[URBAN NOTE] On the closure of Statler's and the fate of cities

Last night, a link I tweeted to blogTO's report on the sudden closure of Church Street's Statler's went viral in a minor way. Massive rent increases were too much for this Village bar, notable for its performance spaces and its links to the theatre community to bear, leaving Statler's fans bereft.



Statler's closure leaves me concerned for the future of Church and Wellesley as a LGBTQ district. Given the dire economics of nightclubbing generally and rising rents on Church Street particularly, how long can this neighbourhood and its institutions persist? Condo towers, like Vox Condominiums just east of Wellesley station, have been steadily advancing on the heart of the Village from the north and the south over the past few years, and I can imagine a collapse. Will there end up being a new Village elsewhere, in Parkdale or on Weston Road or in Etobicoke? Or will nothing follow Church and Wellesley?



I am also more concerned for Toronto generally. That note about Statler's was one of three I shared that day noting the closure of other Toronto institutions on New Year's. Ten Edition Books on Spadina Avenue collapsed on New Year's after nearly three and a half decades, driven out by the desire of the University of Toronto to redevelop this stretch into student housing. On the east side, meanwhile, the famed Coffee Time restaurant at Coxwell and Gerrard, an affordable coffee place's connections to locals, has closed down permanently. (There was even a great documentary filmed about this place.)

"Coffee Time (Director's Cut)" (Watch on Vimeo)

Where are the replacements? Where are the new shops and restaurants and clubs, the new community institutions, the new neighbourhoods, to replace the old ones made increasingly unaffordable? Am I missing out on the regeneration of Toronto, or is a new monoculture taking over? And is Toronto alone in these trends among world cities. I surely think not.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Architectuul looks at some examples of endangered architecture in the world, in London and Pristina and elsewhere.


• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait examines a bizarre feature on the Moon's Lacus Felicitatus.


• The Big Picture shares photos exploring the experience of one American, Marie Cajuste, navigating the health care system as she sought cancer treatment.


• Centauri Dreams looks at a new proposal for an interstellar craft making use of neutral particle beam-driven sails.


• Ingrid Robeyns at Crooked Timber writes about the question of what individual responsibility people today should take for carbon emissions.


• The Crux takes a look at what the earliest (surviving) texts say about the invention of writing.


• D-Brief notes an interesting proposal to re-use Christmas trees after they are tossed out.


• The Dragon's Tales notes that India has approved funding for crewed spaceflight in 2022, in the Gaganyaan program.


• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the Apollo 8 mission.


• Far Outliers looks at the experiences of British consuls in isolated Kashgar, in what is now Xinjiang.


• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing argues that it can take time to properly see things, that speed can undermine understanding.


• JSTOR Daily notes how people with depression use language, opting to use absolute words more often than the norm.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how the Bolsonario government in Brazil has set to attacking indigenous people.


• Marginal Revolution links to a paper arguing that Greek life in the colleges of the United States, the fraternity system, has a negative impact on the grades of participants.


• George Hutchinson writes at the NYR Daily about how race, of subjects and of the other, complicates readings of Louisiana-born author Jean Toomey and his novel Cane, about life on sugar cane plantations in that state.


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw reflects on his Christmas reading, including a new history of Scandinavia in the Viking age told from their perspective.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers the Milky Way Galaxy in its formative years. What did it look like?


• Strange Company highlights its top 10 posts over the past year.


• Window on Eurasia wonders at reports the Uniate Catholics of Ukraine are seeking a closer alliance with the new Ukrainian Orthodox Church.


• Arnold Zwicky reports on the nearly iconic and ubiquitous phalluses of Bhutan, as revealed by a trip by Anthony Bourdain.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Kristyn Wong-Tam, #topoli, police racism, Toronto Sun, Bombardier

• At NOW Toronto, city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam writes about her frightening experiences being targeted in campaigns by the alt-right.


• Sean Marshall mapped the municipal election results in Parkdale-High Park and Davenport.


• Alok Mukherjee at NOW Toronto notes how the Toronto police manage to evade engaging with its history of anti-black racism and violence.


• The National Observer notes the criticism of the Ontario Press Council of the Toronto Sun for its false report of refugees in a Scarborough hotel slaughtering goats.


• Perhaps unsurprisingly, Metrolinx is still awaiting delivery of the first Eglinton Crosstown vehicle from Bombardier. The Toronto Star reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five cities links: Hamilton, Boston, New York City, Pristina, Addis Ababa

• Curbed takes a look at the innovative ways in which the city government of Hamilton has helped boost the city's strengths.


• Commonwealth Magazine shares a revived plan from the 1980s to protect Boston from sea level rise by building a great crescent-shaped dike in Boston Harbor.


• CityLab takes a look at New York City's seemingly-inexplicable decision to back down on a years-long closure of the L Train subway line for repair work.


• Guardian Cities notes the controversy in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, about the construction of a Turkish-funded mosque there. Is this but an element of a new Turkish sphere of influence in the western Balkans?


• This fascinating CNN report takes a look at the sheer scale of Chinese influence in Addis Ababa, the booming capital of Ethiopia, on its own terms and as an example of Chinese influence in Africa at large. (The locals, incidentally, find its models quite relevant and wanted.)