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......

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. Last night was our first public all-candidates debate in this campaign. Hosted by the Bay Corridor Community Association in the Sutton Place Hotel, it was extremely well attended by an engaged audience. For those of us who recognize......

Hello, and welcome to another installment of everyone’s favourite film column in which the writer makes up their opinions on the weeks films largely based on what trailers they’ve seen on TV. This week we didn’t watch much (busy watching our IT Crowd Series 2 and Metalocalypse DVDs) so the only one which managed to break our consciousness was the three seconds or so we caught of a trailer for In Bruges, a Belgium-set......

How many times have you been biking down the street and thought to yourself, "Wow, I wish I had a Pop-Tart!" Well, one enterprising cyclist (here parked near Yonge & Lawrence) has found the solution to this age-old problem––attaching a toaster oven directly to the handlebars of the bike. No word on exactly how the thing works, but we're guessing it's solar-powered.......

Last Wednesday, legendary Canadian music retailer Pindoff Record Sales sold off their 72-store Music World chain. Two days later, the new owners filed for bankruptcy protection and and will likely lay off 648 employees by the end of January. And so it goes. According to court documents, Music World plans an "orderly wind down," including closing stores and liquidating inventory. The retailer has been in dire straits for years, propped up by the Toronto-based......

This past weekend's TTC Type & Tile Tour (or TTTT) was such a success (50 people! some of them women!) that Joe Clark is doing it again, bigger and (maybe) better, this upcoming Sunday. While last weekend's trip kept to the Bloor-Danforth line, this one will see the tour take stops along the Sheppard, Yonge, and Spadina lines for maximal signage/font/TTC-critiquing––the itinerary so far ranges from the inspiring (Dupont) to the horrifying (Osgoode), with......

If you loved (or hated) MasterCard skating to the rescue of Toronto's outdoor rinks this winter, you'll love (or hate) one of the city's other sponsorship innovations: traffic signals. Yes, Toronto allows—encourages—corporations to pay for the installation of audible pedestrian signals (APS) at the intersections of their choice. In return, companies receive free advertising space at each location declaring their largesse and the city's poverty. Asked about the practice of allowing private companies to......

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......

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 Metrix X from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. A short walk east of Union Station will take you to one of Toronto’s......

If you were a child passing through Toronto since the early 1970s, there's a good chance you may have eaten at The Old Spaghetti Factory. Kitschy antique decor, the pots of whipped garlic butter that arrived with the loaf of bread and a family-friendly atmosphere have kept the crowds coming for nearly four decades. The Old Spaghetti Factory opened its first location in Portland, Oregon in 1969, a period when themed sit-down restaurant chains......

Spacing did it, now CTV is doing it: CTV wants you to make a video about our city using the prefix phrase "My Toronto is…". Interview a kid smoking in line at Funhaus, a smiling, round-faced butcher at St. Lawrence Market, and a Bloor station musician. Ya know, the usual. Then pepper the vid with shots of the skyline, Kensington, and a passing streetcar. Or you can do something interesting. The contest runs until......

Poverty is an issue politicians like to debate, pundits cluck their tongues over, and that everyone agrees is kinda crummy, but pretty overwhelming. While debates, discussions and campaigns aren't bad things, they don't always result in a lot of concrete solutions. So what do we do about a complex issue like poverty? We find a complex solution. Pathways To Education is a program that started in Regent Park in 2001. It was the result of......

Last Monday was not just the start of the Ontario general election campaign—it was also the beginning of a campaign to change the way we elect our representatives to Queen's Park. On October 10th, Ontarians will vote on a proposal by the Citizens' Assembly (a randomly-selected group of 103 Ontarians) to switch to a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system, similar to that used in some other countries including Germany and New Zealand. A few......

"Busker? Don't even know 'er!" jokes aside, Toronto's annual street performer extravaganza is back until Sunday with a new roster of bizarre talents from around the globe. Buskerfest, the last of the major summer street festivals, draws about 350,000 spectators over four days and it's the best place to see someone jam a sword down one's esophagus up close. Magicians and balloon artists are also present for the kiddies, and there are plenty of......

In the summer heat, Toronto’s downtown can seem like a sun-baked, arid domain of asphalt and glass. Scattered throughout the concrete desert, however, are a few oases of green. The Downtown Discovery Walk links the squares, parks and parkettes that can be found in the city’s busy core. And don't worry too much about the heat; there are plenty of places to duck into for shade, refreshments, and air-conditioned comfort along this route. One......

One of the pillars of the TTC's plan to trim its budget is to cut some twenty-one "poor performing" bus routes. But what, exactly, is a "poor performing" route? As it turns out, transit whiz Steve Munro claims, it sure isn't what the TTC says it is: "in a flat fare system," he writes, "it is impossible to allocate fare revenue in any way that makes sense and produces meaningful comparisons between routes." There......

