![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
- At Spacing, John Lorinc notes that mayor John Tory is allowing waterfront transit plans to get delayed.
- blogTO notes that there is apparently controversy over the correct spelling of Christie Pits.
- CBC Toronto profiles the humble apartment at Bathurst and St. Clair that was home to Ernest Hemingway.
- These photos of stackt, at Bathurst and Front, look amazing. Retail Insider has them.
- blogTO notes that three new Jollibee locations are scheduled to open in 2020, including one downtown at Yonge and Gould.
- Making the King Street pilot project permanent is at least a small victory for Toronto. CBC reports.
- Urban Toronto shares the remarkable plans for the transformation of the Galleria Mall.
- A formal inquest into the stage collapse that killed one person at a Radiohead concert at Downsview Park in 2012 is only now taking off. CBC reports.
- The May opening of a new exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe's work at the Olga Korper Gallery, reported by NOW Toronto, is very exciting.
- blogTO notes a new graphic novel to be put out by Dirty Water Comics dealing with the anti-Semitic Christie Pits Riot of 1933.
- Queen Video's last location, in the Annex, is finally closing, with plenty of its titles now available to be bought before it shutters its doors at the end of April. Global News reports.
- NOW Toronto reports on Museum II, a show part of the Myseum Intersections Festival looking at the impact of war and trauma on spaces.
- Karon Liu, writing at the Toronto Star, explores with WeChat influencer Joanna Luo a whole universe of Chinese restaurants and social networking that was almost unknown to many Torontonians like myself.
[PHOTO] Rainy evening at Christie Pits
Apr. 26th, 2018 03:17 pmTuesday evening the rain was coming down from the grey sky, enough to give ambiance to the end of that spring day but not enough to really get a pedestrian that wet.


- Steve Munro evaluates the next plans for Metrolinx for regional transit.
- Evan Balgord at Torontoist looks back at the anti-Nazi Christie Pits riots of 1933.
- Cheryl Thompson at Spacing looks at the extent to which gun violence in Scarborough is a symptom of deepening poverty.
- Nikhil Sharma at Torontoist notes that private parkettes are an imperfect substitute for public parks.
Tags:
[PHOTO] Field of dreams, Christie Pit
Aug. 22nd, 2017 03:05 am
I love the glow of the powerful lights illuminating Christie Pit's baseball field for night games.
Dominico Field, in the northeast of Christie Pit, can look rather impressive when seen from the northern lip of the park on Barton.
Last night, I went to the Choir! Choir! Choir! celebration of the life and music of Leonard Cohen, held last night at 9 o'clock in the man-made amphitheatre that is Christie Pit.
The sound on my recording of "Suzanne" is not the best, but I think you might be able to get something of the power of the event, of the hundreds upon hundreds of people gathered together.
I liked the Toronto Star report of the event by Alicja Siekierska.
The sound on my recording of "Suzanne" is not the best, but I think you might be able to get something of the power of the event, of the hundreds upon hundreds of people gathered together.
I liked the Toronto Star report of the event by Alicja Siekierska.
The outpouring of love for Leonard Cohen continued in Toronto on Wednesday, as hundreds of mourners gathered in Christie Pitts Park to sing some of the legendary singer-poet’s greatest hits.
Led by Choir Choir Choir, they began with “Bird on a Wire,” belted “Hey That’s No Way to Say Goodby”e and, of course, performed an emotional rendition of Cohen’s best known song “Hallelujah.”
It was an emotional evening for many, but despite the sombre goodbye, it was a joyful event truly celebrating the work and life of Cohen.
“I want everyone in Montreal to hear us from here,” Choir Choir Choir co-founder Daveed Goldman exclaimed to the crowd, just before launching a boisterous version of “So Long Marianne.”
Clad in warm clothing, gatherers young and old began tricking in an hour before the event started. By 9 p.m., the hill in the park was packed, flickering candles lighting up singing faces.
[BLOG] Some Tuesday links
Mar. 8th, 2016 02:47 pm- blogTO notes that Conrad Black's mansion is up for sale, and looks inside the climbing gym that replaced Koreatown's Metro Theatre.
