Cartoon, the Telegram, August 21, 1958.

As we’ve witnessed this week, city councillors have no qualms about promoting public transit schemes in their wards regardless of whatever makes sense across the entire city. Elected representatives from Etobicoke and Scarborough who back contentious new subway lines fit within a long tradition of suburban politicians thinking within their fiefdoms. Back in the 1950s, their predecessors in Metropolitan Toronto were among the loudest opponents of the construction of the Bloor-Danforth and University subway lines out of belief that their constituents would be slammed with tax bills for infrastructure they would never use.

While leaders in inner suburbs like East York, Leaside, and Swansea embraced a new east-west subway to relieve congestion, their western counterparts were less enthusiastic when the TTC posted signs in March 1957 promising a future line along Bloor Street. Objections were mainly financial, with fears that the costs associated with building a new transit line would force cuts to other public works projects. Some officials, like reeves H.O. Waffle of Etobicoke and Chris Tonks of York, felt Metro needed to finish ongoing infrastructure projects before proceeding with a subway. In the small lakeshore communities of Long Branch, Mimico, and New Toronto, officials resented the extra cash commuters paid to travel downtown thanks to the TTC’s fare zone system. “I will never support a Bloor subway until the TTC institutes a single-fare system,” declared Mimico Mayor Gus Edwards. “The outer zones are paying double fares for the present [Yonge] subway and they never use it.”

A group shot of the 1962 Metropolitan Toronto Council, featuring several players in this week’s story. Back row, left to right: Kenneth M. Ostrander, David Rotenberg, Alex Hodgins, Walter Saunders, Laurie T. Simonsky, Charlie H. Hiscott, William C. Davidson, William Dennison, Donald R. Russell, Harold Menzies, Frederick J. Beavis, George W. Bull, W. Frank Clifton, True Davidson. Front row, left to right: H. O. Waffle, Marie Curtis, Donald D. Summerville, Dorothy Wagner, Nathan Phillips, William R. Allen, Norman C. Goodhead, Albert M. Campbell, William L. Archer, Margaret Campbell, Hugh M. Griggs. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1257, Series 1057, Item 4999.

Funding a subway was challenging, as the federal government refused to offer any money and the province gave little hint of subsidies. Metro Council settled on a formula to split the cost between taxpayers and the TTC, the percentages of which caused months of rancorous debate before settling on 55 per cent Metro, 45 per cent TTC. When Metro council voted to request the necessary permissions from the provincial government, especially from the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), to proceed with the new subway lines in February 1958, the local councils in Long Branch and New Toronto unanimously passed resolutions to lobby Queen’s Park to ignore Metro’s requests. Long Branch Reeve Marie Curtis felt residents would be hurt by a tax increase of roughly $7 per year. “I fear we are being bamboozled,” Curtis observed. “I am afraid these taxes will tie people up so tightly it will make them move out of here, the same as some of us moved from the city.” Over in Mimico, councillors declared that the new lines would be “of doubtful benefit to our municipality.”

Over the next few months, other suburban leaders doubted the wisdom of financing a subway. Some were riled when Metro Council rejected a monorail system study championed by Tonks and Waffle. During a marathon 13-and-a-half-hour meeting on July 3, 1958, Metro Chairman Frederick Gardiner urged his colleagues to “show vision and courage,” citing the Fathers of Confederation and the signatories of the Declaration of Independence for displaying the foresight to support large projects which benefitted all. Toronto Mayor Nathan Phillips felt the “pulse of the people” favoured a subway. Metro Council voted 16 to 8 in favour of commencing work on the subway, with all of the dissenting votes coming from the suburbs. Among the extreme responses was Tonks’ belief that his children and grandchildren would curse him for the debt legacy a subway might impose on York. “Don’t be misled by visionaries who would lead you to believe they see things the rest of us don’t,” he noted.

Metro councillors attempting to catch a few winks during a 13-and-a-half hour meeting. Left picture: H.O. Waffle (in shades) and Donald Summerville (head resting). Middle picture: Chris Tonks. Right picture: Albert Campbell. The Toronto Star, July 4, 1958.

One by one, six opposing suburbs announced they would oppose the subway during the OMB hearing in August 1958. Despite having discussed subway plans for three years, lawyers representing the suburbs requested a two-month delay to prepare their case. OMB Chairman Lorne Cumming refused. The hearings devolved into shouting matches between the suburban lawyers and a belligerent Gardiner. Beyond taxation issues, subway opponents argued that the project was the first since the formation of Metro in 1954 which didn’t offer “equality of service” to all of its municipalities.

The suburban case suffered a setback on day two when lawyers representing Etobicoke, New Toronto, and Scarborough withdrew, citing lack of time to digest lengthy reports. York’s lawyer went on vacation, leaving only Long Branch and Mimico to carry on. The two tiny municipalities dragged the hearings on for as long as they could, employing filibusters and stalling tactics like subpoenaing TTC officials. Newspaper editorials criticized the suburbs for their obstinacy. Mimico lawyer George Gauld admitted he had “a hopeless task,” but insisted the little guys had to fight on. Within the opposing suburbs, councils voted to ask the OMB to force a Metro-wide public vote on the subway, a power the OMB lacked. Frustrations among subway proponents grew to the point that Toronto alderman Philip Givens sponsored a Metro Council motion to force the amalgamation of the three lakeshore communities into Etobicoke to eliminate their opposition, a move which would happen in 1967.

Source: the Telegram, August 19, 1958.

On September 5, 1958, the OMB ruled in favour of the subway, giving permission for Metro to spend $102.2 million and the TTC $98.6 million to fund the project. They had no qualms with Metro’s plan for a two mill property tax increase over the next 10 years. Metro wanted shovels in the ground by year’s end. While newspaper editorials urged officials to get on with it, opponents fumed. Doomsday scenarios about the state of public works and threats of local plebiscites abounded. Edwards believed Toronto taxpayers weren’t as enthusiastic about a subway as generally depicted—“There is only a small percentage of the people who are inconvenienced at the intersection of Bloor and Yonge.”

The lakeshore communities, along with Etobicoke and Scarborough, went to the Ontario Court of Appeals to reverse the OMB’s decision. When their attempt was turned down in November 1958, they attacked the local media for politicking in favour of the subway. Scarborough Reeve Albert Campbell felt that past Toronto mayors didn’t act on major issues until they consulted with supportive papers. “This kind of ‘government by the press’ may suit Toronto,” he told the Star. “It is of no interest to us in Scarborough.” Curtis believed the media was out to destroy Long Branch and other small municipalities who opposed the subway.

