Results tagged “darcyallansheppard”

What was advertised as a civic rally looked more like a mid-afternoon coffee break. On October 19, friends, colleagues, and supporters of Darcy Allan Sheppard—the cyclist who died after an altercation on August 31 with former Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant—mingled on the lower steps of Old City Hall at 2:30 p.m. with their coffee mugs and lunch boxes, but did little else.

WORDS: Pore over print of all genres at the twentieth annual The Word On The Street festival. In addition to the marketplace of books and magazines, this national celebration of literacy and the written word will feature tents and stages of readings, spoken-word performances, poetry slams, cooking demonstrations, publishing seminars, financial advice, musical performances, and children’s activities. Margaret Atwood will be in attendance to read from her latest novel, The Year of the Flood. To throw out a few more names, Elizabeth May, Dionne Brand, Camilla Gibb, Nino Ricci, and Jane Urquhart will also be participating in readings and panel discussions. Queen’s Park (780 University Avenue), Sunday 11 a.m.–6 p.m., FREE.

Earlier this afternoon, hundreds of cyclists converged on the stretch of Bloor Street West outside of the Sephora where, two nights previous, bike courier Darcy Allan—Al—Sheppard was killed. Many had just come from a mass ride that had started on Bloor at 5 p.m., picking up the crowd of about one hundred cyclists waiting at Bay and Bloor, and another crowd waiting at Bloor and Yonge, before riding together down Yonge, then along Queen, then back up University, escorted and gently directed by bike cops the whole journey.

Late on Tuesday afternoon, cyclists took to the stretch of Bloor Street West between Avenue Road and Bay Street (above), an impromptu mourning of Darcy Allan Sheppard, the bike courier killed along the stretch the night before. A much larger pack is expected to descend on the area on Wednesday at 5 p.m. to do it again. For a community whose more enthusiastic members took over the Gardiner on a whim last year, that stretch of Bloor should be an easy temporary conquest; activists have long wanted bike lanes there, going so far as to create the lanes there themselves.