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- CBC Toronto bids farewell, fittingly at TCAF time, to the iconic Jason Loo Toronto comic series The Pitiful Human-Lizard.
- At blogTO, Tanya Mok reports on the resistance of tenants at 54-56 Kensington Avenue to an illegal eviction order by their landlord.
- The Toronto Star reports on a new matchmaking event intended to connect future roommates to each other.
- Kevin Ritchie at NOW Toronto reports on how a new pricing scheme for the AGO, including a $35 annual pass for people over 25, reflects a push to try to get more people into museums.
- Glenn Sumi writes at NOW Toronto about the increasingly steep price of ticket prices for live theatre in Toronto.
- Toronto Life shares photos from an exhibit, by Patrick Cummins and Ivaan Kotulsky, of Queen Street West in the 1980s and 1990s.
- Richard Longley writes at NOW Toronto about the emptying of an old warehouse of collectibles and oddities on Wabush, part of the decline of old storied Toronto.
- Toronto Life shares more photos from outdoor market Stackt, at Front and Bathurst.
- Steve Munro starts to analyse traffic patterns on the 501 Queen streetcar, looking first at the Neville Loop end.
- NOW Toronto is one of a few news sources to report on Scarborough writer Téa Mutonji and her new short story collection Shut Up, You're Pretty.
- Jarek Piórkowski writes about how he can use his Presto card records to reconstruct, to varying degrees of fidelity, his commutes across the Greater Toronto Area.
- blogTO notes that the streetside bins of nuts and fruits of Salamanca Dry Foods Store in Kensington Market are no more, thanks to a new charge by the city.
- This paid section at the Toronto Star does a good job explaining the new planned Bjarke Ingels KING condominium complex on King Street West.
- CBC Toronto notes a new push by residents of the Beaches to encourage visitors (and locals) not to litter, on Woodbine or any other of the east-end's iconic strands.
- The Toronto Star reports on a community meeting regarding the redevelopment of Ontario Place, the different proposals all being united by a desire to keep this place a high-quality destination open to all Torontonians.
- Matt Elliott at CBC Toronto asks what, exactly, the City of Toronto is doing to prepare for the increasingly erratic and dangerous weather hitting the city.
- NOW Toronto reports on how Jodie Emery plans to start expanding her marijuana empire, and her wider influence, after opening a new café in Kensington Market.
- This NOW Toronto article reporting on some of the restaurants of Little Jamaica, along Eglinton Avenue West, is informative.
- I honestly have to say that I have taken note of Three Points Make Two Lines, down at Vaughan Road and St. Clair Avenue West. I will. Murray Whyte at the Toronto Star makes the case.
- Suresh Doss describes the Mnandi pies sold by Evis Chirowamhangu at Wychwood Barns.
- The murder of two young people and wounding of more than a dozen in a shooting on the Danforth is shocking. CBC reports.
- CBC reports on a timely new exhibition at the ROM, #MeToo & The Arts.
- Samantha Edwards at NOW Toronto notes how plans to transform the old Fairland grocery store on Augusta into a big nightclub threatens the nature of Kensington Market.
- blogTO notes that the mist gardens of the Four Seasons Toronto on Yorkville Avenue are open to the public and free.
- The new City of Toronto program HomeShare, getting older residents to rent out unused rooms to younger tenants (often students), is one creative response to the crises of affordable housing and aging. The Toronto Star reports.
- Olivia Bednar at NOW Toronto reports on a new photo exhibit examining the history of the CNE, and examines five photos particularly.
- The Toronto bike lane strategy is falling behind schedule, activists report over at the Toronto Star.
- Shawn Micallef notes the new political alliances being forged in Toronto by the shift in ward boundaries, over at the Toronto Star.
- Olivia Bednar at NOW Toronto reports on an upcoming exhibit of the art of Kent Monkman, this September at the Project Gallery.
- Urban Toronto contrasts two photos of the downtown Toronto skyline from Kensington Market, taken from the same point in 2013 and 2018, here.
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Tuesday afternoon, in a gloriously warm late afternoon full of brilliant sunshine, I took a nice walk west on College Street, dipping in and out of Kensington Market.
- The King Street transit experiment could have been much broader, and much more radical, reports The Globe and Mail.
- Emily Mathieu reports on Toronto's Homeless Memorial, remembering the hundreds of people who died on the streets. Dean Lisowick is the latest addition to the sad list. The Toronto Star has it.
- blogTO has some recommendations for people on interested in spending a night out in Kensington Market.
- A development proposal means that the Commerce Court observation deck, in the Financial District, might be reopened to regular visitors some time in the foreseeable future. blogTO reports.
- Edward Keenan has some fun imagining how, in a Toronto winter, some works of world literature might be adapted to reflect the weather. The Toronto Star has it.
- Having visited Friday, I liked the blogTO report on the early days of Toronto's love affair with Niagara Falls.
- blogTO shares photos of Kensington Market in the raw 1970s.
- The exterior of 450 Pape Avenue was used for the movie It, and the place is seeing Stephen King pilgrims already.
- The Toronto Book Garden, a lovely mini-park at Harbourfront keyed to literary Toronto, opened yesterday.