In municipal elections that December, all of the opposing suburban leaders were re-elected. While Campbell soon switched sides on the subway debate when he saw no further alternatives, Curtis, Edwards, and New Toronto Mayor Donald Russell pressed on. They threatened to go to the Supreme Court of Canada if a flat transit fare wasn’t enacted. The TTC laughed. Councillors in the lakeshore communities continued to resist paying for the line, insisting that their residents had nothing to gain and that full funding should come from the fare box. Lawyers who suggested they should raise the white flag were ignored.

Marie Curtis gets the boot, while the new Metro Executive Committee smiles for a group shot. The Telegram, January 14, 1959.

On January 7, 1959, Long Branch, Mimico, and New Toronto filed a Supreme Court appeal against Metro Council, the OMB, and the TTC to halt the subway. Curtis felt assured of victory. A week later, she left a Metro Council meeting in tears after she was voted off the executive committee, on which she had served for three years. Pro-subway suburban councillors, including Campbell, were voted in. Applying the 1950s equivalent of Godwin’s Law, Curtis bitterly observed that “Hitler also tried to stamp out people for what they believed, but he didn’t succeed.” Edwards dubbed her “Saint Marie, the Martyr.”

When the Supreme Court assembled to hear the subway case on February 9, 1959, it considered both the suburban appeal and a Metro motion to quash it. The lakeshore communities, by now admitting the project was all but inevitable, pressed for the project to be financed by 30-year debentures, a move Metro claimed would add $90 million in costs. Suburban lawyers claimed the OMB’s decision to allow a special 10-year tax levy was illegal, that Metro could not force future councils to levy taxes unless they paid off debentures. They charged that Metro could become an “evil godfather.”

The court gave its verdict on February 11, 1959, ruling 3 to 2 in favour of Metro on both actions. There was one slight window of opportunity for further action from the suburbs, as Metro and the TTC had not yet signed an official contract, which could be contested once signatures were applied. Edwards and Russell vowed to fight on, promising to meet with the other lakeshore communities for their next move, including further Supreme Court cases. The TTC used the ruling to give utilities the go-ahead to begin relocating their lines underneath University Avenue.

Headline: the Telegram, February 11, 1959.

When Metro Council voted on one of the last obstacles to construction, a new expropriation bylaw, in April 1959, only the lakeshore communities voted against it. Curtis still seethed that Metro won the Supreme Court case on technicalities involving monetary amounts, while Edwards continued to warn the $200 million cost was an illusion. Edwards also opposed early discussions about the Spadina line, sticking to his line that suburbanites were subsidizing subway passengers.

The three lakeshore leaders proved sore losers when they refused to show up for the groundbreaking ceremony for the new subway lines on November 16, 1959. Edwards boycotted the ceremony because “when the people in my municipality are paying two mills a year and a double fare to subsidize subway riders, I don’t feel like celebrating.”

While the transit file didn’t go Marie Curtis’s way in 1959, she left a positive enduring legacy that year. On June 5, Marie Curtis Park was officially opened, on former residential land which had been destroyed during Hurricane Hazel. At the ceremony, she noted that the park showed that “we can go a long way if we pull together. Long Branch couldn’t have done this alone. We needed Metro.” She had also proven the lakeshore communities could pull together, even if they fought a losing cause.

In the end, the provincial government offered a $60 million loan to build the Bloor-Danforth and University lines, which shortened the 10-year construction window. The University line opened in 1963, the first phase of the Bloor-Danforth in 1966, and a Bloor extension into Etobicoke in 1968. The fare zone system was scrapped on New Year’s Day 1973.

We’ll give the last word to Toronto resident Alfred Carswell, whose letter to the Star in September 1958 on the craziness surrounding the subway issue may reverberate with those frustrated with our current city council.

When election time comes around, voters in the suburbs which oppose the subway project should remember the farce their representatives are now putting up in opposition to progress. They state they know they are fighting a losing battle but they will go on with it. It has been obvious for some years that the main transit routes were inadequately serviced, especially Bloor-Danforth and almost to similar degree Queen. One wonders if any of Curtis, Edwards, and Co. have had the experience of literally being pushed into a streetcar with the doors trying to close behind your back. Not once, but most mornings and evenings of the week this jostling, pushing and trampling on people’s feet has been going on for a long time.

Additional material from the June 18, 1958, September 6, 1958, February 10, 1959, and April 22, 1959 editions of the Globe and Mail; the March 5, 1957, February 27, 1958, July 4, 1958, August 21, 1958, September 2, 1958, September 6, 1958, November 11, 1958, November 13, 1958, December 10, 1958, January 14, 1959, February 11, 1959, February 12, 1959, June 5, 1959, September 23, 1959, and November 16, 1959 editions of the Toronto Star; and the July 4, 1958, August 19, 1958, August 20, 1958, August 22, 1958, August 25, 1958, January 14, 1959, February 9, 1959, February 10, 1959, February 11, 1959 editions of the Telegram.

Every Saturday, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today.

CORRECTION: May 12, 2013, 3:45 PM The article originally said that Long Branch Reeve Marie Curtis believed residents would be hurt by a tax increase of roughly $70 per year, when the actual amount was $7 per year, as this story now reflects.

A new dinosaur species is now on display at the Royal Ontario Museum, and researchers say it’s shedding light on the origins of all small dinosaurs. The new specimen, believed to have lived in southern Alberta, was discovered on an expedition led by David Evans, the ROM’s curator of vertebrate paleontology, and Michael Ryan of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. It’s just one of many discoveries being made as part of the Southern Alberta Dinosaur Project.

The new dino, dubbed Acrotholus audeti, belongs to a class of dinosaurs with the nickname “bone heads.” They’re called that not because they were dumb (although they are believed to have had peanut-sized brains), but because the group, properly referred to as pachycephalosaurs, is characterized by thick, bony forehead domes. Acrotholus is believed to have been about six feet long and knee-high. Researchers believe it weighed 40 kilograms, and that it had a barrel-shaped body and strong hind legs. Evans thinks it would have looked like a T. rex, scaled down. This dinosaur, however, was an herbivore and lived 85 million years ago, whereas the T. rex was a carnivore that lived 66 million years ago.

