Once a week, Vandalist features some of the most interesting street art and graffiti from around Toronto. You should contribute.
Once a week, Vandalist features some of the most interesting street art and graffiti from around Toronto. You should contribute.
Today doesn't mark any kind of numerically significant anniversary for the fire that destroyed six buildings near the intersection of Queen Street West and Bathurst Street on Feburary 20 of last year. There's no nice, round number of days, years, or months to occasion this post. The timing here might be inconvenient, but then so was the fire's. (5 a.m. on a Wednesday?) So we're not totally out of line.
Advertising company Astral Media Outdoor bid successfully for the right to provide Toronto with new street furniture almost two years ago. Their contract calls for them to supply, among other things, new trash bins to replace the city's existing ones (both the Eucan-provided "silver bins" and the several varieties of plastic city-owned receptacles). The Astral bins debuted last year during an exhibition at city hall. Now, they're starting to appear on downtown streets for general use. Torontoist has spotted the bins as far north as Yonge and Davisville, as far west as Little Italy, and as far south as King and Bathurst, where two of the new cans now sit near the southeast and northwest corners of the intersection.
Once a week, Vandalist features the best street art and graffiti from around Toronto. You should contribute.
In November, it seemed all but certain that Reg Hartt's Cineforum would be shut down in the new year, a result of Hartt's impending eviction from the house on Bathurst Street that he'd hosted Cineforum out of for some eighteen years. But, as with most things Reg Hartt, there's more to the story: according to a great feature in today's Varsity, Hartt recently told the student paper "with considerable enthusiasm that his landlord had changed his mind about selling the house, and that the venue would be safe from sale for the foreseeable future." Which is good news, especially if you like eccentric and relentlessly self-promoting anti-establishment film savants who screen weird movies in their living rooms.
Once a week, Vandalist features the best street art and graffiti from around Toronto. You should contribute.
After eighteen years, thousands upon thousands of film screenings, and thousands times more 8½" x 11" posters littering the city, Reg Hartt's Cineforum is taking its final breath on Bathurst Street.
Once a week, Vandalist features the best street art and graffiti from around Toronto. You should contribute.
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.
It was a depressing weekend for hundreds of kids who were eagerly awaiting SMILE, the first of the final three events from the famous all-ages event promotion crew Goodfellaz. The five were forced to cancel an hour before the event because the venue—BLAK (formerly Crosstown)—was not only deemed unsafe for occupancy by the fire marshal, but had its liquor license suspended by the AGCO. Sources within the club tell Torontoist that there is virtually no chance of BLAK re-opening.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Last time we checked on 178 Bathurst Street, it was just beginning to relive its Bassmint-era techno days with Derrick May at Crosstown, now closed. Since then, things underneath the Queen Street West and Bathurst Street Pizza Pizza have come full circle. Until 1999, Christian "DJ Unabomber" Poulson operated Bassmint, a famous party spot and afterhours that still conjures memories of sleepless nights for...
In June, 200 media professionals, producers, activists and academics packed into a Bathurst Street studio for a party celebrating the launch of a new English-language global news and documentary network, The Real News. If building an international news network from scratch doesn’t sound mind-boggling-ly ambitious to you, consider this: Real News CEO Paul Jay is promising to accomplish this feat without corporate, government or advertising dollars. This makes The Real News the world’s first...
Yesterday saw clear skies above Toronto but thick fog hanging low to the ground. This was taken from the Bathurst Street bridge looking west, with the fog swallowing the condos along Lake Shore Blvd. More images after the jump.

Nine months into their existence, Porter Airlines chugs along, still under the radar of most. As the Toronto Star recently reported, the young airline is still struggling to find a steady stream of regular business customers. With traffic on the 401 at an all-time high, getting to Pearson during rush hours can potentially take as long as a flight to Montreal. On a weekend getaway, the give-or-take ten hours spent traveling to La Belle Province and back are costly. And with flights available for not much more than a regular fare round-trip on VIA to Montreal, it made sense to give Porter a shot.
Have you seen the handsome true-blue posters that proclaim “Love Is” on Queen Street between Spadina and Bathurst, and on Bathurst Street from Queen to College? They've also been spotted in The Annex. Underneath the words, white rectangular boxes invite interaction from passerby. Empty as a “Hello, My Name Is” badge waiting for an identity, the posters are part of an upcoming film's viral marketing campaign.
This sounds good; if it isn’t, it will at least be fascinating and you can say you were there. Tonight at The Trane Studio, poets Rachel Zolf, Gerry Shikatani, a.rawlings, Jordan Scott, Jenny Sampirisi, Sonnet L’Abbe, and Margaret Christakos will move “onto the raft of music” with musician Tim Posgate and riff off each other's poetries. They call it R))I))F))F))) R))A))F))T))).
It's something that usually only comes up during election time, but in the City of Toronto, wards are designated by numbers. For example, the area bounded by Dovercourt Road to the west, Christie Street and Bathurst Street to the east, the CPR tracks to the north and Lake Ontario to the south is officially known as Ward 19. Nobody really calls area by its numerical name (hey dude, let's party in the 19th tonight!), but just to keep things interesting, both Ward 19 and Ward 20 are unofficially known as Trinity-Spadina. It's kind of a weird system.
Each week, Torontoist chooses the most interesting cases from the Toronto Police Service crime blotter. All charges are alleged until proven under law.
For the last 24 years, Annex Books, located at 1083 Bathurst Street (just south of Dupont), has been a bibliographic treasure-trove and a cherished part of Toronto’s literary landscape. Proprietor Janet Inksetter (pictured) has befriended writers, readers, collectors, and librarians for decades. Due to a volatile marketplace, Annex Books is closing its landmark bookshop but will continue its online business.
Blame higher rents, fewer readers or sheer exhaustion, but two long-time second-hand bookstores are closing their doors.
It's the story that keeps on giving, folks - the Island Airport!
. Naturally, our fatally feline curiousity lured us in.
Just to keep you posted on the mysterious developments inside the as yet unsolved mystery on Bathurst Street, the sign posting the store's hours has been replaced by this dress.
Amid the chaos of Bathurst Street.
So you're not TIFFing towards ecstasy, making like conspicuously consuming celebs on Bloor's Mink Mile who spend small fortunes in order to drown out the loneliness of the red carpet (boo hoo). The weekend's stuffed with fashiony goodness that's kinder to the civilian pocketbook, and much more satisfying.
brownies, scones, and homemade pies – make it a must try. Plus it’s even good for celeb spotting. TOist was just a seat away from hunky Canadian actor Peter Stebbings, famous for his role on the TV series Madison. We last spotted him at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival where he was starring in The Limb Salesman, directed by Degrassi’s Anais Granofsky.
It's not quite a tapas eatery, or a wine bar, or just a cocktail lounge: Canteena is a hybrid lounge. Torontoist would classify it as more of a a drinkery than an eatery, and definitely more of an intimate lounge than a bar --but whatever you call it, it's good.
Here’s are the questions for the inquest: Did the avian flu fell Bat Boy? Or was it overly-harsh critics in the conservatory with the candlestick? Or was it just a bad show?