A Bit More Detail

• 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.

Typical university campuses are often themed. Take U of T’s Hogwarts-like architecture, or York University’s city-unto-itself feel.

Ryerson University has the distinction of being among downtown’s crowded corridors without imposing a uniform streetscape connecting its many buildings.

That’s already begun to change. Some of the urban campus’s roads have become ambient-lit walkways, and sidewalks have turned into pedestrian boulevards connecting Ryerson’s expanding array of learning centres.

The car-free section of Gould Street just east of Yonge is the genesis of what Ryerson and the City of Toronto plan as a foot traffic-favoured part of town.

The design’s aim is to invite students and anyone in the area off the main street into what Ryerson calls a public realm.

It was a potent mix of nervous excitement, swallowed tears and sheer exhaustion.

As police directed traffic and a music boom box blared, hundreds of students and parents pushing trolleys packed with pillows, printers and the odd teddy bear converged on Ryerson University’s downtown campus for residence move-in day Sunday.

Mia Croney of Barbados, who has visited family in Toronto many times, still can’t believe she will be living here.

“I’m pretty excited,” said the 18-year-old arts major as she unpacked a mountain of clothes in the apartment-style residence she will be sharing with three other first-year students. “Ryerson was my number one choice.”

“This is the guy on the bag,” I say, pointing at 68-year-old Tetsushi Mizokami to the people queuing outside Uncle Tetsu’s cheesecake shop, next to the Toronto Coach Terminal on Bay Street, on a rainy Friday evening. Some smile out of politeness, others ignore us and just want to get inside. For a guy whose desserts — and the white paper bag it comes in — reached trophy status since the Uncle Tetsu shop opened a year ago, I would have thought cheesecake groupies would flock to him.

The soft-spoken Mizokami was in town in April to oversee the opening of his third Toronto spot, a sit-down restaurant called Uncle Tetsu’s Angel Cafe just east of University Ave. on Dundas St. W. It’s akin to a Japanese maid café where servers are dressed in cosplay maid uniforms — some of whom perform choreographed dance numbers to Japanese pop hits on a mini-stage in the dining room. The restaurateur already has plans to open a fourth restaurant, this time focusing on ramen with tomato and seafood-based broths, and he wants to keep it within walking distance of his three other shops.

“The number one location is maybe Dundas and Yonge, but it is very difficult to get that location. Second choice is Bay St. and Dundas because it is easy for beginner (businesses),” he says.

Over the last year or two, one-by-one Japanese eateries opened up along Dundas St. W. between Bay and St. Patrick Sts., creating a new culinary destination that Toronto food enthusiasts are dubbing Little Japan.

The strip, smack between Ryerson University and OCAD, reminds Mizokami of his hometown of Fukuoka in the southwest part of Japan where, in the ’70s, he managed more than a dozen restaurants catering to the youths from the nearby university.

Years after Sam the Record Man’s neon vinyl was dismantled and stored out of view, the sign’s keepers at Ryerson University are now starting the process of restoring it in earnest.

This week, the university issued a request for interested qualified companies to bid on installing the sign on top of a city-owned building facing Yonge-Dundas Square.

A Ryerson spokesperson said it’s too soon to estimate when the sign will be up, but that the university is “committed” to restoring it. Companies that respond will be asked about a timeline, Michael Forbes said in an email. Ryerson will be paying all the costs.

[. . .]

The following year, council backed a proposal to put the sign atop the roof of the Toronto Public Health building at 277 Victoria St. — around the corner from the old record store site and facing Yonge-Dundas Square, a spot city staff called a “culturally appropriate and relevant location for the Sam signage.”

When that plan was debated at council, there was concern the building on Victoria St. could also soon be up for sale.

At the request of Councillor Josh Matlow, council voted that any future sale of the site would include an agreement to preserve and maintain the sign there.

Overcoming their hesitance to get their shoes muddy and their hands dirty, young folks bend down to plant garlic cloves in long beds of dark, rich soil and compost.

It’s a scene of bucolic tranquility until a wailing siren blasts a periodic reminder that this farm isn’t in the countryside, but in the centre of one of North America’s largest cities.

On Tuesday, Ryerson University’s rooftop farm hosted tours as part of its first annual Harvest Festival, marking the end of its first full growing season only blocks from Yonge-Dundas Square.

Groups of curious students, staff and urban agriculture enthusiasts filed down straw-covered paths, between aluminum heating vents and under the looming turquoise facade of the condo-converted warehouse across the street.

They then headed to a reception serving gourmet dishes prepared by campus chefs with produce from the roof: celeriac leek soup with blue cheese mousse, winter squash tarts with candied borage flowers, blue potato croquettes with radish cream.