The new Starbucks, at 3077 Dundas Street West, has been open for a week. Photo by Christopher Drost/Torontoist. It’s basic physics: if a gritty neighbourhood grows cool enough and wealthy enough, Starbucks will result. Until last week, the Junction was the exception that proved the rule. Now, it just proves the rule. The Junction’s first [...]

Located at the corner of Nassau and Augusta streets in Kensington Market, 234 Augusta Avenue has been a focal point of anxiety for neighbourhood residents and businesspeople since fall 2008, when the fruit market that used to occupy the space was closed after a disastrous health inspection, and local press learned that Starbucks was interested [...]

There was an article in April 18th’s Globe and Mail that began by labelling Kensington Market “the site of the next big battle for gentrification” in Toronto. The central figure in that article was realtor Phil Pick, of Esbin Realty, whose “for lease” signs hang or have until recently hung in the windows of five [...]

Three months or so after the Toronto Star predicted that it might save the “blighted” intersection of Bathurst and Queen, Starbucks is finally open on the northeast corner, the former site of a doughnut store/hangout for what outsiders regarded as degenerates, dope fiends, and all-round ne’er-do-wells. Beauty, as always, is in the eye of the [...]

Have a closer look at the posters on 234 Augusta Avenue after the jump. Photos by Jonathan Goldsbie.

MUSIC: The Edge 102.1′s monthly new music showcase is on tonight at the Horseshoe Tavern. Tonight’s line-up features upcoming Toronto indie bands Invasions, The Speakeasies, and The Rivals. The Horseshoe Tavern (370 Queen Street West), 8:30 p.m., FREE. DISCUSSION: Simpsons co-executive producer (and York University graduate) Joel Cohen is moderating a debate and discussion via [...]

Former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto was assassinated yesterday in a bloody suicide attack that killled at least 20 other other people. Anyone thinking that this news isn’t sufficiently Toronto-centric should hope that the destabilization of this nuclear-armed extremist-incubator state doesn’t have much direct impact on Toronto, because if it does it’s likely to be in [...]