- I am decidedly unimpressed by the marijuana dispensary owners who set their employees up for criminal charges.
- Is the Ontario proposal for a licensed provincial marijuana retailer going to be economically viable? Maybe not. CBC reports.
- Steve Munro looks at the new 509 Harboufront streetcars with their pantograph power collection units.
- Edward Keenan makes a well-meaning call to Torontonians to stop speculating about the winner of the 2018 election. (Won't happen, alas.)
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- Steve Munro shares some vintage photos of TTC streetcars from Canada's centennial in 1967.
- Spacing Toronto's Chris Bateman describes how the Toronto Islands became a test-bed for architectural modernism.
- Global News notes the proposal for a hovercraft service across Lake Ontario, connecting Toronto with Niagara.
- The Toronto Star's Emily Mathieu notes that a Kensington Market apartment complex made into a ghost hotel has been temporarily shut down by Airbnb.
- NOW Toronto's Paul Salvatori has a touching photo essay on the Palace Arms, a soon-to-be-gone rooming house at King and Strachan.
- Lisa Coxon of Toronto Life shares eleven photos tracking Toronto's queer history back more than a century.
- Michelle McQuigge reports for the Toronto Star that the Luminous Veil does save lives. I would add that it is also beautiful.
- In The Globe and Mail, Marcus Gee thinks it makes perfect sense for there to be a dedicated streetcar corridor on King Street.
- Ben Spurr describes a new plan for a new GO Transit bus station across from Union Station.
- Emily Mathieu reported in the Toronto Star on how some Kensington Market tenants seem to have been pushed out for an Airbnb hostel.
- In The Globe and Mail, Irish-born John Doyle explores the new Robert Grassett Park, built in honour of the doctor who died trying to save Irish refugees in 1847.
Justin Ling in VICE tells the story of three gay men who went missing without a trace in Toronto just a few years ago. What happened?
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The Globe and Mail's Mark Medley describes how Toronto comic store The Beguiling is managing its move from the soon-to-be-defunct Mirvish Village to a new College Street location.
For nearly two decades, visitors to the Beguiling, the charmingly overstocked comic-book emporium in the heart of Toronto’s Mirvish Village, would often be greeted by the sight of long-time owner Peter Birkemoe sitting in his “office” – perched behind his computer, at the first-floor cash register, surrounded by the ever-encroaching comics, artworks, ‘zines and other ephemera that have made it the most important comic-book store in Canada, and one of the greatest in the world.
“I’ve spent more of my life, hour-wise, awake, in this room, than I’ve spent in any [other] building,” Birkemoe said one morning earlier this month, as he took a break from preparing for the store’s last day, on Tuesday. He laughed, quietly, as if realizing this for the first time. “That will be sad.”
Countless obituaries were written about Honest Ed’s, the discount department store that anchored Mirvish Village, an eclectic block of art studios, restaurants and other small businesses, in the days before the brightly lit retailer shut its doors on Dec. 31, the result of a redevelopment that will significantly alter the southwest corner of Bathurst and Bloor in the coming years. The Beguiling, at least to its customers, is as vital an institution.
Since the store moved into its current home more than 20 years ago, it has served as a sort of clubhouse for many in the city’s comics community. It will survive, in name and in spirit, in a different form – a new location, on College Street, on the edge of Kensington Market, opened last month – but at the same time one can’t help but feel a sense of an ending, that a chapter is coming to a close.
“It will definitely be hard to have that feeling of something just so densely packed with history,” said the comics artist Michael DeForge. “I’m sure the new location will eventually get as lived in, and accumulate that history as it goes on, but that’s going to be a hard thing to get back again.”
blogTO's Amy Grief describes how the institution of the community land trust, organized by neighbourhood organizations to buy up available land in different places with the goal of ensuring it will be used for affordable housing and the like, is starting to appear in Toronto.
[O]rganizations in both Parkdale and Kensington Market are trying to use the community land trust model in order to fight neighbourhood gentrification and rent increases (in both commercial and residential properties).
Like other community land trusts - located in the United States and other parts of Canada, including in Hamilton - the ones in Parkdale and Kensington Market seek to own land and then lease it like-minded organizations who can help secure affordable housing and green space.
"We want to own real parcels of land, own the deed to them and we want to determine collectively how that land is used to meet community needs," says Joshua Barndt, the development coordinator at the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust.
He grew up in the west side neighbourhood and joined the PNLT after the non-profit organization got a Trillium Grant in 2014, which allowed it to hire staff. He says anyone who lives or works in Parkdale can become a PNLT member, but the group's governed by an elected board of directors.
Barndt explains that the PNLT wants to focus on securing affordable housing as commercial spaces as well as projects to protect food security in the neighbourhood. Fittingly, the organization's in the process of getting its first piece of land: the Milky Way Garden behind the Parkdale Library.
“The land trust’s role is to hold and secure the site and make it affordably available,” says Barndt. The PNLT hopes to use the Milky Way plot for urban agriculture initiatives operated by the non-profit Greenest City.
