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My commute to work Tuesday, which turned out to be the last one I will make in some time, was a bit odd, with buses and subway cars half-empty and a strange ambient mood.
[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links
Dec. 6th, 2019 05:00 pm- Transit Toronto celebrates the life of photographer John Bromney, here.
- blogTO explains, with photos, the cause of the subway shutdown on Line 1 Wednesday night.
- blogTO notes that the TTC wants to create five transit corridor for buses, including one on Dufferin Street.
- Toronto is apparently the top tech city in Canada. blogTO reports.
- John Lorinc at Spacing considers what affordable housing actually is, especially in the context of real-world constraints less generous than often imagined.
- The displaced residents of Gosford have seen nothing from their apartment block's owners about housing options. Global News reports.
- The TTC plans to have even more subway closures in 2020 than in 2019. Global News reports.
Downsview Park subway station is impressive, spacious in the right ways. If only it was more heavily used!
[URBAN NOTE] Nine Toronto links
Nov. 25th, 2019 05:56 pm- Metrolinx using paid influencers to promote the Ontario Line is certainly a choice. The Toronto Star reports.
- Union Station retiring an old mechanical system 90 years old used to control TTC vehicles is a landmark event. The Metrolinx blog reports.
- Jamie Bradburn looks at the birth of the Gardiner Expressway, here.
- Alok Mukherjee at Spacing questions why police in Toronto have stopped enforcing traffic regulations.
- Protesters charged with blocking the Bloor Viaduct during the Extinction Rebellion have had the charges dropped. Global News reports.
- Sean Marshall shared his account of his address to the Toronto Police Services board, here.
- Jamie Bradburn looks at the history behind the mid-20th century expansion of Church Street.
- NOW Toronto notes that workers at the Broadview Hotel have become unionized.
- Samantha Lui writes at NOW Toronto against the false negative stereotypes applied by so many--even briefly by Google--to Scarborough.
- CBC notes that a lawsuit surrounding benefits fraud by TTC employees has been settled, expensively.
[URBAN NOTE] Five Montréal links
Nov. 6th, 2019 05:39 pm- Renovating the Oratoire St. Joseph will surely be costly. CTV News reports.
- CBC Montreal looks back to when the Montreal Expos seemed like they might not be bought.
- Le Devoir notes how, in Québec, the Liberals are concentrated on the islands of Montreal and in Laval, in their fortress.
- An old Montreal metro car has been repurposed as a hangout for Polytechnique students. CBC reports
- CBC Montreal reports on the proposal of Matt McLauchlin to name a plaza at Frontenac metro station after murdered activist Joe Rose. I like the idea.
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[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links
Oct. 29th, 2019 05:28 pm- I do hope Toronto does something with the abandoned foot court on Queen West and John. blogTO reports.
- blogTO looks at the new Villiers Island set to occupy the mouth of the Don River in the Port Lands.
- An Ossington laneway is going to be repainted after a botched improvement project destroyed its public art. The Toronto Star reports.
- Steve Munro fisks a defense by the Toronto Board of Trade of the proposed Ontario Line, here.
- Andrew Cash, sadly not elected in my riding of Davenport, writes in the Toronto Star about the importance of Toronto having active local MPs.
- National Observer looks at how the City of Toronto is encouraging residents grow gardens for pollinators.
- Samantha Edwards writes at NOW Toronto about how the long-closed Paradise on Bloor theatre is set to reopen in December.
[URBAN NOTE] Ten Toronto links
Oct. 26th, 2019 06:13 pm- blogTO looks at the Toronto of the 1950s, when Highway 2--Lake Shore and Kingston Road--was the way into the city.
- Jamie Bradburn takes a look at a 1950 tourist guide to Ontario, specifically focusing on its descriptions of Toronto.
- Jamie Bradburn looks at how, in the post-war era, dining at the Coxwell Kresge in-house restaurant was a thing.
- blogTO notes how many in Leslieville are unhappy with the idea of the Ontario Line being built above-ground.
- Samantha Edwards at NOW Toronto notes that there is going to be a Pride rally outside of Palmerston library where Meghan Murphy will be speaking.
- Spacing looks at the connections between Nuit Blanche and the Toronto Biennial, for Toronto as an artistic city.
- NOW Toronto shares some photos of Honest Ed's in its dying days.
- Toronto Life tells the story of Peperonata Lane, a west-end laneway that took its name from a popular neighbourhood pepper-roasting event.
- blogTO notes a new movie being filmed in Regent Park, here.
- blogTO shares photos of the new Garrison Crossing pedestrian bridge, here.
[URBAN NOTE] Eight Toronto links
Oct. 24th, 2019 01:44 pm- Samantha Edwards writes</> at NOW Toronto about the controversy surrounding the visit of transphobe author Meghan Murphy to give a speech at the Palmerston library, with authors even threatening a boycott of the network.
- Natasha Tusikov writes at The Conversation about how Sidewalk Labs' proposals for the Port Lands would give it great and unaccountable political power.
- blogTO looks at the 1945 proposal for a subway in Toronto, one with a west-east axis not on Bloor but further south on Queen.
- blogTO looks at Sparkles, the nightclub at the top of the CN Tower that reigned over the Toronto scene in the 1980s.
- Will the Scarborough neighbourhood of Brichcliffe-Cliffside by changed for the worse by new dense construction? The Toronto Star reports.
- People who, in illegally climbing the Scarborough Bluffs, get trapped on said feature might soon be charged with the costs of their own rescue. blogTO reports.
- The growth of popularity of specifically Toronto slang is fascinating. Global News reports.
- Jamie Bradburn shares an old article on St. John's Norway cemetery, here.
[PHOTO] Bear, guinea pig of the subway
Sep. 1st, 2019 08:12 amI did a double-take when I saw this guinea pig resting on a towel in the lap of the subway passenger sitting next to me. Named Bear, the passenger told me, this guinea pig six months old seemed to be handling the strange new environment of the subway car handily enough. A photo seemed necessary.
- The story of Toronto nightclub Zanzibar is, indeed, a fascinating one. (Soon to go, with the rest of Yonge Street.) The Toronto Star has it.
- Will gentrification undermine Chinatown, downtown on Spadina Avenue? Global News reports.
- The Golden Mile of Scarborough, along Eglinton Avenue, is set to be radically transformed by development. blogTO reports.
- Oh, why not allow for the sale of beer at some convenience stores in TTC stops? blogTO has it.
- Alireza Nareghi looks in MacLean's at the threat posed to the ravine environments of Toronto by invasive species, and at what is being done to save them.
- It has been one year since the disaster at 650 Parliament. Global News reports.
- The Star looks at how, after the 650 Parliament disaster, St. James Town is coping with the loss of a tenth of its population, right here.
- A community group opposed the idea of the Ontario Line running vehicles through their neighbourhood every 90 seconds. The Star reports.
- For one man, Wayne Malley, being lost at the CNE as a child was an unforgettable adventure. The Star reports.
- Toronto Life interviews people in Cabbagetown to see what they think about their neighbourhood's safe injection site, here.
- NOW Toronto interviews six Torontonian musicians who left their city in search of affordable homes elsewhere, here.
- Global News reports on the strange story of a retired TTC streetcar found in the middle of the forest.