The decisive fossil, a thick cranial plate, was discovered in 2008 by a University of Toronto PhD student, Caleb Brown. It took years of testing to verify that the specimen was, in fact, a new species. Sitting in the ROM’s staff offices, Brown recalled the day he made the find.

“We were working in the Milk River formation, which is an area with not a lot of fossils,” he said. “It’s not like Dinosaur Park, where you can walk and find a lot of fossils everywhere, so anything you can find is fairly significant. I was with one of my colleagues, Derek Larson. He was running geological sections to try to figure out where things are stratigraphically. I was mainly around just to sort of scout around and see if I could find anything, but also to have two people in the field for safety reasons.”

“I saw the dome sticking out of the side of a hill. Instantly, I knew it was something important because I could recognize the shape as a pachycephalosaur.”

“I also knew that we didn’t know of any dome-headed dinosaurs from that formation yet,” Brown added. “So instantly there was a good chance that this was a new species. It’s the best thing I’ve ever found.”

It’s an important find, because there aren’t many small-dinosaur fossils in existence. The scientific community is divided over why this might be, but there are essentially two different opinions on the matter. Some say there simply weren’t that many small dinosaurs to begin with, so the fossil record has very few of them. Others contend that the smaller dinosaur bones were more susceptible to the effects of weathering, and didn’t fossilize. Evans agrees with the latter.

“I think we still have a lot to learn about the shape of dinosaur diversity,” Evans said. “When you look at the distribution of species and their body sizes in modern ecosystems there are a lot more small ones than there are big ones. When you look at the fossil record of dinosaurs, you get the exact opposite—you get a lot more big ones than small ones. That’s where these pachycephalosaurs come in, because these characteristic domes are essentially like solid rocks that don’t get destroyed easily before preservation. They fossilize well. We can find them pretty easily, and they are the hallmark of a particular species. So they give us an interesting insight into the diversity of this particular small-body group.”

The purpose of the thick dome plating is uncertain, but some researchers have speculated that the pint-sized dinos used them for head-butting competitions, similar to the way elk lock horns during mating season. Each species of pachycephalosaur has its own distinctive dome shape.

Acrotholus audeti is just the first in a series of new discoveries that Evans’ team expects to release to the public. In the rocks of Alberta, they’ve discovered seven new specimens in the last nine years. ROM visitors can expect to see the results on display.

“The most exciting new dinosaurs on the horizon are new horn dinosaurs, relatives of triceratops,” Evans explained. “The two that we’re digging up right now, we’ve already got a number of their bones out of the ground. They really show a dramatic range of different hooks and spikes coming out of their skulls. It’s really exciting to see such a strange animal. These are some of the exciting discoveries you’ll hear about in a year or two. Still a lot of work to go on them, but they are very flashy, bizarre dinosaurs.” Evans hinted at one particular species with ten arm-sized spikes growing out of its head.

A paper on the discovery of Acrotholus audeti was published in the May 7, 2013 edition of Nature Communications, a science journal.

CORRECTION: May 7, 2013, 10:40 AM This post original misstated the name of one of Caleb Brown’s colleagues. He’s Derek Larson, not Derek Morrison.

Diane Dyson leads a Jane’s Walk in 2009. Photo by Portraits of Toronto, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Jane’s Walk 2013 is this weekend, meaning there will be plenty of opportunities—in fact, entirely too many opportunities—to take free guided tours of different parts of Toronto, led by volunteer guides in honour of Jane Jacobs.

There are so many walks that no one person could possibly join them all (especially considering the fact that a lot of them happen simultaneously), so we’ve taken the liberty of making you a kind of web-based Frankenwalk, with highlights from all the tours we think will be particularly interesting.

Read on for brief descriptions of some of the best parts of eight different Jane’s Walks, any of which you can attend on May 4 or 5.

(Note that these by and large are not the walks’ starting locations. Click a walk’s name to learn where it sets out.)

Walk Name: Jack’s Walk

When It’s Happening: May 4, 3 p.m.

What It’s About: The life of Jack Layton, from his early years as a professor and activist to his eventual rise to the top of the federal NDP.

Who’s Leading the Walk: Councillor Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina), Jack’s son.

The Highlight: The walk will include a stop at Lake Devo, the artificial pond on the Ryerson campus. “It’s a place where Jack worked and started off his life,” says Mike Layton. “It’s a place of activist academics, as well as a place we went as kids and went skating around the rocks.” The councillor says the spot is an emblem both of his father’s fun-loving nature and of his dead-serious political ambition.

Walk Name: Murder!

When It’s Happening: May 4, 1 p.m.

What It’s About: Historic murders that happened in the Annex area.

Who’s Leading the Walk: Students in grades 7 through 12 who attend University of Toronto Schools.

The Highlight: There will be a visit to 169 Walmer Road, where Charles “Bert” Massey‘s maid, Carrie Davies, shot and killed the wealthy playboy in 1915. Clement Cheng, a grade 10 student who will lead this part of the walk, says the murder interests him because it polarized the city. “The Toronto Star, back when it wasn’t as professional as it is right now, was adamant in saying that Massey was innocent and that the maid was trying to exploit him because he was rich,” Cheng explains. Feminist groups, meanwhile, sided with Davies, who said she’d killed her employer because he’d tried to rape her.

Walk Name: Yesterday’s Papers

When It’s Happening: May 5, 2 p.m.

What It’s About: The history of Toronto’s newspaper industry.

Who’s Leading the Walk: Jamie Bradburn, local historian and Torontoist contributor.

The Highlight: Bradburn is particularly interested in corner of Bay and King streets, which, unbeknownst to many, is a significant site for newspapers in Toronto. “Back until 1963 or so, the three major dailies were all based either at that corner or within a block or two of it,” he says. First Canadian Place stands on the former site of the Toronto Star‘s office building, the Toronto Evening Telegram was located on a plot of land that later became part of Commerce Court, and the Globe and Mail‘s old offices were about a block to the west.

Walk Name: Summerhill Summerdale

When It’s Happening: May 4, 2 p.m.

What It’s About: Toronto’s historic Summerhill neighbourhood.

Who’s Leading the Walk: John van Nostrand, an architect who lives in the area, and Michael Vaughan, a lawyer who is a direct descendent of one of the neighbourhood’s original developers.

