The organizers of Nuit Blanche held a launch event at OCAD this morning to announce this year’s curators—Wayne Baerwaldt, Director and Curator of Exhibitions at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery at the Alberta College of Art and Design; Dave Dyment, Director of Programming at Mercer Union, Toronto; Gordon Hatt, a writer and curator who lives in Kitchener; and Haema Sivanesan, Executive Director of Toronto’s South Asian Visual Arts Centre—and allow them to outline their individual......

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. Stumped? We'll give you a hint. It's the average Torontonian's carbon footprint! According to Zerofootprint, a not-for-profit environmental organization, the average Torontonian's carbon footprint sits at 8.6 tonnes per year—more than a fully-grown African elephant! Zerofootprint teamed up with the City of Toronto to......

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. Phillyist explored an impending implosion and lived to tell the tale.Gothamist marveled at the city's new NYC-branded condom campaign––especially the use of a Toronto landmark in the advertising. (Also, fun fact: Gothamist turned five years old yesterday.)Tired......

Provincial Conservative leader John Tory, battling to stay employed in the face of disaffected fellow partiers who want to hold a leadership review next month, says in a letter on his website that he has travelled the province listening to members and coming up with ideas to address their concerns. The Tories are lucky; a leader who also had a job as an MPP probably wouldn't have time for stuff like that. Provincial education......

Left to right: TTC market research director Mike Anders, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone, irate civil engineering Engineering Science student Ryan Campbell, and Giambrone executive assistant Kevin Beaulieu. "Isn't this just a quasi-communistic redistribution of wealth?" asked a student at the microphone, receiving hearty applause from a good chunk of the audience. He was inquiring about the new U-Pass being proposed by the TTC, which Mayor David Miller, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone, and Vice-Chair Joe......

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. Londonist pondered who might be the next sponsors of the London Eye and whether or not readers would be willing to donate £1,000 each for a Londonist Eye.Shanghaiist was shocked to find a cameltoe in the city's......

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. When Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion decided to sound off about the federal government's lack of funding for municipalities this......

While the word "nutcracker" might evoke some painful mental images in some, for many it's a familiar part of the holiday season. The original ballet was composed in Russia by one Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1892, and The National Ballet of Canada has been performing The Nutcracker since 1964. James Kudelka did a revamp of the choreography in 1995, and since then The National Ballet's Nutcracker has become what The Globe and Mail has......

A massive fire at a townhouse complex on Jarvis Street near Mutual resulted in the death of an unidentified victim on Saturday night. Construction on the townhouses had been abandoned for ten months and the building was being inhabited by squatters, says a resident at the adjacent Radio City condo tower. Novelist Norman Mailer died this weekend. Kim Ruehl at Seattlest has a nice eulogy: "He was, as most great novelists are, a complete......

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Once a week, the editors of each site—from LAist to Londonist—compile some of their most interesting posts into a brief blurb. It's Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse, and it appears, across the network, every Sunday. Austinist attended a town hall meeting about proposed noise ordinances that could undermine the city's future as the Live Music Capital of the World, and lamented the possible loss of......

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Once a week, the editors of each site—from LAist to Londonist—compile some of their most interesting posts into a brief blurb. It's Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse, and it appears, across the network, every Sunday. Londonist got the big scoop of the week with what may be the first images of notorious street artist Banksy in action. They also got on a runaway train without......

The Entertainment District got a little more entertaining early Monday morning as an innocent bystander was wounded in a wild movie-style shootout involving at least four gunmen. Mayor David Miller called for a crackdown on gun smuggling as part of his strategy of blaming all problems in Toronto on forces outside of his control. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty unveiled tax cuts yesterday, including corporate and personal income taxes reductions and a one-cent drop in......

Photo by ilkrender. The Toronto Reference Library will be celebrating the big 30 this Friday, and you're invited to its open house birthday party. Beginning at 10:30 a.m. with Breakfast Television host Kevin Frankish, Mayor David Miller, and architects Raymond and Ajon Moriyama, the event includes poetry readings, music, artist demonstrations, library tours, workshops, etc. The library will also launch Your Stories, a collection of personal narratives about the library's role in the lives......

Mayor David Miller passed a compromised version of his contentious land transfer and vehicle registration taxes yesterday. The taxes will raise only about $175 million of the $414 million estimated budget shortfall, and will add about $3,700 to the price of the average home. "I think it's a vote of confidence in Toronto," said the Mayor inexplicably about the plan to layer more costs onto taxpayers in a city with a hollowed-out manufacturing base,......

Mayor Miller was in Etobicoke yesterday, trying to convince the people who regularly vote in Ford, Holyday, Nunziata, et al. that new taxes are a necessity. It went about as well as you'd expect. In an effort to boost turnout, Elections Ontario has put some advance polls in supermarkets. We hoped to write something sarcastic, but upon further reflection, this is a really good idea. John Tory has essentially killed his public-funding-of-faith-based-schools proposal, promising......

Hundreds of taxis disrupted city streets yesterday, driving erratically through downtown Toronto, flouting traffic laws, and honking their horns randomly. Subsequently, many of the drivers also participated in a protest against bylaws which limit Pearson pickups to licensed airport limos. More toys manufactured in China have been recalled in North America because they contain dangerous levels of lead. Parents who have purchased the "Eat-Me Play Pencil" or "Old-Fashioned Paint Beverage" toys are being urged......

