A Bit More Detail

• Urban Toronto looks at the new proposal for a condo tower at 300 Bloor Street West, at Bloor and Huron.


• Toronto's Great Hall, on Queen Street West, is up for sale. blogTO reports.


• Residents and tenants of the Coffin Factory at staging a funeral for this location as it is on the verge of being made into a condo development. blogTO reports.


• A new exhibit in North York is profiling the history of immigrant construction workers in Toronto. CBC reports.


• Could a tax on multi-million dollar homes in Toronto be used to generate funds for the homeless? The Toronto Star reports.

• Urban Toronto shares a photo of the rising 1 Yorkville tower.


• Tanya Mok at blogTO takes a look at the fast-disappearing cluster of antique shops on westernmost Queen Street West in Parkdale, near Roncesvalles.


• Steve Munro takes a look at the effect of the King Street pilot project on 501 Queen transit times.


• Might the Toronto Zoo have its own maglev train? blogTO reports.


• A petition has been launched to save the York Pillars from demolition. I, for one, will sign it. Can you, too? Global News reports.

• Shawn Micallef is quite right to note that the fight for local democracy is not just worth it, but that it can be won. The Toronto Star has it.


• Christopher Hume notes the leading role now played by developers in creating new neighbourhoods in Toronto, over at the Toronto Star.


• Dylan Reid at Spacing takes a look at the question of how the Unilever lands, the Unilever Precinct, need to be developed.


• Vice reports on the very recent meeting between Vegandale proponents and Parkdale residents. I have to say that many of the Vegandale types come off incredibly badly.


• Author Catherine Hernandez writes about CBC Arts about her Scarborough, a collection of restaurants and performance spaces and more.

• blogTO reports TTC plans to further improve service on the 29 Dufferin route.


• This lawsuit lodged by the companies building the Eglinton Crosstown against Metrolinx for breach of contract is unwelcome news. The Toronto Star reports.


• The apparent trend to prescribe injured workers not medical marijuana for their pain but the potentially much more dangerous opioids sounds like a mistake to me. CBC reports.


• The giant Okuda San Miguel mural on the wall of a student resident at Jarvis and Carlton is now complete. CBC reports.


• Samantha Edwards at NOW Toronto has written a fascinating long feature on the rise of veganism in Toronto, not only as a popular and visible food style but as a force responsible for gentrification (the block of Queen between Dufferin and Brock is home to a new vegan district).

• Aaron Hutchins reports on the potential of the upcoming Doug Ford campaign in Toronto to reveal the strength, or not, of populism in Canada.


• Jesse Winter reports at The Globe and Mail on how the redevelopment of a warehouse at Queen and Dufferin, in Parkdale, is set to displace the artists and creators now based there.


• Ben Spurr notes that, although the entire TTC now has cell service, only Freedom Mobile--not any of the big three--has signed a contract to let users take advantage of this, over at the Toronto Star.


• blogTO notes that the decision of restaurant Kaboom Chicken to blame price increases on the minimum wage increase has met with a negative reaction.


• Narcity notes that some east-end 7/11 stores have shut down suddenly, apparently because of minimum wage increases.

The row of houses was built between 1890 and 1893 on what was first Dummer Street, then William Street, then, finally, St. Patrick Street. The names of the roads in this part of the city area have been shuffled more than most: St. Patrick Street used to refer to the stretch of road that's now part of Dundas west of McCaul; McCaul used to be William Henry Street, then West William Street, for example.

For much of its past the street was blighted by poverty. Early photos show severe faces, crumbling wall cladding, and backyards strewn with detritus. More recently the area between University and Spadina has been home to a large Chinese community.

Starting in 1957, most of the block bound by Queen, McCaul, St. Patrick, and Dundas Street was purchased in pieces by Windlass Holdings Ltd., the company that developed the Village by the Grange, sometimes using aggressive tactics to secure land deeds.

The owner of 54 St. Patrick Street - once part of the original terrace - complained to the Toronto Star that the company's actions were "an extreme example of blockbusting," claiming he had received over 300 directives on his property in a single year.

Despite some resistance, the owners of the homes sold up at different times, and the row was pulled down in pieces like tooth extractions. The sole-survivor pictured here was once in the third house in the row from the south - the similar buildings next door are a later addition built on top of a laneway.

Instead, the company demolished its neighbour to the north with surgical precision, ensuring not even the woodwork on the facade of the hold-out building was disturbed. An internal supporting wall became a blank exterior when the house next door came down.

The 120-year-old residence at 54 ½ St. Patrick St. bears the scars of a development battle.

The Victorian row house was awkwardly severed from its neighbour in the 1970s when the owners refused to sell, and it lacks the symmetry of another side.

It is literally “half a house,” says its current owner, Albert Zikovitz, laughingly from his adjacent office in the Cottage Life Magazine building. “Everybody looks at it.”

The house is one of a few single-family homes left on the densely packed street near Queen and University. But Zikovitz, who purchased the house last year after the owner went into a retirement home, says he won’t tear it down.

“I love the house,” says Zikovitz, who is president of the magazine. Plans are in the works this year to restore the exterior of the building and turn the interior into office space.

• With news that Toronto police is now treating the disappearance of Andrew Kinsman from his Cabbagetown a week ago as suspicious, the search for Kinsman is taking on new importance. Please, if you can help in any way, let Toronto police or his friends--anybody--know.


• The Toronto Star's Hina Alam reports on the huge crush over the Canada Day weekend to see the World's Largest Rubber Duck.


• The Parkdale Villager's Hilary Caton reports on the push to make West Queen West a protected district.


• The National Post shares the Canadian Press' poll reporting on general anxiety, including among the well-off, on affordable housing in Canada.


• The Globe and Mail's Kenny Sharpe writes about controversy at Ryerson University over the legacy of founder Egerton Ryerson.

• The Globe and Mail describes how the flooding of Lake Ontario is starting to impact buildings built near the waterfront on the mainland, like some of Toronto's new condos.


• All of Toronto's beaches will be, CBC reports, at least partly closed on account of the flooding.


• Lucas Powers' photo essay at CBC tracks the impact of flooding on the Toronto Islands.


• Steve Munro continues his study of buses on Queen Street, noting that the frequency of buses needs to be increased to keep pace with streetcars.


• Edward Keenan argues in the Toronto Star that Michael Ford's call for a study for Queen Street transit will reveal that streetcars are the better way.