- Centauri Dreams notes a new telescope optimized for detecting, among other things, Kuiper Belt objects.
- Dangerous Minds shares a video of South African cyclists chased by an ostrich.
- Far Outliers notes the existence of a Second World War prisoner of war camp in Hawai'i that sought to detect dissidents among the Japanese prisoners.
- Joe. My. God. notes Caitlyn Jenner's dislike of Hillary.
- Language Hat and Language Log report on the crowdsource-legitimized Italian word "petaloso".
- Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the lasting effects of segregation in the South and a href="http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/03/why-are-our-cities-segregated">in cities.
- The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer notes the unpopularity of Trump in Mexico has progressed to the point that the president made a statement criticizing the man.
- Torontoist has an essay about Toronto parks that features a photo of mine of Christie Pits.
Tags:
- african-americans,
- astronomy,
- birds,
- blogs,
- christie pits,
- cities,
- conrad black,
- glbt issues,
- hawaii,
- humour,
- italian language,
- japan,
- koreatown,
- language,
- links,
- mexico,
- military,
- oddities,
- parks,
- photos,
- racism,
- second world war,
- south africa,
- space science,
- the annex,
- toronto,
- united states,
- urban note,
- video,
- war
[PHOTO] Three photos of Christie Pits
Aug. 9th, 2014 01:59 pmThese three photos were taken in Christie Pits at various points over May and June of this year. I like the park; I like these pictures.
I walked home last night from Spadina station, and took some photos on the way. (Cell phone photos; actual camera photos, of higher resolution if not quality, will come later.)
The intersection of Bloor and Walmer Road is fairly non-descript.
Honest Ed's as night falls is aglow.
The last two photos were taken of and in Christie Pits.
The intersection of Bloor and Walmer Road is fairly non-descript.
Honest Ed's as night falls is aglow.
The last two photos were taken of and in Christie Pits.
Writer and activist Tim Groves's Missing Plaque Project is a decade-old project I've seen ongoing for a while. Andrew Francis Wallace's August article in the Toronto Star, "Missing Plaque Project unveils Toronto's untold history", goes into detail.
At present, Groves has more than a dozen different posters on a variety of different subjects, generally covering incidents in Toronto history that may have been neglected: GLBT oppression, police brutality and riots of various kinds, and so on.
(For more background to his project, see also this 2007 Spacing post, a brief 2008 post at the Justseeds Art Collective, a Torontowiki page, Reddit discussion thread.)
I like this sort of thing, though I share Emily Keyes' concern that some of the posters might be too stridently ideological to be readily digested. Then again, might they have to be strident to get through Torontonians' ignorance?
What say you all? Is Groves' strategy a good one, one that should be adapted on a larger scale? Is it flawed? What is to be done?
With a stack of homemade posters, a sponge and a tub of wheat paste, Tim Groves is revising the story of Toronto.
His aim: To ensure that the less celebrated, even shameful, incidents in our collective pasts are remembered. Affixed to telephone poles and other surfaces at the sites where these events occurred, his posters commemorate the notorious Cherry Beach Express, the 1992 Yonge Street Riot and other chapters in the city’s past that mainstream accounts are liable to gloss over.
“Those bits of history are being forgotten, and other bits are being played up,” said Groves, 31. “It’s easy that these (events) could slip from history if there aren’t people that are finding ways to commemorate them.”
The imperative to remember has been a powerful motivator for Groves. A freelance investigative researcher and journalist, he started the initiative, dubbed The Missing Plaque Project, more than 10 years ago.
After spending his teenage years exploring Toronto by bike, Groves was making a ’zine about a city he thought he knew so well. But while researching the 1933 Christie Pits Riot, he was shocked by the scale of the violence that boiled over at the height of anti-Semitic, anti-foreigner tensions.
“I was like, ‘How did I grow up right by there, and not hear about this?’” he recalls.
He abandoned the ’zine idea, and spent the next few months researching the event and consolidating his newfound knowledge into a poster to hang around Christie Pits Park. In the age of the Internet, he borrowed from a tried-and-true approach to connecting with a very specific audience.
