company would rebuild a section of the original guideway loop, construct maglev rails, and get 12 vehicles up and running and powered by solar panels on the stations and infrastructure. The estimated price tag: $25 million for Magnovate, at no cost to the Zoo or the city.
Magnovate pitched the idea on April 7 to the Zoo’s Board of Management, which approved it for the next stage: an open call for proposals. The procedure invites other companies to make a better offer than the unsolicited bid, which Magnovate could match or exceed—a procurement process known as a Swiss Bid.
The Toronto laneway is the vein to the artery that is the city's streets. There are over 250 kilometres of laneways and alleys spread across the city, though you wouldn't know it without looking at a map. You could pass by the entrance to a laneway for months without taking notice of it, relegated as they are to background status.
Yet, it's precisely the degree to which our laneways are overlooked spaces that makes them so intriguing. This is messy urbanism at its finest. I'm not just talking about graffiti, but the strange process that takes place when people share urban space that's outside of everyday view.
If the front yard is all about putting on a face, the laneway is about utility. From irregular garages, fences, and trellises to coach houses, car ports, and basketball nets, you can learn more about a person's life by strolling through these spaces than past the manicured lawns that face the street.
Sanaa Alhamad beams at the bounty before her. Parsley, mint, lemons, garlic, tahini paste in tall jars – this is the food she knows and loves. The mother of four from Aleppo arrived in Canada in January with the United Nations’ help.
She busies herself finely chopping the parsley for a huge batch of fresh citrusy tabouleh, the salad accompaniing the baharat-spice-infused kibbeh, or ground beef fritters, and hummus being prepared.
“Cooking here today, it makes me happy. It makes me feel useful,” she says, smiling.
Alhamad is one of 10 women attending the latest session of Len Senater’s Newcomer Kitchen program. For many here today it’s the first time they’ve been on a subway, an escalator or inside a Canadian grocery store. The women, who shopped for ingredients to prepare a luncheon feast at Senater’s west-end food haunt, the Depanneur, are all newly landed Syrian refugees.
Most of them have been living in hotels for at least a month, an arrangement that got Senater thinking. “One of the worst things about long-term hotel stays is you don’t usually get to eat properly because there’s nowhere to cook. I wondered, what are they eating? Are they going to the gas station and buying Doritos?”
The Depanneur’s working kitchen isn’t used during the day. “Let them come and cook!” became Senater’s goal.
Pride Month will feature 60 signature events, some of which will commemorate and explore the raids.
The events will include a June 7 human rights panel at the 519 Community Centre remembering the raids. The panel will be headlined by author Margaret Atwood.
A launch party at the Art Gallery of Ontario with avant-garde queer performances guest curated by Bruce LaBruce will kick things off on June 2.
A fair helping of star power is also expected throughout the month, with events featuring actors George Takei of “Star Trek,” singer/actor Joe Jonas, singer Lila Downs and “Queer As Folk” actor Randy Harrison.
Pride Month will lead up to the 10-day Pride Festival which begins June 24. The events will culminate with the Pride Parade, which will take place on July 3.
Each project since Drake’s 2010 major label debut Thank Me Later has felt progressively more indebted to Toronto. The city and how it shaped him became more of a focal point in his lyrics (“My heart is cold, it’s probably ’cause I’m from the snow” he raps on 2015’s “6 Man”). Drawing from a number of hip-hop hotbeds, especially the sweltering haze of Houston rap, Drake’s sound grew into what is now known as the “Toronto sound,” an aqueous and reflective form that prioritizes wide-open spaces and sombre moods, the perfect backdrop for the Millennial angst that Drake has made his name peddling.
“Drake has been aggressive with his civic boosterism throughout his career,” says Jamieson Cox, a writer for The Verge and Pitchfork who has kept an eye on Drake since he first started making music after leaving his role as Jimmy Brooks on Degrassi: The Next Generation. “He’s really worked it into the fabric of his music in a lyrical sense, and now increasingly in a sonic sense too.”
Views feels like the culmination of his life-long love affair with Toronto, as well as his first serious bid for global domination. Drake’s always had one foot in pop music—his songs that have charted highest, “Best I Ever Had” and “Hold On, We’re Going Home,” are among his catchiest—but now there’s an increased focus on expanding the parameters of his sound, which was beginning to feel stifling. Moving away from the dark, muted sounds he’s been most comfortable with up until now, Views presents some of the brightest music of Drake’s career, working with livelier tempos and more colourful production.
The album sales tell the story: In just one day, Views sold more copies than Beyoncé’s recent album Lemonade, released less than a week before, did in its entire first week. Views is on target to smash Drake’s previous first-week sales, and insiders have speculated it might even move one million units in its first week, an occurrence seen with dwindling frequency these days as music sales continue to shrink, and subscription numbers of streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music continue to increase.
I was dreamin' when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray
But when I woke up this mornin', could've sworn it was judgment day
The sky was all purple, there were people runnin' everywhere
Tryin' to run from the destruction, you know I didn't even care
Say say two thousand zero zero party over, oops, out of time
So tonight I'm gonna party like it's nineteen ninety-nine
I was dreamin' when I wrote this, so sue me if I go too fast
But life is just a party and parties weren't meant to last
War is all around us, my mind says prepare to fight
So if I gotta die I'm gonna listen to my body tonight
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