From mid-September through year-end, all City Community Centres will be closed on Mondays. Skating rinks won't open until January. Fewer potholes will be repaired. Snow won't be cleared unless there is at least 15 cm of it (the current minimum is 8 cm). New materials from Public Health will only be available in English. Welcome to the new Toronto, where you get what you (and the provincial and federal governments) pay for—or won't get what......

Photo by Marc Lostracco. With all the recent hubbub over taxes, cutting costs, and shutting down elements of the TTC, folks have been a little concerned about the fate of everyone’s favourite public transit system. While Mayor David Miller continues to passive-aggressively beg Ottawa and Queen’s Park for funding, many wonder if it’s possible to run the TTC without it. Haven’t we been a big, tough, independent city in the past? Can’t the Toronto......

Signs telling people not to feed birds in Nathan Phillips Square were suddenly installed and just as suddenly removed over the past week, reports the Toronto Star. Torontoist thought the signs gave some pretty compelling reasons for their all-too-brief existence. Feeding birds distorts their nutrition, migration, and breeding patterns. Also, guano is a nuisance (as many bike and car owners will tell you) and a health hazard, even if in less than Dr. No-like......

Mayor Mel was there for the opening, and Mayor Miller was here this week when news broke about the possible closing of the Sheppard subway line. Even the thought that a subway line could be retired within six years of opening is crazy. Torontoist feels the need to visit the Sheppard line and see the cool art that exists in the stations, before it becomes a Leon's. Illustration by Kevin McBride.......

Last night at City Hall, Councillor Adam Vaughan conceded defeat in the fight to keep the John Street Roundhouse from becoming a big box retail outlet. He withdrew his motion [PDF] calling for a temporary freeze on the redevelopment of the Roundhouse into a Leon's outlet. The news derails a movement against the proposed furniture store that had been gathering steam recently. First, a Friends of the Roundhouse group, which included former Mayor David......

Toronto has an unusual problem: too many mayors' offices. After the dying years of the last century saw Metro's five cities and one borough reduced into a single bureaucratic mess, the city was left with the prickly issue of what to do with the palatial digs of Alan Tonks and six mayors left sitting barren in the far-flung civic centres and City Halls throughout the megacity (which, when pronounced with the proper cynical inflection, rhymes......

It seems that many people believe that the City of Toronto doesn't need to levy taxes in order to maintain a high level of City services. If only the City had its finances in order and cut back on spending, they say, then there would be no financial crunch. In response, Mayor Miller likes to point out how many cutbacks there indeed have been and how much contracting out is already taking place and,......

Three elephants from the Garden Brothers circus escaped their handlers and took a brief tour of a residential neighbourhood in Newmarket last night. The elephants aren’t kept in cages but do have a rope around their foot to keep them from wandering, which doesn’t work. Local residents said that after initial alarm they were delighted with the unexpected early morning zaniness. Good news for traveling half-wits—airport screeners have been instructed to issue a warning......

The flags will be at half-mast Thursday at all civic buildings and an entire city is saddened by the loss of "Honest Ed" Mirvish at the age of 92. The Mirvish family has released public details about the funeral: Friday, July 13 Beth Tzedec Synagogue 1700 Bathurst Street, just south of Eglinton Avenue [map] 11:00 a.m. (a strictly private family Shiva will follow) Donations can be made in lieu of flowers to the Ed......

The Toronto Public Library is the only good thing to have come from amalgamation. One of the worst things to have come from amalgamation, on the other hand, is City Council's insistence that everything that it doesn't do is a result of not being able to afford to do it, and that everything that it does do is a result of not being able to afford not to do it. Last Wednesday morning, June......

At random intervals, two Torontoist staffers square off to debate an issue that's important to our city. We invite our readers to join the debate in the comments section following the post. This past week, there was considerable uproar when it was revealed that Toronto emergency vehicles would be forced to remove magnetic decals saying “Support Our Troops.” However, following much public outcry, and the deaths of three more Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, Mayor David......

MP Peggy Nash and MPP Cheri DiNovo protest the closing of Toronto's swimming pools. At 8:30 this morning, hundreds of protesters gathered at the corner of Keele Street and Glenlake Avenue to save their community pool slated for closure next month. Extremely fit-looking senior citizens with youthful energy wore bathing suits, goggles, and swim caps. Young children, chanting “Save our pools! Save our pools!” waved signs which read, “Swim skills save children’s lives,” and......

If the premise of the headline is appealing to you, you should probably be coming out for the Toronto The Good party on Tuesday night. Spacing Magazine, E.R.A. Architects, [murmur], the Toronto Society of Architects, and Wireless Toronto have teamed up for the third annual TTG party to celebrate the Festival of Architecture and Design. We went to the 2006 edition, and it was the single most fun event we attended all of last......

Is Hazel McCallion's grip on Missisauga politics slipping? Possibly! However, McCallion's plan to outlive all potential challengers and firmly establish herself as Permanent Mayor of Missisauga by 2243 remains on track, thanks to her mastery of the ancient art of alchemy and her possession of the Philosopher's Stone. New report says Ontario's universities are woefully underfunded and in desperate need of serious reinvestment. Hey, maybe they could sell more advertising space to corporate donors! I......