Results tagged “churchstreet”

Enza Anderson waits at a bus stop on the west side of Bay Street by City Hall with a tall shovel in her hand. The bus to Queen's Quay pulls up and all eyes fixate on her as she boards. Walking towards the back, an elderly passenger comments, "A bit early for shovelling the snow off your driveway, isn't it?"

                                   

Sure, there were bound to be a zillion Lady Gagas—and there were—but Halloween exhibitionism on Church Street is still one of the city's most enjoyable annual events. Here are some of our favourite costumes from 2009, featuring loads of blood, pop culture, and plenty of ghoul-on-ghoul action. We should note that a couple of these photos may be NSFW (if you work in a convent).

Photo by Bytepusher from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Image: Cicada Design/Diamond + Schmitt Architects

Torontoist Environment Editor Chris Tindal is currently engaged in a federal by-election campaign. This weekly column is an attempt to offer a behind the scenes glimpse into what it's like to be that mysterious Other: a politician.

Renda Abdo knew that she'd have some explaining to do about calling her boutique nightclub, located in the north end of the Village, "Straight." The name was ambiguous. Was Straight exclusive to straights? (Imagine if "Gay" opened in the middle of club district.) Or did it mock them? Straight was a response, Abdo explains, to the attitude that the Village had become irrelevant, a view laid out in a front page Star article with a bold headline: "Goodbye Gaytown?"

The AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) holds condom stuffing parties every first and third Wednesday of the month to make packages of condoms, lube, and info on ACT and safer sex. ACT delivers the packages to clubs and venues in the Church and Wellesley area as part of its community outreach program to reduce the risk of transmission of sexually transmitted infections. In 2007, volunteers helped ACT create over 120,000 condom packs.

Toronto has been called a city of neighbourhoods: The Beach, Yorkville, Chinatown, Little Italy, Greektown, The Annex; all have their defining characteristics that make them appealing to locals as well as visitors. And when it comes down to it, most of these areas are well-defined by the intersection of two major streets. Photo by gbalogh from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Previously on A City Intersected, we visited Front Street East & Jarvis Street, one of...

Lit lovers should head over to Church Street today for the Writing Outside The Margins festival of queer literature, the first of its kind in Toronto. The Gay Village stretch of Church Street will be closed from 11:00 a.m. to 7 p.m. to accommodate stands selling everything from children's books, fiction and poetry to sci-fi, erotica and comic arts. There will also be two stages for readings and performances, where you'll get to participate in an open mic or sign up for a poetry slam competition.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams addressed an enthusiastic crowd last night at the Hot House Cafe on Church Street, as part of what organizers billed as a "Summer Celebration" of the Irish peace process. Adams is on a speaking tour of North America to thank supporters of Friends of Sinn Fein, a non-profit fundraising group whose Canadian chapter, located in Toronto, was launched by Adams in 2001. Adams was one of the principle negotiators of the Good Friday Agreement, which saw the beginning of stabilized relations among Northern Ireland, Britain and the Irish Republic.

bill bissett is Canada's world champion hippy poet freak. Best known for his phonetic (funetik) spelling, it's fair to say that bissett's poetry anticipated the text messaging age by several decades. What once seemed like an avante garde approach to language now seems like the inevitable evolution of communication. He's the poet laureate of SMS.

Shameless, the Toronto-based publication "for girls who get it," has made a name for itself as an inclusive, progressive alternative to mainstream girls’ publications, where the dominant message is one of surface over depth. Staffed by volunteers, Shameless’ mandate is to give voice to a diverse group otherwise characterized as singularly boy and diet-crazy.

Happy December Torontoist readers!

The Tories are taking a chainsaw to Status of Women Canada, closing three-quarters of the organization's regional offices, including Toronto's. Heritage Minister Bev Oda insisted that the budget cuts and office closings will streamline the department and make it more efficient. Just like a business! Because government should be run like a business!

Since 2004, signs have hung on the southeast corner of Maple Leaf Gardens promising an historic Loblaws Real Canadian Superstore. "Soon you'll discover a store filled with fresh flavours, shops and services," the billboards cheerily stated, but the Gardens at Church and Carlton has loomed a decrepit shell since it went dark in 2001, despite some minor action hosting the filming of Cinderella Man. The last Leafs game was on February 13, 1999, where they lost to the Chicago Blackhawks just as they did on opening day.

This Torontoist was walking down Church Street and passed by The Stag Shoppe, the gay village's latest sex paraphernalia shoppe. Outside, huddled in the corner of the doorway is Bob, a husband of an old co-worker back from our bar-working days. He's all of 5 foot nuthin', 100lbs wet with overgrown My Name is Earl facial hair styling. If you passed him on the street, you'd think him a pocket biker, not someone who sells lube and lacey black panties.

...They want you. They want you as a new recruit!

Suggested tag-line: Woolf one down today!

A little bit of graffiti on Church Street. Torontoist hopes you're not all groggy this Monday morning.

Eye editor Bert Archer reminded attentive readers that the alt-weekly would soon be adding to Church Street's crowded media scene (Now, Fab and Xtra are already there). Archer even posited that Church be affectionaly dubbed Toronto's Fleet Street. We see the logic of this idea. Especially when there are so many young and eager Ryerson journalism grads just waiting to make their mark. Up-start "youth" rag, Dose has also been hiring job-desperate university students to hand out papers, harking back to the newsies of yester-year. Minus the exploitation and slave wages, we hope.

On a long weekend last summer, Defence Minister Bill Graham and PM Paul Martin went up north for some rest and relaxation. Hanging around the campfire, guzzling some brews, the two buddies got to talking. After Bill told some story about a nightspot on Church Street, it occurred to our Prime Minister that it was time for a practical joke. Martin and Graham then came up with a plan to trick their friend Jack Layton: First, they'll tell him that the government is putting a ballistic missile defence system all over Canadian airspace. And then, before the NDP leader knows what hit him, Martin will announce that the country will not partake in any such missile defence system. Oh, how they laughed.