[PHOTO] 20 photos from Honest Ed Station, or Bathurst done differenlty (#honestedstation)

The Toronto Star, CBC, and Urban Toronto all highlighted the very particular changes which hit Bathurst station at the beginning of the month. Stefan Novakovic's Urban Toronto essay does a great job of introducing these.

Past the red-sweatered Ken Bones, and however many groups of 'kids from Stranger Things,' the title of Toronto's most memorable Halloween sight might just belong to Bathurst Station's belated turn as Honest Ed's. Decked out over Halloween night and into the morning, the first day of November saw the walls of the station transformed into a loving and lighthearted homage to the iconic retailer.

Unveiled today, the tribute will last as long as the store itself, remaining in place until Honest Ed's serves its last customer on December 31st of this year. In 2017, the store will make way for Westbank's celebrated and lambasted redevelopment, while the station will eventually reveal a more modestly scaled permanent installation remembering the one-of-a-kind store.

Across the station, windows, walls, and wayfinding signs are kitted out in the store's endearingly outdated fonts. Paying tribute to the work of long-serving sign painters Doug Kerr and Wayne Reuben, the signs—which are vnyl scans of painted lettering—offer transit-themed themed adaptations of Ed Mirvish's wordplay. "OUR TRAINS ARE SMART: THEY'VE BEEN TO COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY," a sign reads. "OUR PRICES AREN'T JUST GOOD, THEY'RE FARE."

On Tuesday, I went visiting the station, disembarking on the eastbound platform, going up to the street level, exploring the street level, and then heading back down to the westbound platform, photographing as I went.









( On the eastbound platform )

( Towards street level )

( On the street level )

( Back to the westbound platform )

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• blogTO notes that the TTC plans on raising fares for next year.


• Centauri Dreams notes the evidence for an ocean on Pluto.


• City of Brass' Aziz Poonawalla argues against Muslims voluntarily registering in an American listing of Muslims.


• Dangerous Minds notes the sadness of Abbie Hoffman at Janis Joplin's use of IV drugs.


• Joe. My. God. notes that Manhattan's Trump Place complex has opted to drop the name.


• Language Hat looks at a seminal Arabic novel published in mid-19th century France.


• Language Log looks at an intriguing Chinese-language sign in London.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money suggests that the US-Iran nuclear deal is likely to stay.


• The LRB Blog looks at a critic's old building, an old warehouse, in New York City.


• The NYRB Daily looks at the art of the spot illustration.


• Window on Eurasia notes the state of interethnic relations in Kazakhstan.


• Arnold Zwicky looks at some flowers of Mediterranean climate zones.

[ISL] "Quebec needs more than bons mots to bury the hatchet with Newfoundland"

Konrad Yakabuski writes at The Globe and Mail about the underlying economic issues behind tense relations between Québec and Newfoundland, in the very low prices of Labrador-generated hydroelectricity sold to Québec.

Ottawa’s decision to extend an additional $2.9-billion loan guarantee to enable Newfoundland to proceed with its ruinous Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project looks a lot more like a bailout than the investment in clean energy infrastructure that Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr likes to call it.

Coming on top of the $5-billion federal guarantee the former Conservative government provided to Muskrat Falls, and on top of a separate $1.3-billion guarantee for an underwater transmission link from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia, the extra backstop rewards Newfoundland for its bet on a project that even the executive now in charge of it concedes is a “boondoggle.”

The guarantee will enable provincial government-owned utility Nalcor to complete construction of an 824-megawatt hydro generating station and undersea transmission line from Labrador to the island of Newfoundland that should never have seen the light of day.

Muskrat Falls is the legacy of former premier Danny Williams’s decision to snub Quebec by going it alone on a $6-billion hydro project – now projected to cost $11.4-billion and rising – that would restore provincial pride, which was still hurting after the 1969 Churchill Falls deal. Under that agreement, Hydro-Québec buys virtually all the power from the 5,400 MW Churchill Falls generating station at 0.2 cents a kilowatt hour and resells it to customers in Quebec and the United States at anywhere from 20 time to 50 times that price.

