Photos: May 2009 Archives

                         

Toronto has been contemplating its architecture for far longer than a decade, but this year's tenth anniversary installment of Doors Open was a breezy, blue-skied, picture-perfect way of reinforcing the point: we are officially fascinated by our buildings. Many of our photographers, and many of our Flickr Pool contributors, spent their weekends exploring the nooks and sometimes hidden crannies of some Toronto's most notable buildings, and we've gathered the best of their finds here for your viewing pleasure. Picture-perfect, indeed.

       

Tamil candlelight vigil

At 9 a.m. on Saturday—one full hour before the notorious Don Jail opened its heavy, ominous doors to the public for the first time in thirty years—hundreds of curious visitors were already camped out at the back entrance, chomping at the bit to get inside. Thanks to the gracious folks from Bridgepoint Health, the jail’s new owners and landlords, Torontoist was able to sneak in early to see what has got to be this year’s most riveting Doors Open venue.

       

There was a movie that played at Hot Docs called Reporter. It was about Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times columnist who globetrots to the sites of the world's worst humanitarian disasters in an effort to provide original reporting that will draw attention to crises of which very few people are aware. Most interestingly, Kristof stays up to date on all the latest psychology literature on the subject of compassion; he is obsessed with crafting stories that will move his readers to action. Anyone can write something that will prompt people to respond "oh, that's a shame" before moving on; it takes a special talent to rouse a readership to demand change or intervention or support. What has been concluded from various experiments is that humans' innate capacity for sympathy is extremely limited: we are more likely to be affected by the suffering of an individual than that of a group. Kristof therefore tends to focus on very particular tales of one person's exceptional affliction.

As members of the Tamil community continue their demonstrations against the conflict in Sri Lanka, a high-flying counter-protest is underway, in the form of a small airplane circling around central Toronto with an anti–Tamil Tigers message in tow. Reader Mark Ostler first noticed the lofty banner, which reads "Protect Canada. Stop Tamil Tigers!", from his office window downtown. Shortly thereafter, Torontoist contributor Jonathan Goldsbie captured the above photo from Kensington Market (flipped here so that the message reads from left to right).

Not long before dusk on Sunday night, several thousand Tamil protesters flowed onto the Gardiner Expressway, shutting it down shortly thereafter, to protest the ongoing violence in Sri Lanka. The Gardiner would remain shut down until about midnight, when the protest migrated off the roads and on to Queen's Park.

Toronto Life Square boasts a massive external screen array advertising stores and upcoming movies. One thing they probably didn't think they would be advertising was Windows Genuine Advantage.

                        

As we previously reported, the cherry blossoms in High Park are in full bloom. A visit to the grove of trees adjacent to Grenadier Pond—even among the crowds poking cameras and children at the trees—is a delightful way to get into the right mood for spring, and the blooms should be around until the end of the week. During this time, the slightest gust of wind will lift petals off the trees in a blizzard of cherry snow (that makes twirling around like you're a three-year-old a must!)