A Bit More Detail

• blogTO takes a look at a Dupont Street two-bedroom apartment with the astonishingly cheap monthly rent of just $902.


• CBC Toronto notes a new shelter for homeless women at Dupont and Davenport.


• Gilbert Ngabo at the Toronto Star looks at the desperate state of emergency housing for the homeless in Toronto.


• Transit Toronto looks at new TTC proposals for revised transit routes and schedules in The Junction.


• TTC parking lots, facing pressures for residential redevelopment, may become major political issues. CBC reports.

• Transit Toronto notes that, on the 28th, three new TTC stations will be open for visitors.


• Samantha Beattie describes Davenportage, a recent exploration of Davenport Road's past as a portage route, at the Toronto Star.


• Edward Keenan talks about how the Lawrence West SmartTrack station can be made a success, over at the Toronto Star.


• The Toronto Star reports on how Donald Trump was the only person to profit from the former Trump Tower in Toronto.

Geary Avenue TorontoOne of West Queen West's most iconic landmarks in the late 2000s was Thrush Holmes' neon-adorned gallery and studio space. Located just west of Dovercourt Rd. beside what would become the sales office for the Bohemian Embassy, it was a symbol of a neighbourhood defined by a creative spirit that had emerged from its industrial past.

When Holmes relocated in 2011 after five years, the character of the street and surrounding neighbourhood had changed immensely. The arts hub that was 48 Abell was gone, the Mercer Union moved north to Bloor, and the area had become the city's hallmark of hip living, complete with a roster of new condos and bars.

This isn't a sad story. Or at least it doesn't have to be. Toronto needs place likes the West Queen West we have today, but it also needs areas that will serve as breeding grounds for artistic endeavours, new ideas, and cultural experimentation. For now, the city still has such places in steady supply.

Where did Thrush Holmes go when he left West Queen West?

Geary Avenue, of course. That strange hybrid of a street where you're just as likely to find an auto body shop as you are a jam space, a brewery, an architecture firm, or an artist studio. In a city that's growing as rapidly as Toronto, it's places like Geary where you might take our cultural temperature.

• Saturday morning, as I mentioned, I did "The Steps of Old Lake Iroquois" along the shoreline of that ancient lake. Guided by Gary Shaul, I had a great time seeing the still-steep hilly shoreline. I posted some photos from that walk this morning, and will be posting more in the days ahead as time permits.


• Sunday morning, I did "Walk the Green Line: Infrastructures of Park Space". For two hours, led by Netami Stuart, I was part of a group of several dozen people exploring the chain of parks, parkettes, and narrow hydro corridor passages connecting Earlscourt Park to my northwest with Geary Avenue just north of me. It was a fun expedition, one that reminded me of the extent to which I have not explored much of my own neighbourhood's hinterland.


• Sunday afternoon, I walked west on Dupont to meet up with the rest of the group at "A Time Travel Adventure at Galleria Mall!". Led by Shari Kasman, this touring of the neighbourhood of the Galleria Mall was interesting, but I was particularly interested by the glimpse at future plans for the area's redevelopment. My neighbourhood is going to change.

Residents say a plan to build a three-storey rail bridge north of Bloor St. will cut their Davenport neighbourhood in half. The city favours burying the train tracks in a tunnel and trench.

But Toronto’s Design Review Panel sees the Metrolinx bridge proposal differently.

On Tuesday, several of the panelists — outside architects, landscape and design experts — praised the design, using words such as “simple,” “elegant,” “wonderful” and “excellent” to describe the plan for the 1.5-kilometre, $120-million bridge and the accompanying public spaces beneath it.

“How far we’ve come in 20 years that a bridge can actually be a unifier rather than a barrier,” said Diamond Schmitt Architects’ Michael Leckman, vice-chair of the panel that acts as a design watchdog for Toronto’s public spaces.

He compared the proposal to the ways in which the city is adding parks, paths, lighting, soundscapes and art to the space beneath the Gardiner Expressway.

Toronto city council is blasting Ontario’s transportation agency and its plan for a big elevated rail bridge through Davenport neighbourhood, demanding Premier Kathleen Wynne intervene.

“We’re talking about a huge (ongoing) transformation, revitalization in this area, that could get severely impacted if you put this Gardiner Expressway-in-the-sky flying over this community, with trains going back and forth all day long,” thundered planning and growth chair Councillor David Shiner.

Davenport Councillor Ana Bailão said her residents support provincial electric rail expansion but “we don't want to be the community known as the train-watching community,” with, eventually, up to 180 a day overhead.

Others questioned Toronto’s future relations with the Metrolinx agency and its regional express rail plan, including agreements that compel the city to pay a share of some construction costs.

• blogTO notes Yonge Street probably beats out Davenport Road as Toronto's oldest street.


• The Dragon's Tales notes simulations of Earth's early atmosphere that might help us determine if exoplanets host life.


• Joe. My. God. notes an American Christian who thinks France deserved ISIS.


• Language Hat notes how song lyrics help preserve the Berber dialect of Siwa, in Egypt.


• Languages of the World's Asya Pereltsvaig reposts an old article of hers on the English language of the islands of the South Atlantic.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the complexity of solidarity with France in our post-imperial era.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer suggests well-timed American aid helped Greece enormously.


• Savage Minds notes the return of the Anthrozine.


• Window on Eurasia notes that Russian is now widely spoken by ISIS and looks at the exact demographics of traditional families in Russia (largely rural, largely non-Russian).

“Why we do it is a mystery,” says Nicholas Brinckman. “There is no reason to walk across the city carrying a canoe on your back. It’s madness.”

On Nov. 15, Brinckman and others will be doing just that for an event they call the Davenportage, a 17-kilometre portage between the Humber and Don Rivers.

The bulk of their route follows Davenport, one of Toronto’s oldest roads that roughly traces an even older First Nations trail called Gete-Onigaming, or “the old portage.”

Davenport also passes south of the shoreline of ancient Lake Iroquois, the former expanded glacial version of Lake Ontario, today a prominent escarpment running across the middle of Toronto between Davenport and St. Clair that is the bane of all north-peddling cyclists.

Brinckman and a few other colleagues were working together in a shared office in Yorkville when they came up with the idea to do a long walk that both explored the city and honoured some of its history.

“It’s a profound way to be in the city,” he says. “It made me feel more connected to this place.”