“I really wanted to put it up on the street. Just the idea to use a poster to communicate locally, I was really excited about that,” he said.
At present, Groves has more than a dozen different posters on a variety of different subjects, generally covering incidents in Toronto history that may have been neglected: GLBT oppression, police brutality and riots of various kinds, and so on.
(For more background to his project, see also this 2007 Spacing post, a brief 2008 post at the Justseeds Art Collective, a Torontowiki page, Reddit discussion thread.)
I like this sort of thing, though I share Emily Keyes' concern that some of the posters might be too stridently ideological to be readily digested. Then again, might they have to be strident to get through Torontonians' ignorance?
What say you all? Is Groves' strategy a good one, one that should be adapted on a larger scale? Is it flawed? What is to be done?
CBC is one of many news agencies reporting an arrest in the string of sexual assaults that occurred around Christie Pits park this summer and, inadvertantly, sparked a sustained, much-needed public discussion about sexual assault. (The response by Krista Ford who implicitly (and inaccurately) the victims for dressing like sluts comes to mind, as does the firestorm started by the Toronto Sun over a misogynist Islamic street preacher that ended up highlighting on the paper's own misogyny.)
A 15-year-old boy has been charged in connection with a string of sexual assaults in Toronto's Bloor and Christie area, where female pedestrians were attacked from behind as they walked at night.
Toronto police say the teen — who cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act — was arrested at around 11 p.m. ET Saturday in the area of Bloor Street West and Roxton Road, at the scene of another alleged sexual assault.
He faces 14 counts of sexual assault and two counts of criminal harassment.
[. . .]
The attacks prompted hundreds of people to take part in September rally to symbolically take back the area around Christie Pits Park.
"After the initial shock of some of the assaults, what's happened is it's actually really galvanized the community," local Coun. Mike Layton said on CBC's Metro Morning on Monday.
"Immediately following the first round of announcements of them, it brought people out onto the street and people taking back the street, and [had them] saying, 'You know what? We're not going to have this in our community.'"
[PHOTO] Evening at Christie Pits
Apr. 12th, 2012 11:54 amSitting down at one of the green-painted lunch tables of Christie Pits park, inside the titular pit, I sat and look east in the general direction of Christie Street street as evening fell.
Looking down over the lip of the pit into the depths of Christie Pits park at late evening, the universe looks filled.
Looking down over the lip of the pit into the depths of Christie Pits park at late evening, the universe looks filled.
[PHOTO] No entry here
Mar. 15th, 2012 12:53 amThe Annex is a maze of one-way streets and no-entry signs, as it is here opposite this just barn-like house above Christie Pits.
[PHOTO] Christie Pits under fresh snow
Feb. 12th, 2012 06:46 pmThe Christie Pits park, built on the bottom of an old quarry in what was then the western periphery of Toronto but is now a mere dozen minutes' walk from the new broader downtown, looked fetching under a fresh coat of snow a bit before 5 o'clock this afternoon.
In this photo, I was looking west across Christie Street across the park's middle.
Here, I was looking southwest across the park's baseball diamond.
This photo was shot looking along the park's northern periphery, at the sharp incline from street level to park floor.
In this photo, I was looking west across Christie Street across the park's middle.
Here, I was looking southwest across the park's baseball diamond.
This photo was shot looking along the park's northern periphery, at the sharp incline from street level to park floor.
I may well be excessively sensitive to be upset by the misspelling in this sign at the City of Toronto's Christie Pits park but it really grates. The team is called the Toronto Maple Leafs, hockey team and minor league baseball team both. Judging by context, there shouldn't even be an apostrophe here. Does the city lack anyone capable of proofreading a simple sign?
I took this photo across the tops of the trees of Christie Pits on one fine autumn afternoon--a Thursday, in fact.
[PHOTO] Graffiti at Christie Pits
Sep. 19th, 2008 09:09 am
This is a picture of a graffiti-style sketching on the retaining wall of a pool in Toronto's park of Christie Pits. Now notable as an excellent sporting venue with numerous playing fields, an ice rink, and a pool, the park is also of note for being the site of Canada's most notable anti-Semitic riot in 1933.