The Highlight: One of the major stops will be Woodlawn, a nineteenth-century house that van Nostrand says is the oldest continuously occupied home in all of Toronto. (It was completed in 1841.) “There’s a neighbourhood designed around it,” says van Nostrand. “It sits in a block. Nobody sees it ever.” It’s true: the house is so well hidden that the average pedestrian might not even notice it from the sidewalk. Jane’s Walk is your chance to check it out.

Walk Name: Ward Healing: How “The Ward” Transformed Modern Toronto

When It’s Happening: May 4, 1 p.m.

What It’s About: The Ward, Toronto’s “original priority neighbourhood.” It was a notorious so-called slum that, a century ago, was located in the vicinity of present-day Nathan Phillips Square.

Who’s Leading the Walk: John Lorinc, a freelance municipal-affairs and business reporter.

The Highlight: There’s not much left of The Ward, but the walk will cruise by Elizabeth Street, which is the last remnant of what used to be the neighbourhood’s main drag. “Elizabeth Street is kind of this forgotten part of the city,” says Lorinc. “It used to be the centre of this kind of immigrant, poor community.” He’s hoping to use his walk to make an argument for the importance of The Ward as the site of some of Toronto’s earliest attempts at social reform.

Walk Name: Underground Toronto

When It’s Happening: May 4, 12 p.m.

What It’s About: The PATH.

Who’s Leading the Walk: Lisa Dietrich, an intern architect at PLANT.

The Highlight: Dietrich thinks walkers will be particularly intrigued with a walkway near Roy Thomson Hall that connects Metro Hall with St. Andrew Station. It’s one of the few parts of downtown Toronto’s network of subterranean passageways that actually has windows, because it abuts a sunken courtyard. “It has blank windows on one side, so you can actually open that part of the PATH the exterior if you wanted to,” says Dietrich. “I’ve personally never seen them open, though.”

Walk Name: Not a Boring Walk

When It’s Happening: May 4, 1 p.m.

What It’s About: Development and public-transit expansion in the Mount Dennis area.

Who’s Leading the Walk: Members of the Mount Dennis Community Association, along with some representatives from Metrolinx and Toronto Public Library.

The Highlight: According to Mike Mattos, one of the walk’s organizers, people who join this tour will be able to visit the launch site for the massive boring machines that will dig the underground section of the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT, scheduled for completion in 2020.

Walk Name: Historical Walking Tour of Yorkville

When It’s Happening: May 4, 10:30 a.m.

What It’s About: This is probably evident from the name of the walk, but it’s about the history of Yorkville, and how the neighbourhood is changing as a result of development.

Who’s Leading the Walk: Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale). Also Ken Greenberg and Michael McClelland, both architects and urban designers.

The Highlight: The walk will begin at Toronto Public Library’s Yorkville branch, located in a building that dates to 1907. Structures with so much history are increasingly rare in the neighbourhood. “The next phase and wave of development that’s coming is going to be the one that will completely and radically change Yorkville, for better or worse,” says Wong-Tam.

CORRECTION: May 3, 2013, 1:50 PM This post originally misspelled Clement Cheng’s last name.

CORRECTION: May 3, 2013, 1:50 PM This post originally said, incorrectly, that the Globe and Mail‘s former offices were located east of King and Bay streets. In fact, they were located to the west.

Despite being part of the official curriculum for schools in Ontario, music education is becoming increasingly marginalized because of budget cuts. Music Monday, an annual initiative of the Coalition of Music Education, highlights the importance of music education for young Canadians through a simultaneous concert that reaches across the country. This year, it even reaches into space, thanks to Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield.

Music Monday, now in its ninth year, focuses on the importance of music. “We celebrate the galvanizing power of music and how that’s rooted in our schools,” said Holly Nimmons, executive director of the Coalition for Music Education.

Each year for the past nine, the coalition—in partnership with CBC Music and, this year, the Canadian Space Agency—commissions an original song by a well-known Canadian artist, and that piece becomes the official song for Music Monday. The song is available online, in various translations, and Canadians can learn it in advance of the day and create their own arrangements. On Music Monday, young Canadians perform a simultaneous concert of the song across the country.

A Collection of Chris Hadfield’s Pictures of Toronto From Space

This year’s partnership features Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies. Commander Hadfield, will be participating from his post on the International Space Station.

Starting at 12 p.m. EDT on Monday, May 6, a live feed from the International Space Station will be broadcast at the Ontario Science Centrelive webcast, go to the Ontario Science Centre to participate with others who will be performing the song along with Hadfield, or learn the official song and perform along themselves at home or school.

Along with being an astronaut, Hadfield is a musician who has said that music helps him be better at his job. Nimmons hopes his partnership with Music Monday will highlight music education’s wide-ranging benefits. “Learning music is not a frill,” she said, “it’s an essential component of a well-rounded education.” There’s research that supports this notion.

Hadfield’s participation in Music Monday this year highlights the natural pairing of music and science, Nimmons said. “It’s such a remarkable way to teach other subjects.”

CORRECTION: 11:59 AM A quote that appeared in this article was originally mistranscribed. Holly Nimmons told us that “learning music is not a frill.” Our apologies for the error.

A reenactor outside Fort York. Photo by Craz11, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

• The bicentennial of the Battle of York is tomorrow. You can celebrate Toronto’s most notable military moment in a number of ways. Or you could just read up on the history.
• Remember when Mayor Rob Ford said, on his weekly radio show, that he would “explain politics” to any “females” who called him at home? Here’s an actual recording of him attempting to do that.
• In her latest column Christie Blatchford addresses the Rehtaeh Parsons sexual assault case—which in her mind apparently means citing unnamed sources to call the severity of Parsons’ experience into question—and has caused quite the backlash. Here’s the Post‘s Matt Gurney defending Blatchford. And here’s Parsons’ father, Glen Canning, with a strong rebuttal.

Like Torontoist? Send us tips, get involved, or follow us through Twitter, Facebook, or RSS.

CORRECTION: April 26, 2013, 4:25 AM This post originally misidentified Chris Selley as the author of an op-ed that defends Christie Blatchford’s column on Rehteah Parsons. In fact, that op-ed was written by Matt Gurney.

Photo by bigdaddyhame, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Many of us have felt it coming for a few weeks, but now it’s finally official. After a game against the Ottawa Senators on Saturday, the Toronto Maple Leafs clinched their first playoff berth in nearly a decade.

It’s been a long, long time since this city has seen playoff hockey. Ours is the only team in the NHL not to have made it to the postseason since the 2004-2005 lockout.

