When we tried out the bench prototype at the street furniture unveiling at City Hall in June, it was one of the few items we were pretty much okay with. But because Astral Media can't do anything right (when it comes to street furniture and billboards, anyway—their other divisions seem to be functioning relatively well), they've managed to screw this up, too.
Photo by Jonathan Goldsbie.
On Monday morning, Astral Media unveiled prototypes of its new line of "street furniture" at City Hall. On Wednesday, we took a look at the garbage bins. On Thursday, the advertising pillars. Yesterday, the transit shelters. Today, everything else. (Also check out Karen von Hahn's disparagement of the street furniture in the Globe.)
On Monday morning, Astral Media unveiled prototypes of its new line of "street furniture" at City Hall. On Wednesday, we took a look at the garbage bins. On Thursday, we looked at the advertising pillars. This morning, the transit shelters. (Be sure also to read Christopher Hume's review, which makes our less-than-kind assessments look like raves.)
On Monday morning, Astral Media unveiled prototypes of its new line of "street furniture" at City Hall. Torontoist was going to review all of the items at once but decided that some merited their own posts. Yesterday, we took a look at the garbage bins. Today we look at the advertising pillars. Friday, the transit shelters, and on Saturday everything else. (Be sure to read Spacing's coverage, too.)
In the opening voiceover for his Oscar-winning animated short Ryan, Chris Landreth explains, "I live in Toronto, a city in Canada where I see way too many shades of grey for my own good health." This line occurred to us as we attended the official unveiling of Toronto's new "street furniture" at City Hall Monday morning, a celebration of the all-new shades of grey about to trickle onto our streets.
Street artist and former Torontoist contributor Fauxreel (which, contrary to what The Globe and Mail says, is not his real name; it's Dan Bergeron) received both a considerable amount of disdain and a considerable amount of cash recently (as well as some praise), when he designed and helped execute a nationwide corporate vandalism campaign on behalf of a well-known motorized vehicle brand. At the time, Torontoist attempted to contact "Mr. Reel" (as the Globe called him on second reference), for his side of the story, but he declined a request for a public interview. Which was too bad, because we really were very interested to hear his rationalization for his involvement.
When we first got a tip from Andrew Hunter that "someone has installed a new type of bike post along Yonge north of Lawrence," we were concerned that it might be the vanguard of the Coordinated Street Furniture onslaught of mass-produced uniformity. When we went down (yes, down) to visit the area, however, we were quite relieved to discover not Kramer-designed brontosaurus ribs but elegant, artfully crafted flourishes of metallic whimsy. Inspired by a similar project in which psychiatric survivors designed bike stands for the curb in front of the Parkdale Activity and Recreation Centre (PARC), the Yonge Lawrence Village BIA commissioned two of the artists behind that project, Phil Sarazen and Jack Gibney, to fashion sixteen pieces, each featuring "a different aspect of community living." Studded into each block on both sides of Yonge Street north from Lawrence to Yonge Boulevard, they succeed in being everything that Astral's street furniture is not, and should serve as an inspiration to all neighbourhoods and BIAs as to what is possible when you're willing to invest in your community rather than sell it out.
The public service announcement on the left is courtesy of the TTC. The public service announcement on the right is courtesy of the MTA. On Friday morning, Accordion Guy Joey deVilla juxtaposed the two on his blog, along with the question "who plagiarized whom?"
Turn your brand into a destination
One year ago today, City Council's Executive Committee approved [PDF] the awarding of the street furniture contract—for the purposes of designing, building, owning, and maintaining bus shelters, garbage bins, ad pillars, and more for a period of twenty years in exchange for advertising rights—to Astral Media Outdoor, despite the fact that the company had absolutely no experience with "street furniture" and maintains dozens of illegal billboards in defiance of City Council.
At 6:45 a.m., Cy Goldsbie spotted a guy spraypainting this message on both of Spadina station's Spadina-immediately-north-of-bloor entrances and was kind enough to snap these pics for us.