The crime rate in Canada dropped 3% last year, hitting its lowest overall rate in 25 years, with the GTA one of the least criminally inclined of Canadian cities. Politicians and police agencies will want to take credit for the decline, but the explanation can more likely be found in recent census data which noted the accelerating codgerization of Canadian society. The Conservatives fell 3 points in opinion polls last month, in spite of......

Bluma Appel, philanthropist and patron of the arts, died last night in a Toronto hospital from complications of cancer. She was 86. Her death comes as a sudden blow to the city and to her family; she was diagnosed with lung cancer only two months ago. Appel and her husband celebrated their 67th wedding anniversary last week. Torontonians knew Appel as a passionate advocate for the arts and particularly for the theatre community, where she......

Torontoist just bought a new bike. It's blue and shiny and for some reason hasn't been stolen yet. In celebration of this fact, here are three bike-related items we thought you'd be interested in. First, bike racks on buses: should they stay or should they go? Come on and let us know! (Ahem.) Discussion for action is taking place at the TTC Commissioners meeting this afternoon at City Hall. The question (item 17 on......

Ask Torontonians for an example of Toronto food and you will have an array of different answers. One astute response may be that Toronto specializes in having everything and having it available at your doorstep. With many of our nabes named after the cultural contingent that has congregated along a specific street or in a particular area, the free admission "Taste of" events allow you to explore them among celebrations. Not only do they......

Every weekday, we pick an image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve! With Woofstock over for another year, there's no question Toronto has a soft spot for cold noses and wagging tails. So do we, which is why we love this bone's-eye-view of "Buddy" by Flickr pool contributor c.fernandez. Since dogs spend most......

Yesterday afternoon marked the kickoff event for Woofstock, North America’s biggest outdoor festival for canines. The King Edward Hotel hosted high tea for dogs who have survived cancer, or are currently battling the disease, and their owners. While some might scoff at the idea of a tea party for dogs, you’d be hard-pressed to find an event more heart-warming. The tale of Monty the Bernese Mountain Dog, for example, is the stuff movies are......

Another day, another forum designed to unpack and solve this environmental crisis we seem to have gotten ourselves into. This one, in particular, is part of the ongoing St. Lawrence Centre Forum series. A panel of developers and architects will attempt to imagine possibilities for Toronto as the "Greenest City in North America" by 2020, hopefully thinking beyond the usual suspects of green roofs and solar PV panels.Thursday May 24, 7:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.......

Yesterday, the province gave Toronto $52,000 to test recycling programs in apartment complexes as part of the goal to divert 70 per cent of waste from landfill by 2010. King Street is still closed off because of the falling marble slab. Developer Harry Stinson says that it was a bad idea using marble in the first place. Police shot a man in the chest near Kingston Rd. E. and Lawrence Ave. early this morning.......

Did you hear? Nuit Blanche is back! Transit officials are considering a bus-only lane on the DVP to promote mass transit. "For a passenger, it's very attractive. There's nothing better than sitting on a bus and going by stopped traffic," says GO Transit managing director Gary McNeil. High five to that. Much like the Regent Park revitalization, Lawrence Heights is getting an overhaul. The Jays suffered their ninth consecutive defeat last night with an......

Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve! We love the look of this image taken by Redroom Studios at St. Lawrence Market. It was processed by blending 10 duplicate layers to achieve specific colour tones and texture was added for an aged look that harkens back......

With the explosion in popularity of natural, organic and local foods, grocery shopping has become a confusing experience. Now that supermarkets, big box stores and major manufacturers have jumped on the bandwagon, it’s getting harder and harder for consumers to trust their food source. Luckily for us Torontonians, we don’t have to settle for the fluorescent food section at the nearest Wal-Mart Supercentre. St. Lawrence Market has been thriving downtown for over 200 years,......

Quick–name the first department store chain to locate in suburban Toronto. Eaton's? No, they waited until 1961 to open shop in Don Mills. Simpson's? No, they followed Eaton's a year later, landing in Scarborough at Cedarbrae Plaza. Try a chain that only lasted in Toronto for a decade, but whose locations served those moving into areas like North York and Etobicoke. Morgan's roots were in Montreal, where Henry Morgan opened a dry goods store......

This week our attention is almost completely owned by Cinematheque Ontario’s offerings, even with the thought of Christina Ricci chained to a radiator in Black Snake Moan grasping at us. Not only are Cinematheque Ontario hosting the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, they’re also showing From the Tsars to the Stars, a series of Russian sci-fi. How awesome is that? (There’s more to Russian sci-fi than just Solaris, doubters.) Maybe they’ll do a season......

The Winter-Spring 2007 issue of everyone's favourite urban issues mag, Spacing, is out now. Released just yesterday, the latest issue features "a close-up look at our intersections and what our crossroads reveal about our city — Markham & Lawrence, Gerrard & Coxwell, Allen & Eglinton, Albion & Finch, Richmond & Sherbourne, among others" and, among other articles, "rankings of the best toboggan hills in the city." Score. As big fans of intersections (and of tobogganing),......