Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. As the tenants who inhabited the warehouses of the Queen West Triangle were evicted to make way for demolition... [continue]

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. Although the developers currently building in the Queen West Triangle have collectively incited outrage with their controversial plans for... [continue]

Many of you may remember 25-year old Jason Jones, who was on the front page of the Toronto Star last February as a graphic indictment against "the miserable state of dental care for our working poor." The resulting outcry led to demands that the indigent and working poor have better access to dental care. Jones' story had a happy ending: offers poured in from readers to help pay for the dental work he desperately needed,...... [continue]

Near Manulife Financial: Bloor East citizens would like less poo in their public spaces. With condo fever gripping the still-shabby southeast corner of Bloor and Yonge due to the future One Bloor 80-storey tower, the Bloor East Neighbourhood Association (BENA) met Wednesday night at the Rogers Centre (333 Bloor Street East) to discuss how their little stretch of street could be transformed to rival the world-class reputation of Bloor West. BENA, representing ratepayers along...... [continue]

A few months ago, Torontoist wrote about the practice of façadism in the downtown core. Façadism—which refers to the practice of retaining the front face, or "skin," of an old building and affixing it to a newer, usually larger structure—has become increasingly popular in recent years as the city continues to grow up and out at its breakneck pace. Façadism began to be seen in Ontario after the 1975 Heritage Act, which gave municipalities...... [continue]

This weekend, the Ex is once again hosting Toronto's popular Clothing Show, the retail sales event offering "the unique, the unusual, and the handcrafted" to the citizenry. Currently celebrating its 30th anniversary, this event has been taking in greater numbers over the years because of its talented pool of local designers. And though there's an increasing amount of lazily silk-screened American Apparel T-shirts being touted as "alternative" fashion, it's still the best place to get... [continue]

Photo by marco 2000. On Monday night, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) hosted a members-only event to provide an inside look at its ongoing renovations before it shuts its doors to the public for its last phase (to be completed sometime in 2008). Dubbed “Transformation AGO,” and overseen by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry, the AGO is one of the final buildings to be completed as part of Toronto’s “Cultural Renaissance". Perhaps people are feeling... [continue]

A collection of façades on BCE Place on Wellington Street. As a follow-up to Torontoist's previous article on façadism in architecture, we sought the expertise of Alec Keefer, president of Toronto Architectural Conservancy. He took us on a tour of some examples of façadism around the city. He chose to focus on the downtown core because of its volatile nature; as both the oldest part of the city—with dozens of heritage sites—and the financial... [continue]

While the rest of the city ferried their way to Toronto Island for this weekend's Virgin Festival (Torontoist will have more on that later!), art-rock darlings Animal Collective stopped by at the Phoenix (early!) last night on their world tour for their latest album, Strawberry Jam. After an Alec Empire-like opening set of apocalyptic industrialism by Eric Copeland (from Black Dice), the boys hit the stage. Contrary to audience scuttlebutt, Animal Collective did not sport... [continue]

Photo by Taller, Better at Skyscraper City. If you walk down the boutique-laden streets of Yorkville, you may notice a turn-of-the-century building in a Georgian revival style. The building at 100 Yorkville was the birthplace of the eminent Mount Sinai Hospital, built in the 1930s as a maternity and convalescence ward. Much homier than its current giant box on University Avenue, this yellow brick building has a symmetrical dignity rarely seen in contemporary architecture. But... [continue]

Do you wistfully dream of having a little corner of the city to call your own, but balk at the "Homes" section of the classifieds with its hyperbole-strewn ads and dead-eyed realtors? A new Google Maps-based website, housing123.com, tries to make things a little easier for potential home buyers across the GTA. The Canadian Real Estate Agency (CREA) operates a database known as the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), which allows realtors to view virtually... [continue]

Photo by Nora Vass. Habitat 67 is one of the few structures remaining from Expo 67, the most successful World's Fair in the twentieth century and arguably one of Canada's finest cultural achievements. It's a teetering jumble of blocks, catwalks, and gardens designed to reflect the celebration of diversity that the event represented. It is from this structure, and Expo 67, that the Vulcan Dub Squad draws inspiration for its new album, The New Designers.... [continue]

With Toronto in the midst of a nasty heat wave, this cooler beckoning walkers-by in Yorkville with "Free Water" seemed like a desert mirage. But sure enough, the lid pulled back to reveal perfectly-chilled bottled water care of The Body Clinic, a high-end spa and salon. At first, the cooler seemed a sweet gesture to us sun-beaten, sweat-soaked pedestrians, bringing back memories of the refreshing Freezies given out on hot days in elementary school. But... [continue]

This junk heap of discarded furniture was found at the St. George subway entrance to the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE), just steps away from Dominion Modern's OISE D&A: an in-house exhibition of late-Modernist furniture from the structure's inception in 1970. Ironically, the pieces on display in the exhibition (photos after the jump) are of the same design as this basement-level detritus destined for the landfill. Dominion Modern is an archive whose... [continue]

Much like the budding romance between Hero and Claudio in the play itself, Wednesday night's open-air premiere of William Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing was threatened by the malevolent influence of outside elements, in this case a light drizzle that foreshadowed an impending downpour. As the skies darkened, it seemed likely that this year's Canopy Theatre premiere in Philosopher's Walk would be postponed for a day. But the actors seemed impervious to the rain... [continue]

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