Newfoundland customers will be paying more than 100 times the Churchill Falls rate for their own electricity – about 21 cents a kw/h – once Muskrat Falls begins producing power in 2021. And that’s provided the project does not face additional delays and cost overruns, which it will considering recent undertakings by the province to address the higher methylmercury levels stemming from the project.

[URBAN NOTE] "The future of Vancouver’s rental market"

In The Globe and Mail, Kerry Gold describes a new push to make renting a practical possibility for Vancouverites.

Now that many young people are expecting to rent for life – if they want to live in Vancouver – developers have woken up to the formerly neglected rental market. Renting has for too long been seen as second to owning, but in Vancouver at least, that attitude will soon have to change in the face of unaffordability and a rental vacancy rate below 1 per cent.

In Vancouver, the push for rental housing is moving forward, with a few new significant developments under way.

Condo marketer Bob Rennie has taken the position that he’d like to see rental housing get yet more priority around transit hubs. He’s pushing for the creation of “rental zones.” That would require a legislative change, since the City of Vancouver can’t currently create zoning according to tenure. Mr. Rennie would like to see the creation of 10,000 rental units in the next five years, all close to transit, since renters use transit more often than homeowners.

“I believe we can create a zoning that is rental-only – we can create something scalable throughout Greater Vancouver,” he says. “Let’s create solutions that aren’t just a Band-Aid, like [building] 10 units somewhere.

“Freeing up vacant rental in 5,000-square-foot units in Coal Harbour isn’t a solution for anybody,” a reference to the city’s new vacant-property tax, which was introduced to bring potential rentals onto the market. “The solution is under $1,500 a month, and I think rental-only zoning will do that. If governance says we can’t do it, let’s figure the thing out. It’s 2016. This is where our civic governments have to work with our provincial government. Put partisan politics aside. It’s a problem. Let’s solve it.”

When asked if condo developers might have an issue with choice land around transit hubs going toward rental, he responded:

“Too bad. Then create more density so you can do both.”

[URBAN NOTE] "When Toronto’s “Affordable Housing” Isn’t Affordable"

In Torontoist, Tamara Yelland describes how the definition of "affordable housing" in Toronto is, practically speaking, irrelevant to the relatively poor people the definition is for.

“Affordable housing” is both a common-sense concept and a policy term. The accepted benchmark in policy is that someone spending no more than 30 per cent of their household income on everything related to housing: rent or mortgage, insurance, utilities. Initiatives like Toronto’s Open Door program and the federal-provincial Investment in Affordable Housing (IAH) seek to encourage private developers and non-profits to rent spaces either at or slightly below the average cost of what a similar unit goes for in the commercial market (which is referred to as average market rent, or AMR), thus making it possible for people with low incomes to have a place to live while also having money for the other necessities in their lives.

What’s lost in using this phrase is that designated “affordable housing” often, in fact, is not.

Using the metric mentioned above, the Wellesley Institute calculated in 2014 that the “affordable housing wage” for a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto was $41,400. Yet, the report went on, someone earning the then-newly announced minimum wage of $11 per hour and working 40 hours each week—already an uncertain scenario—would earn just $22,800. The minimum wage has since gone up to $11.40, allowing workers to bring home a grand total of $23,712. In other words, making rent and living comfortably is unlikely for everyone earning anything near minimum wage and working full time. For the many part-time workers in the city, it’s even further out of reach.

But many apartments built under affordable housing programs are rented either at this mark or just below. The City of Toronto’s Open Door program, which offers private developers tax breaks in exchange for building residential properties “where at least 20 per cent of the residential gross floor area is affordable,” mandates that those affordable units be rented to tenants at or below market value. By the program’s own figuring, the people who can afford market-value rents are professionals like dental assistants and social service workers.