Torontoist's David Hains looks at the impending move of The Beguiling from Mirvish Village to College Street near Kensington Market.
Longtime Mirvish Village institution The Beguiling will close its Markham Street digs on January 28.
The venerable comic book store has been at its current location since 1992, after it moved from its original Harbord Street location where it was founded in 1987.
The store, which specializes in independent comics as well as original art, will relocate to College and Spadina at 319 College Street, just north of Kensington Market. The College Street location might have a casual opening sometime in December, but will be open for regular business on January 3.
[. . .]
The Beguiling isn’t the only comic book store affected by the Honest Ed’s development. Its children’s comics store, Little Island Comics, located on Bathurst Street, will close. In a Facebook post announcing the changes, The Beguiling says that much of Little Island’s selections will be available at Page and Panel, its store located in the Reference Library. In a phone call with Torontoist, store owner Peter Birkemoe says that the Little Island brand will live on in some form in the future, but that there are no current plans for it to have a physical location.
The 319 College Street location will have about 20 per cent less square footage than the existing store, but Birkemoe says the store layout will be better, which will make for easier browsing. The store will be on one floor, and it will mark the first time The Beguiling is fully accessible.
NOW Toronto's Natalia Manzocco describes some very appetizing Ojibwa tacos sound like they could be quite good. (Of course they'd be in Kensington Market.)
POW WOW CAFE (213 Augusta, at Baldwin, facebook.com/CafePowWow). Brunch or lunch $17 per person, with tax, tip and a cedar soda. Open Thursday through Sunday. Access: No step at door, small single-stall washroom on main floor. See listing.
I have questions for Shawn Adler, owner/chef of the Pow Wow Cafe, but as we stand by the service counter chatting, we’re interrupted by customer after customer appearing in the doorway of the tiny Kensington Market kitchen. I should note that this was only the café’s fourth day in business.
That morning, Adler and his tacos, built on Ojibway bannock, or frybread, were featured on CBC-TV, and word (as it does whenever a brand-new food item appears on any table anywhere in the GTA) travelled fast.
Adler’s tacos are $12, and as a few customers learned that day, you only need to order one. His rendition of the classic pow wow snack is more akin to a platter-sized salad built on a softball-sized lump of frybread, which assumed its place in First Nations culture when the Canadian government began issuing rations of ingredients like white flour and lard. “It’s kind of like a savoury apple fritter,” the chef explains.
blogTO's Amy Grief describes how Kensington Market's Jewish past remains today.
When Danny Zimmerman, who used to run Zimmerman's Discounts with his father, walks down Augusta, in the heart of Kensington Market, it's as if he's amongst friends. He waves hello to passersby as we make our way down the street from 4 Life Natural Foods (in the old Zimmerman's Discounts space) to grab a coffee at the Via Mercanti Food Shop.
"This is the new King of Kensington, right here," says a man, referring to Danny, as he grabs an espresso to go. Danny started working in the market back in 1973 when he was 13 years old. His father moved to the area after surviving the Holocaust.
But even before that, the neighbourhood was a Jewish enclave. In the early 1900s, Jews started moving west out of The Ward into the area now known as Kensington Market.
"By the end of the First World World War," writes Stephen Speisman in The Jews of Toronto: A History to 1937, "an outdoor market had begun to develop on the western streets - Kensington, Augusta, Baldwin, Nassau - and a shtetl atmosphere... had been created."
While Kensington Market may not resemble a shtetl (a small Jewish village) anymore, the area still maintains vestiges of Jewish life through various restaurants, synagogues and community groups.
Julien Gignac's exploration in The Globe and Mail about Kensington Market and this new study is just lovely. Gignac's photographs of the neighbourhood and its residents are a nice touch.
On a sunny recent weekday afternoon, a woman walked with her pet pigeon through Bellevue Square. To her left, a man played chinlone – a traditional Myanmar game – as lo-fi tunes emanated from a radio strapped to a vintage bicycle. Across the park on a shaded patio, people lounged on their lunch breaks, clinking drinks.
Kensington Market is a hub of eccentricity in the heart of downtown Toronto with a deeply rooted sense of multiculturalism and celebrated unconventionality. But the identity it’s famous for may be endangered. At the northern end of Augusta Avenue, trendy independent shops draw clientele to buy French cookware and macaron-making kits, a stark contrast to the endearing grit found elsewhere in the market.
The University of Toronto wants to formally understand the neighbourhood’s dynamic. That’s why the university’s ethnography lab is busy conducting a multiyear research project to document the Market’s rich history and changes caused by urban encroachment.
The area is so unique that researchers have committed to studying it as they would some faraway, exotic locale – the first time the lab has focused on an urban neighbourhood.
“It’s hard to find a more interesting place to study, both in terms of its real life socio-economic dynamics and processes of gentrification that are ongoing there,” said Dr. Joshua Barker, director of the Kensington Market project and vice-dean of anthropology at the university. He mentioned the “pressure” of development projects happening at each and every threshold of the neighbourhood, such as a new community housing complex that’s due to sprout up on the neighbourhood’s south border of Dundas Street, or a chain retail building in the works on Bathurst Street, to the west.