Toronto fans have had a tough time these past several years. Single-player roster moves and staff or management changes were too often touted as silver bullets that would somehow lead the team to salvation. For instance, now-former general manager Brian Burke arrived in 2008 with much fanfare. The media considered him to be the saviour of the Maple Leafs (he was certainly, at any rate, being paid a saviour’s salary). Sure enough, Burke landed some big names in his first year as GM. It practically made us forget that he was inheriting arguably the worst NHL team in the league.

No reasonable person should have expected major success from the Maple Leafs in the first few years of Burke’s tenure. It takes time to build up an NHL team from worse-than-nothing to a perennial playoff contender. Even so, both fans and sports writers became increasingly impatient with the Leafs’ failures year after year. Then, before this year’s lockout ended, Burke was shown the door, leaving assistant GM Dave Nonis at the helm.

Though Nonis is officially the GM as the Leafs head to the playoffs, there should be no doubt that this is the team Brian Burke built. The Leafs are winning on the backs of the players that Burke went after, all playing in a style Burke had championed since game one—a style characterized by, to use Burke’s thesaurus-abusing phrase, plenty of “pugnacity, testosterone, truculence, and belligerence.”

Here’s how Burke, despite being fired for his efforts, managed to build a winning team.

Big, Mean, and Tough

It has been a popular assumption that any teams using the old rough-and-tumble approach won’t be able to keep up as the game gets faster and officials continue to tighten up on obstruction-type calls. What’s particularly fascinating about the success of the Toronto Maple Leafs this year is that it proves that the bellicose Burke model is a viable strategy in the NHL of today.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are the only team currently averaging more than one fight per game. Toronto is also the only team in the NHL with more than one player among the top ten hitters this season. One of those brawlers is Burke’s addition: Leo Komarov (signed from Moscow Dynamo of the KHL), who will likely end up with around 175 hits before the end of the season. Frazer McLaren, acquired from Anaheim by Nonis, will probably end up with something like 155 hits.

Burke’s Beauties Are Just That

Burke’s imprint on this Leafs team goes beyond toughness. The players he believed in and went after throughout his tenure as GM now not only lead the team in scoring, but are among the league leaders in points this year.

Burke’s trades for forwards Phil Kessel, Joffrey Lupul, and James van Riemsdyk have absolutely panned out. Though Lupul missed the majority of the season because of an injury, all three of these Burke acquisitions are making huge impacts on the scoreboard. In fact, Kessel is currently one of the top ten point producers in the league.

Dave Nonis Will Replace Brian Burke as General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs

The Leafs are even getting it done from the point. Cody Franson (acquired by Burke from Nashville in 2011) and Dion Phaneuf (from Calgary in 2010) are tied for fifth in the league for points by a defenceman, with 27 each.

And there’s no way we can leave Nazem Kadri out of this discussion. Burke selected Kadri 7th overall in the 2009 entry draft. Kadri was nowhere near ready for NHL action in his first few rookie years. Now, with nearly a point per game to his credit and one of the best plus-minus ratings on the team, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that he’s ready for prime time.

As a quick aside, only because people keep comparing Kessel and Tyler Seguin (who the Leafs could have had if Burke hadn’t traded first-round draft picks for Kessel in 2009): Four of Burke’s additions to the Leafs—Kessel, Kadri, van Riemsdyk, and Lupul—are putting up more points per game than Seguin this season.

Goaltending Is Working

Remember when every Toronto media outlet was talking about how the Leafs desperately needed an elite goaltender and should go after Roberto Luongo? Thank god that didn’t happen, right? The 60/40 workload split between James Reimer and Ben Scrivens, both Burke-era additions, has resulted in some solid goaltending numbers throughout the season.

Penalty Kill

Perhaps the yin to the pugilist yang for the Leafs is the team’s impressively effective penalty killing this season. It’s the third-most effective in the league, as a matter of fact. That’s a huge improvement over the past three seasons, during which the Leafs were always either at the bottom of the league or close to it.

While Toronto is actually in the middle of the pack in terms of how many times it has been shorthanded throughout the season, The Leafs’ penalty-kill effectiveness has been a major component of their success so far.

Why Brian Burke Was Good for the Maple Leafs

The Future

No matter what happens to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the postseason and the off-season, this year should be seen as a success. We should keep our expectations in check and remember that it takes time to build a successful hockey franchise.

For the first time in a long time, the Leafs have a rather healthy depth of talent. Regardless of how the playoffs unfold for the team, its managers would be wise to keep from messing with the first winning formula they’ve had in a long time.

Though we wouldn’t bet on the Leafs making the Stanley cup finals, maybe they’ll prove us wrong and give us even more to cheer about. Until then, we’re more than happy to celebrate the return of playoff hockey to Toronto.

CORRECTION: April 24, 2013, 1:40 PM This post originally said that Frazer McLaren was acquired for the Toronto Maple Leafs by former general manager Brian Burke. In fact, McLaren was added to the team by Burke’s replacement, Dave Nonis.

A father and daughter are receiving praise after rescuing a man who fell onto the subway tracks at Yorkdale station. On Saturday a man suffered a seizure that caused him to fall and hit his head, which meant that he couldn’t get up. The father and daugher team jumped onto the tracks to save him. The man is currently in a hospital, one that is underground.

Transparent, germ-fighting gravy? The City of Toronto poured half a million dollars worth of hand sanitizer down the drain, at a cost of more than $50K to throw out, because it expired before it could be used. The sanitizer was purchased as part of the city’s pandemic threat, but the majority of it expired late last year, before it could be used. The unused sanitizer wasn’t literally poured down drains, thankfully for our water supply; it was recycled by Hotz Environmental Services Inc. in March.

Toronto runners honoured the victims of last week’s bombing at the Boston Marathon during the Toronto Yonge Street 10K this past weekend. A 30-second moment of silence was observed at the starting line, and hundreds of participants wore special bibs reading “runners united in support.” Police had a stronger presence at the race than in previous years, race director Alan Brookes told the Toronto Star, but one that was largely peaceful. “I think we have seen in the last few days that the spirit of the entire marathon world is undiminished,” Brookes said in his speech before the race. “This really, I think, is the best medicine.”

And for the first time in nearly a decade, the Toronto Maple Leafs won’t be golfing in Florida while other teams root for the Stanley Cup. The Leafs secured their first playoff in eight years, and look set to play the Penguins in the first round.