[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto's Country Style Hungarian reopens doors with traditional menu intact"

In The Globe and Mail, John Lorinc reports on the return of the Annex's Country Style Hungarian restaurant to operation.

When Country Style Hungarian Restaurant, a venerable schnitzel house on Bloor Street West, shut its doors earlier this summer, rumours quickly began circulating in Toronto’s food-o-sphere about its demise.

Which wouldn’t have been such a surprise. After all, the 54-year-old Annex institution is the last survivor in a stretch once known as the goulash archipelago, with eateries such as The Coffee Mill, Marika’s, Csarda House, The Blue Danube Room, Continental and Korona. The owners have mostly retired or died.

This particular closure turned out to be not only temporary, but a kind of reboot. The interlude allowed owner Katalin Koltai to do a stem-to-stern renovation, the first real overhaul since 1975. The restaurant reopened late last month.

[. . .]

The facelift cost her more than $150,000 and is meant to secure the business so that Ms. Koltai’s daughter, also named Katalin, can take over when she retires. The work included new kitchen equipment, counters, chairs, bathroom fixtures and even a digital cash register to replace the restaurant’s antiquarian push-button version.

[URBAN NOTE] "The Weeknd is helping U of T resurrect a lost Ethiopian language"

Katie Ingram at MacLean's reports on how The Weeknd is funding a course at the University of Toronto aimed at reviving the ancient Ethiopian language of Ge'ez.

Along with Greek, Hebrew and Arabic, Ethiopia’s Ge’ez is considered one of the world’s oldest Semitic languages—but you’ve probably never heard of it.

Michael Gervers, a professor in the department of historical and cultural studies at the University of Toronto, believes it’s important to resurrect it. “The entire history of Ethiopia is in this language,” he says. “Everything written up until 1850 was written in Ge’ez, so we have 2,000 years of textual material that people don’t have access to.” It was replaced by Amharic as Ethiopia’s official language.

In 2015, Gervers started a fund to create an Ethiopian studies program at U of T, setting a goal of $200,000 and donating $50,000 of his own money. The dean’s office matched that donation; and this year, so did Abel Tesfaye—the Toronto-born, Grammy-winning R&B singer professionally known as The Weeknd, whose parents immigrated to Canada from Ethiopia in the 1980s.

Tesfaye promoted the cause to his more than four million Twitter followers. “Sharing our brilliant and ancient history of Ethiopia. Proud to support the studies in our homie town through @UofT and @bikilaaward,” he wrote.

[ISL] "Can’t afford a house? Try buying a private island in Nova Scotia for just $50,000"

This BNN.ca article makes me wonder. Nova Scotians, is this island-buying a noticeable trend?

There’s a growing interest in the private island market – and you don’t have to be among the ultra-rich to own one, according to a real estate broker specializing in the sale of islands around the world.

“The trend nowadays is people who are buying islands aren’t just looking for a vacation home, they’re looking to monetize it as well,” Chris Krolow, founder and CEO of Private Islands Inc., told BNN in an interview. He said investors are increasingly interested in buying an island, building it up and renting out a portion.

Krolow, who also hosts a real estate reality show called “Island Hunters,” is based in Toronto and has been selling private-island real estate since 1999. He sells anywhere between 30 and 35 islands a year.

But you don’t need to be as wealthy as Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison who bought a Hawaiian island for US$300-million, or magician David Copperfield who dropped an estimated $50-million to buy an island in the Bahamas.

You can buy an island for as low as $50,000 in Nova Scotia, according to Krolow, who said Canada’s east coast is home to the world’s cheapest islands.

“Chances are you might have some issues building on it if it’s too small,” he warned. “Of course getting there is a bit of an issue. Most of the people buying in Nova Scotia aren’t locals. They’re coming from Europe or they’re coming from the U.S., so that kind of drives the price down because there’s not a lot of demand there.”

