“Don’t leave me Hillas.” Those were probably the last words Lena Williams expected to say to her husband on Christmas Eve 1911. Around 6:45 pm that evening she and Hillas, who was on his way to his job as a printer at the Globe, boarded an overcrowded streetcar at Queen and Broadview. The vehicle was [...]

2:50 a.m., November 11, 1918, the office of the Telegram newspaper on Melinda Street. An early morning full of anticipation as workers there and at Toronto’s five other daily newspapers waited for word sometime during the day that an armistice ending the First World War would be signed. The news during the night had indicated [...]

MYSTERY: If you think you look pretty fly in a detective hat, don’t miss “Crazy to Kill: A Detective Opera.” The play, which is 20 years old and yet is just reaching a Toronto stage for the first time, is a good old-fashioned whodunit—a tale about a string of murders in an asylum for wealthy [...]

On the day the TTC unveiled the future of its streetcar fleet, it seemed appropriate to begin my day on the Queen streetcar, trudging from Corktown to my downtown day-job. Taking the four steps from the street onto the McCaul-bound Canadian Light Rail Vehicle is a back-to-the-future experience. Even with the faded fluorescent light fixtures, [...]

As regular transit riders know, Toronto needs new streetcars. Our current fleet is more than worn around the edges; at the end of their expected lifespan, many vehicles are spending more time in repair shops and less on the rails. With ever-increasing ridership, the TTC was also eager to increase capacity on each vehicle, and [...]

Scene: the office of the Toronto Railway Company at the corner of Church and King Streets during the early minutes of September 1, 1921. A report published later that day in the Toronto Star establishes the mood as one of the most important transfers in power in Toronto history is about to unfold: Night. But [...]

Streetcar track construction on Queens Quay, looking west to York Street, May 31, 1927. Photo by Alfred Pearson. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 16, Series 71, Item 4932. When the first set of streetcar tracks was laid on Queens Quay in 1927, we suspect aesthetic concerns about the surroundings were low on the priority list. [...]

SPOTTED BY: Joana Duque (photo by German Aguirre). WHERE: Queen and Jarvis. WHEN: This morning’s, er, commute. WHAT: Though the TTC often laments, with some justification, that too many riders are evading paying their fares, they generally have out-of-date transfers in mind. This, however, is a whole new way of circumventing fare collectors. (New to [...]

Once a week, Vandalist features some of the most interesting street art and graffiti from around Toronto. You should contribute. BY:   Justin Pape LOCATION:   Kensington Market and Queen Street West PHOTOS BY:   Scott Snider (top left and right) and Connie Tsang (bottom) FIELD NOTES:   With Stephen Harper and Rob Ford seemingly [...]

Photo by DdotG from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Let’s start by getting a few things straight about public transit, especially the varieties that run on rails. The streetcar that travels St. Clair Avenue West along the recently constructed right of way is not light rail transit (LRT)—though it has often been confused with LRT by [...]