CORRECTION: April 22, 2013, 1:00 PM This post originally stated that the Sporting Life 10K took place this past weekend, but it has been corrected to the Toronto Yonge Street 10K. The Sporting Life 10K is taking place on May 12.

Maylee Todd moving the crowd at the AGO.

We’re tempted to refer to Thursday’s Massive Party at the Art Gallery of Ontario as an “art party,” but that wouldn’t be strictly accurate.

There was certainly a lot of partying going on, and there was some fairly interesting art around, but the two had very little to do with each other. People were there to party. The art, as good as it was, was mainly window dressing.

In its ninth year, the AGO Massive Party is one of the gallery’s biggest fundraising events. This year, the theme was “gold.” According to local artist Justin Broadbent, who curated the party, the theme came about because he thinks of the AGO as being like a nugget of gold in the city.

“I thought of the AGO as an entity in the city,” he said. “And I thought of it as like this nugget in the city. We have a whole lot of drab, and a whole lot of bustle, and then we’ve got this slow, beautiful nugget in the middle of the city that has all these beautiful pieces. It’s like finding gold.”

He adds that, for the artists who created work for the party, the gold theme provided a lot of room to play around.

“You can talk about religion, you can talk about the Golden Rule, there are so many places you can take it.”

The artists involved took the theme in several interesting directions. Broadbent created a video projection of a man’s gold-grill-covered mouth. The mouth spouted various pick-up lines and other random statements while subtitles ran underneath. Across the room, Mahmood Popal set up a vending machine dispensing fake grills.

Artist Jeffrey “Mango Peeler” Garcia had created a golden caravan that paraded through the concourse, in an homage to the traditional Filipino tinikling dance. Textile artist Noelle Hamlyn‘s installation featured members of TOES for Dance, who danced gold threads onto a loom. Hamlyn plans to weave those threads into a tapestry.

“They’re doing a process called warping,” she said. “Warping thread ensures you know how many threads are going on the loom and how long…Every time I warp, I find myself swaying like I’m dancing, so I thought it was time to bring in a dancer to do it justice.”

The highlight of the evening was almost certainly “Hurdles,” a performance piece by Tibi Tibi Neuspiel and Geoffrey Pugen. Neuspiel and Pugen ran several heats of hurdles. After every heat, the winner would have a different obstacle placed in their path, be it a wheelbarrow full of tennis balls, a taxidermied raccoon standing on top of a globe, or a structure made out of Kool-Aid cartons and Pringles tubes.

“The idea was to take a race and tweak it so that there was no real advantage for winning. Because every time you won, a new hurdle was put in your lane,” said Neuspiel. “We were playing with the idea of effort versus reward.

There were also not one but two high-energy sets from local R&B/disco revival songstress Maylee Todd, who came out rocking a gold dress and golden hair extensions. Members of her band wore gold glasses, gold-sprayed facial hair, and gold paint.

“The gold was what appealed to me,” she said. “We really wanted to dress up, and to see what all the other artists were doing…I’ve never had the opportunity to play the AGO before, and who doesn’t like gold?”

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to matter how good the art at the Massive Party was. It may have been an event in an art gallery, to support an art gallery, but the vast majority of those who attended were there to schmooze, be seen, dress up, and get drunk. The only things that really managed to interrupt the relentless appetizer scarfing and smartphone pic-ing were “Hurdles” and Maylee Todd. (“Hurdles” was so big and kinetic that you couldn’t ignore it if you tried, and Maylee Todd is too much fun live to resist. Though to be honest, the crowd didn’t really warm up to her until her second set.)

It was telling that two of the AGO’s regular exhibits that had been left open for party goers—a photo gallery detailing the exploits of local performance-art crew Life of a Craphead and another gallery featuring work by rock legend Patti Smith—were largely empty. They were also the furthest from the bar.

One party-goer, who wouldn’t give her name, summed the event up.

“It’s like everyone here wants to be seen with art, but none of them actually want to see any art,” she said.

CORRECTION: April 20, 2013, 8:27 PM This post originally misidentified the artist behind the video projection installation as Mahmood Popal, when in fact it was Justin Broadbent. Popal created the vending machine dispensing fake grills.

The city of Toronto and our bike-sharing service provider, Bixi, are exploring some restructuring possibilities. Bixi Toronto owed the city $3.9 million as of the end of last year and according to Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34 Don Valley East), the chair of the Public Works committee, it is currently looking to off-load the Toronto franchise and others. Apparently something is not working.

Canada’s largest hotel, the Delta Chelsea, will be getting a new name as of July 1, 2013. The hotel on Gerrard Street West between Bay Street and Yonge Street will soon be known as the Eaton Chelsea—the first Eaton hotel in Canada.

Four of the city’s largest taxi companies have agreed to stop the illegal practice of charging people that use wheelchairs extra fees for their rides in cabs. This action is part of the outcome of a four-year-old complaint to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario by Torontonian Alessia Di Virgilio. As part of the settlement, the companies named in the complaint will ask city hall to update the tariff and bill of rights posted in cabs to better reflect this fact. Additionally, a person making a complaint will be able to find out the outcome of their complaints.

An American man has made a voluntary return to our fair city to hand himself into the police on 26 charges flowing from the 2010 G20 in Toronto. Joel Bitar of New York is accused of causing $400,000 worth of damages during the summit. What a busy boy he must have been.

CORRECTION: April 17, 2013, 4:30 PM This post originally stated that the Delta Chelsea is on Gerrard Street East, it has been corrected to Gerrard Street West.

Rob and Doug Ford in the studio. Photo courtesy of Newstalk 1010.

Welcome to another installment of the Rob Ford Radio Recap, dear Raccoon Nation. Who knows what wild shenanigans we’ll get up to this week? Will Rob express his disgust for streetcars? Will Doug state that he just hates spending taxpayer dollars on bicycle projects? Will Rob and Doug express concerns about the $19.4 million in extra costs related to delaying an environmental assessment of the Gardiner Expressway—a delay abetted by their public-works chair, Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East)? Two of three will be mentioned. Find out which!

1:11: Rob and Doug complain about the prospect of spending $1.2 million on showers for cyclists at City Hall, an issue that came up last week at a meeting of the government management committee. The showers were planned as part of the original Nathan Phillips Square revitalization. The plan also calls for 24 of City Hall’s 2,087 parking spots to be replaced by 380 spots for bike parking, a bike repair shop, and lockers. Even though this would mean a net gain of 356 parking spots at City Hall, I understand Rob’s frustration: how can you tell who the dirty cyclists are if they’re not dirty?