[ISL] "Island mentality: how the Hebrides have shaped British culture"

Madeleine Bunting's essay at The Guardian arguing that the Hebrides have played an outsize role in the formation of British national identities caught my attention.

For a century, Jura has been an anomaly: remote, but under 100 miles from Glasgow or Edinburgh; sparsely populated, yet associated with periodic influxes of the powerful, wealthy and glamorous in search of space and privacy. Appropriately, one of the most bizarre artistic statements about wealth was made on Jura in 1994, when the two members of the pop group the KLF filmed themselves burning £1m in banknotes in a disused boathouse at Ardfin.

George Orwell heard of Jura from Astor, his editor, who regaled him with stories of its beauty and fishing – irresistible to the enthusiastic angler. Orwell, chafing at the restrictions and privations of wartime London, wrote in his diary in 1940 that he was “thinking always of my island in the Hebrides”. He had to wait until 1946 to make the journey, and it turned out to be a melancholy pilgrimage in the aftermath of the deaths of his mother, wife and a sister within the space of three years. But he was enraptured: “These islands are one of the most beautiful parts of the British Isles and largely uninhabited.” He added: “Of course it rains all the time but if one takes that for granted, it doesn’t seem to matter.”

Britain’s understanding of itself – its identity and its place in the world – is deeply rooted in being an island. Yet Great Britain is not an island; it is made up of at least 5,000 islands, around 130 of which are inhabited. But this geographical reality has often been ignored, because island, in the singular, brings with it the attractive characteristics of inviolability, steadfastness and detachment. As one clergyman put it in a sermon praising the Act of Union with Scotland of 1707: “We are fenced in with a wall which knows no master but God only.”

Even more erroneously, England is sometimes described as an island. Martin Amis wrote a television essay on England in 2014, which began with images of waves pounding chalk cliffs and the quintessential English mistake: “England is an island nation.” England in fact shares its island with other nations – Scotland and Wales – yet the language of sharing, of being part of an archipelago, has not featured in the English nation’s self-image.

British culture has a long-standing love affair with islands. In Utopia, Thomas More wrote how King Utopos created an island from an isthmus by digging a channel 15 miles wide. Britain’s detachment from continental Europe brought a degree of protection from invasion, and was seen as God’s geographical blessing for a chosen, favoured people. Shakespeare bequeathed a trove of vivid images of England in John of Gaunt’s speech in Richard II: “This little world”; “This blessed plot”. But there has also been an English ambivalence about islands; in a comparably famous passage, John Donne warned of the dangers of separation in his Meditation XVII: “No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

[ISL] "Why does the Trump trail go cold in the Hebrides?"

Brian Wilson's article in The Scotsman looking at the origins of the mother of Donald Trump, Mary Anne née MacLeod, in the Hebridean Isle of Lewis asks an interesting question: Why is Trump's immigrant background so seemingly forgotten by the man and his arguments?

‘If only Donald Trump wasn’t such a nasty piece of work…” There are plenty in the Republican Party harbouring that sentiment at present, but for different reasons it also has resonance on the Isle of Lewis.

There has hitherto been nobody one step away from the title “most powerful man in the world” with such a direct Scottish, far less Hebridean, lineage. In other circumstances, it could be a source of community pride. Plans for a Trump Trail might already be in the making.

According to the Irish precedent, US presidential candidates with even the most tenuous connections to the old country milk them for all they are worth, while the place in which roots are claimed is only too willing to reciprocate. None of this translates into the case of Trump and Lewis – because Trump is what he is.

Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric would seem weirdly at odds with his own background, on any grounds other than race. He is the product of a second generation immigrant from Germany (though his father pretended for many years to be of Swedish origin) and a first generation immigrant from Lewis.

In the grim economic times of the 1920s, Mary Anne MacLeod, Trump’s mother, followed two older sisters to New York from the crofting village of Tong. She first made the crossing in 1928 at the age of 16 on the Transylvania, found work with a wealthy family as a nanny but lost her job when Wall Street crashed the following year.