In the fall of 1997, the Metro Toronto Zoo had something of a clearance sale, divesting itself of merchandise branded "Metro Toronto Zoo." On January 1st, the Megacity would be coming, the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto would be no more, and the Zoo—to be renamed simply the "Toronto Zoo"—would be prepared for the change.
The above video—not safe for work unless you're using headphones—was shot by the late Peter Walker and is a clip from Min Sook Lee's documentary Hogtown: The Politics of Policing (winner of the best Canadian feature prize at Hot Docs 2005). Uploaded to YouTube fewer than three weeks ago, it's been passed around online over the last few days, since being linked to by Toronto Life's Philip Preville in a Friday blog post.
If you're interested in pursuing a career in crime here in Canada, it looks like your best bet is to pack up and move to Regina. According to an article published in Maclean's, Regina (aka "The Other Other Queen City") has the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous city in Canada, followed closely by Saskatoon and Winnipeg. The rankings, based on per-capita crime rates published by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, paint a dark picture of the West as a crime-ridden, scary place where unsuspecting rubes from Toronto are lured into dark alleys and robbed of their vintage t-shirts. All of the cities in the top 10 (save Halifax at #10) are located in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia.
Photo by Jonathan Goldsbie.
Plagued by complaints, the City of Toronto has finally gotten around to ticketing some homeowners who don't clear the snow in front of their property. A city spokesperson said they prefer not to send out inspectors in the winter because it's so difficult to get around.
Toronto's extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn't always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city.
Torontoist is ahead of the game for previewing some of the best music choices this week (Queen West fire benefit, Forest City Lovers' CD release) but Musicologist will give you one more recommendation—just for kicks.
Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Each Sunday, the editors of every site—from LAist to Londonist—choose their most interesting article, a list which is compiled into the network-wide feature Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse.
Each week, Torontoist shows off the most interesting, creative, and cool submissions to our Torontoist Flickr Pool. We're especially partial to photos that show our city in a new light, highlight a recent event, and remind us why we live here. Join the Flickr pool and show us what you've got.
City councillor, unintentional humourist, and Torontoist favourite Councillor Rob Ford has grabbed himself some headlines again. He refuses to apologize for his comments on Wednesday, "the Oriental people, they're slowly taking over...they're hard, hard workers," because his sweeping generalization was intended as "a compliment." However, a spokesperson for the Canadian Council of Lazy Asians has said that the remarks were "deeply offensive."
It's Canadian Music Week and that means there's an unusually large number of hip hop shows going on. KRS-One will be teachin' at The Opera House on Saturday as he continues his Stop the Violence movement. RZA dons his Bobby Digital mask on Sunday at the Phoenix. There's also grimy New York hip-hop (M.O.P. on Friday), French rap (DJ Orgasmic and Cuizinier on Thursday), and a strong showcase of local talent (Friday's Exclaim! event).
Attention residents of the tri-city area: much of the cast of SCTV is reuniting for a single live performance in Toronto on Monday, May 5 at 8 p.m. The occasion is a benefit for the Alumni Fund for Second City cast and crew facing financial or health difficulties.
City sells "the McDonald's site" on Bloor for a fairly low price. However, Adam Vaughan insists there are upsides to the deal, such as being able to limit the height of the condo development that will take its place, because who would want tall buildings in the downtown core?
A demonstration at City Hall yesterday by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty forced the Speaker to halt proceedings after the protest spilled onto the chamber floor.
With Rogers' plan to move Citytv, OMNI Television, and the Fan 590 to the southeast corner of Dundas Square, those familiar with the current streetfront studios on Queen Street have wondered if the former Olympic Spirit building will be opened up in a similar way.
Photo of Forest City Lovers by Joe Fuda
We've said it before: MuchMusic kinda sucks nowadays.
Here's a riddle: What walks throughout Canada, weighs more than a Brit, but less than an American, and can help stop global warming? No, it's not Sasquatch. It's not Kyoto.
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