1:12: Councillor James Pasternak (Ward 10, York Centre) joins the show. He can’t possibly support the stupid bike showers, which are totally bogus, right? The centrist councillor says he hopes to study the evidence and evaluate its merits. Rob does not like this response.

1:18: We’re talking about cleaning up parks, folks. There’s a good crowd of volunteers picking up trash at Earl Bales Park in North York, and Rob, Doug, Pasternak, and Gary Crawford (Ward 36, Scarborough Southwest) really like it. Parks are great, guys.

1:20: Doug, speaking about the Porter Airlines jet proposal, is incredulous that former mayor David Miller would prefer to bulldoze Billy Bishop airport and make it a park and keep everything as a cow pasture. This, he thinks, shows how radical council is.

1:22: Rob complains that his opponents on council say no to everything, except higher taxes. This runs contrary to his previous complaint: that his opponents on council want more bike parking at council and lots of other things he doesn’t like.

1:29: Rob mutters about how he curses streetcars as he’s driving down Dundas Street, furthering my theory that he’s the world’s oldest 43-year-old.

1:37: Doug complains that Toronto has just the 33rd largest amount of available convention space among North American cities, a stat Grid senior editor Edward Keenan debunked in a recent piece. Just linking it in case you missed it, Doug.

1:44: Rob asks Pasternak how he feels now. He says he has some deep reservations about the long-term social impacts of a casino and describes council’s assessment of a downtown casino as “chilly.” Doug, as he frequently does when he’s upset, responds with an audible interrobang: “Chilly!?”

1:49: The casino-supporting mayor of Brantford, Chris Friel, has joined the show. Rob asks him how he’d convince Toronto councillors that a casino is right for the city. Credit where it’s due: this is a creative way to get political advice without paying for consultants.

1:50: The mayor of Brantford refers to casino money as “found money.” But there are numerous costs to this “found money,” such as the opportunity costs of foregoing other projects, social costs, the negative urban planning externalities, and the infrastructure needs that go along with it.

Here’s the thing about “found money”: in the end it’s always someone else’s lost money, and looking at just one side of the equation is a naive approach.

1:52: Crawford says he believes the province will be able to offer $100 million or more in annual hosting fees, which he thinks will make councillors support the casino.

1:54: And the bubble bursts. The mayor of Brantford says Rob and Doug’s hosting fee expectations are “way beyond reasonable,” and that he doesn’t believe the province or OLG will comply. Have you ever had to tell a friend that their great idea for a movie just might not work? Yeah, it feels like that.

1:57: Don’t worry, Doug has a theory. When you go into a business partnership with someone, you should be equal partners, and split everything 50/50. He says the province thinks Toronto just fell off the turnip truck and is playing them for fools, but he’s not one of those, no sir. As if to prove this, Doug throws out a lot of numbers. The city needs a minimum of $100 million, he says. The revenues will be $1.5 billion. He figures a 20 per cent hosting fee is conservative. That’s $300 million, folks.

A couple of notes here: municipalities typically get 5 per cent of slot revenue as their hosting fee, which means that his “conservative” estimate is four times bigger than the existing formula allows. And he’s basing his total on the gross of the entire complex, not slot revenue, so that’s wrong too. The Globe and Mail reported that under the existing formula—and Premier Wynne has consistently stated Toronto will not get a special deal—the City would receive about $20 million in exchange for hosting one of the world’s largest casinos. Even OLG’s forecast is only in the $50-$100 million range. Doug likes his ability to call it as it he sees it, so we shall do the same: Doug Ford, you’re wrong.

1:59: Rob, council’s number-one casino supporter, adds that the city should just make an offer to the province and go from there. Rob is not a good negotiator.

2:10: The chair of the parks and environment committee, Norm Kelly (Ward 40, Scarborough Agincourt) joins the show.

2:19: Rob goes back to talking about the showers and bike parking space at City Hall. He asks Kelly what he thinks, and Kelly says that the government isn’t about all the things that you can do, but the things you can afford. He adds that there are other priorities, and this isn’t one of them. This is obviously why we’re spending so much time discussing it on the show today.

2:22: Doug rails about the costs of Nathan Phillips Square’s revitalization, but then Rob stops him because they need to cut to commercial. “If I don’t break, they’ll break my neck,” Rob says of the friendly Newstalk people.

2:27: Doug continues. He goes through the history of the Nathan Phillips Square revitalization project, which included unexpected costs and a failed attempt to raise private donations. He says this is unacceptable and points out how Sue-Ann Levy—his girlfriend, he adds—asked in her column how this could happen. Doug explains it’s because they didn’t have the votes on the government management committee, even though he shouted and did cartwheels and everything.

2:30: Rob and Doug sing along to The Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dogs Out.” The odds are good that this will accompany a montage sequence in the inevitable Rob Ford documentary.

2:38: Crawford says his ward needs more sidewalks for pedestrian safety. This might surprise some people, but sidewalks are very controversial in some parts of the city. According to a recent Spacing post, some constituents in Crawford’s ward worry they’ll ruin the “rural” feel in the area.

2:48: A caller phones in to say Rob is his political hero, but he’s upset that it’s necessary for volunteers to clean up parks. Aren’t parks employees doing their jobs? Can’t we outsource these activities, or get high schoolers to do them? Ron Swanson has a follower here.

3:00: Doug promises he’ll watch the tax-and-spend lefties at council and bids adieu with “God bless Ford Nation.” And God bless you, Councillor Ford.

The show was pretty loud, which is something, but it didn’t have any signature moments. In that way, it was more like a compilation show than a greatest hits album. Three out of five dogs.

As always, God bless you for reading, Raccoon Nation.

CORRECTION: April 15, 2013, 5:00 PM This post originally said that Doug Ford’s estimate of possible hosting fees from a Toronto casino was “400 per cent bigger” than is justified, considering what the province pays to other host cities. In fact, Ford’s estimate is four times the size of that more conservative estimate. Some wording has been changed to correct this mathematical error.

An image of Toronto as seen from the International Space Station, taken by Commander Chris Hadfield on January 19.

Look up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s—it’s, well, it’s the sky. And tonight, people around the world are getting together to celebrate everything that’s in it, as part of Yuri’s Night.

Named after Yuri Gagarin, the Russian astronaut, Yuri’s Night is a evening devoted to celebrating accomplishments in space. It happens on April 12, which, this year, is the 52nd anniversary of the day Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth. The occasion is observed in places as diverse as Toronto (of course), Afghanistan, Antarctica, and even the International Space Station. In total, 60 countries will participate this year.

Party headquarters in Toronto will be Hotel Ocho, where there will be 1960s-themed cocktails, a Lego spaceship competition, lectures from space experts, space stand-up, and, naturally, space tunes. (Maybe they’ll play the recent duet between BNL’s Ed Robertson and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield?) Tickets are $20 each, and can be purchased on the event’s website.

With all this fanfare over space exploration, we decided to see what other intergalactic/planetary action is happening right here in Toronto, throughout the year.

For starters, all three of Toronto’s major newspapers are out of this world. We’ve got the Sun, the Star, and the Globe (which more or less confirms that Toronto is the centre of the universe).

The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada is based in Toronto. Founded in 1868, it’s the largest astronomy society in Canada, and it has plenty of events going on, including trips to Algonquin Provincial Park for stargazing in September. It hosts monthly Dark Sky Star Parties and Clear Sky Star Parties, weather dependent.

Toronto has several planetariums and observatories, all of which are accessible to the public:

• The University of Toronto’s small planetarium does shows on the third Tuesday of every month for $5 (the next one is on April 18). There are also free tours the first Thursday of every month.
• York University has free viewing sessions at its observatory, as well as online viewing sessions and a radio show.
• Of course, the Ontario Science Centre not only has a planetarium, but a whole wing all about space.
• Up in Richmond Hill is the David Dunlap Observatory, the largest Canadian optical telescope in its class. It hosts viewings and lectures.

There are other planetariums and observatories that aren’t in use:

• The Royal Ontario Museum’s McLaughlin Planetarium closed in 1995 because of budget cuts.
• The University of Toronto’s Student Union building, just a few blocks from the ROM, is in what used to be the Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory. It was built back in 1840 and is considered the “birthplace of Canadian astronomy and the country’s oldest scientific institution.”

In May, Dr. John Percy will give a tour of Toronto’s astronomical heritage as part of Doors Open. If you can’t make it, he has another talk in June.

Think you’re cut out for NASA? Next weekend, the ROM hosts the NASA International Space Apps Challenge, which is a weekend hack-a-thon where teams complete NASA-designed challenges to do really, really complex space-science things. It’s free to participate, and teams from around the world are competing.

Looking for a crash course in astronomy? The Ontario Science Centre and RASC periodically offer an eight-week program for astronomy novices. It’s called NOVA.

At the end of May, the first-ever Canadian Astronomy Telescope Show hits Oakville. But if you can’t wait, you can head over to Khan Scope Centre, on Dufferin Street just south of the 401. (Its website points out that it is “located directly across from Aren’t We Naughty, and you cannot miss that!” No telescope necessary.)

Ever wonder what Canadians eat in space? Maple syrup cream cookies! We bet they taste great with astronaut ice cream.

If you’d like to visit space yourself, head over to the Intergalactic Travel Authority, on Bloor Street West. Grab yourself a planet-themed espresso drink to prepare for take off, before hopping through the space portal. Blast off!

CORRECTION: 3:53 PM This post originally identified Canada’s largest astronomy society as the Royal Canadian Aerospace Society; it is actually named the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. It also misspelled the name of the Dunlap Observatory.

Chaos reigned and synthetic stuffing flew at Nathan Phillips Square on Saturday night, as hundreds gathered for the Toronto edition of International Pillow Fight Day, organized by Newmindspace.

Newmindspace has been organizing free all-ages events in Toronto since 2005. They’ve also done things in other cities across North America, including Montreal, New York, and San Francisco.

“It’s basically fun, free public events,” says co-founder Lori Kufner. “We’ve done capture the flag, Easter egg hunts, subway parties, all kinds of crazy things.”

International Pillow Fight Day is the biggest event on Newmindspace’s calendar. For the past several years it has taken place at Yonge-Dundas Square. This year, though, Kufner and her colleagues opted to move it to Nathan Phillips Square. She says Yonge-Dundas’s policies made it increasingly difficult to hold the event there.

“This is easier for me, because security’s not all over me trying to write me a ticket,” she says. “Dundas Square was more central and busier and there are cool lights, but it’s not really a public space. You have to rent it for three grand. Here, security is taking photos. Their only request was that we stay away from the water, which is valid.”

A band called Samba Elégua provided a soundtrack for the melee. Kufner says some members of the group showed up to the pillow fight a few years ago. They’ve been part of the event ever since.

“They’re like the war drums to the pillow fight,” she said. “They worked with us on a couple of our street parades, then some of them showed up randomly to a pillow fight. It’s a good partnership.”

Julian Amati, a participant in the fight, said the opportunity to take part in a massive pillow brawl was just too good to pass up. He came to the event sporting what he called a “pillow shield.” It was a foam toboggan with pillows duct taped to the front and straps on the back.

“[The shield] is really heavy to hold, so that’s a problem, but other than that, it’s an amazing time,” he said.

Fellow fighter Rameez Akif also came prepared for the event. He was dressed in a banana costume, which he says was meant partially to give the fight a sense of occasion, and partially to freak out his opponents.

“I had to suit up,” he says. “This is a special event. I had to look intimidating. I had to put fear into the hearts of my opponents.”

Ultimately, though, Akim says what drew him out was a chance to have fun and interact with strangers, an opportunity that is all too rare in the city.

“It’s fun for everyone,” he said. “There are kids who are five years old, and adults who are 50 years old, and they’re all just going at it.”

Kufner says that while events like the pillow fight are mostly just about having fun, they do serve another purpose, as well.

“There is a semi-political ideology about public space and keeping it public, unlike Dundas Square,” she says. “We also just want people to reimagine how they see public spaces…You can be like, ‘I remember that one time, where instead of going to a meeting at City Hall, I was in a giant pillow fight here.”

CORRECTION: April 8, 2013, 1:45 PM This post originally misidentified Samba Elégua, a samba band, as “Samba Squad.” We regret the error.

CORRECTION: April 10, 2013, 11:45 PM This post originally misspelled the banana-costumed pillow fighter as Rameez Akim, when in fact his name is Rameez Akif.