Photo by aardvark from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Transit vehicles are being diverted and streets have been closed near Queen and Bathurst as firefighters battle a six-alarm blaze this morning. The fire broke out about 5 a.m. and spread through eight low-rise buildings on the south side of Queen, consisting of fourteen addresses between Bathurst and Portland. The destroyed block contained commercial properties Suspect Video, Duke's Cycle, National Sound, Preloved, the Jupiter head shop,......

Waves eroding the tip of the Toronto Islands. A project to keep it from eroding will cost around $14 million, thus reminding us all once again that attempting to combat the effects of Mother Nature is a horribly costly experience, as anybody who has ever bought a jar of Oil of Olay knows full well. Golden Globes without writers turn out to be massively boring. Number of people surprised by this: zero. In revenge......

Does the image at right strike fear into your soul? You may be in luck, because this weekend local activists The Fat Femme Mafia host Dunk Your Chunk, a fat-positive swim event. The duo, comprised of Chelsey Lichtman and Liz Brockest, have hosted other fat-related events, including dance performances, workshops, and a fat cabaret that featured only performers of size. They've also been known to do some tagging from time to time. The event is......

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......

Torontoist finished Book 7 last night, and we're feeling a little down about the Harry Potter saga being over. Sure, everything turned out alright (and Mrs. Weasley said the B-word!) but we can't help feeling like the wizarding world no longer needs our support. Under normal circumstances, we would be binge eating and watching Prisoner of Azkaban on repeat. Thankfully, Toronto will be flooded with Harry Potter fans this weekend, keeping the wizarding spirit......

Developers RioCan bought the parking lot at the corner of Queen Street West and Portland back in 2005. Immediately, rumours started to circulate that a big box store, like Home Depot, was going to be built at the site. At the time, The Globe and Mail reported that RioCan planned to start building in 2007. Which is now. So what's happening with the project? In August 2006, Spacing Wire reported that activists had met......

Not only are you eating rice noodles out of that Styrofoam takeout container, you may be feeding yourself tasty carcinogens. Oh, and you'll pollute the environment when you toss the container in the garbage (or on the sidewalk, for all the difference it makes). Of course, that won't matter if the styrene in the Styrofoam gets to you first. But this is a scenario that can be avoided! NaturoPack is here to help. The......

All this controversy surrounding the notion of gating alleyways (the offending video has since been removed) reminded us of a project that was never announced: Name Your Lane. The initiative calls attention to the condition of our alleys in Toronto, and asks citizens to name them as a positive first step in turning these spaces into places. Naming your alley is actually quite simple, and the Name Your Lane website illustrates the process in three......

If it weren't for our life as an -ist, we're not sure we'd ever leave our apartment. Fortunately, to fully -ist, one must seek out the new, the fresh, and the unknown. Brand new, or just new to us, that's what we're all about this week. Phillyist keeps it fresh by getting a new motto, learning to prioritize, and taking in an experimental indie rock show. Torontoist does their first post in franglais, gets ready......

Sometimes you need to clean yourself up, get serious, and move in with daddy for a few months before you head to Latin America for a new gig. The District bids Jenna Bush adios. D.C.-based television shows have an elderly audience and DCist has some suggestions to fix that. They're also throwing Butterstick the panda bear a birthday bash. Yeah, we may have a few issues with our World Cup broadcasters here, but this guy......

Green blog TreeHugger wants to hear about environmentalism in Toronto. They've already asked Portland and Austin and both posts were enlightening. As far as we can tell Portland is a bike mecca with bad pizza and Mexican food and Austin has lots of people using windpower but wicked bad sprawl. The ever inquisitive writers and editors at TH are asking about the state of cycling in the city, just how bad our sprawl is,......

Seems like it's just bad news piled upon bad news for the city's small theatres this fall... - First, falling closely on the heels of the closings of the Tim Sims Playhouse and the Poor Alex, Artword Theatre is told to vacate the premises of 75 Portland St by March (Hello condos!); - Then, the Great Hall at Dovercourt and Queen went on sale, putting the Theatre Centre's future in doubt (Hello condos?); - Now,......

Until Sunday, the Anandam Performance Group performs Frida and Herself, a movement-based piece of puppet theatre based on the life and art of Frida Kahlo. Torontoist has only seen bits of the show workshopped, but we were particularly impressed by a sequence where Frida (played by Brandy Leary, also the company's founder and artistic director) dances a tango with a life-size skeleton. Anandam performed the show to great acclaim at the New York Fringe......

The civic minded folks at Spacing magazine, Ryerson University and the University of Toronto have brought Wendy Radmacher Willis, executive director of the City Club of Portland to lecture at Innis Hall, 7:00 tonight. Since 1916 the City Club of Portland has advocated, fought for and raised issues of concern to the citizens of that little patch of civic sanity in the Pacific Northwest. The club tackles everything from education reform, the Patriot Act, social......

With their third album, Portland's Decemberists continue on with their singular brand of highly literate, nautically-obsessed hybrid folk-rock. With their highbrow lyrics, unconventional arrangements and Colin Meloy's distinctive nasal vocals, the sound of a Decemberists record is unmistakable, but Picaresque differs from the first two full-lengths in that it carries itself with a greater confidence than its predecessors. This is a record that struts home in costume after drama club, jocks in the hallway be......

The Tall Poppy Interview - Jonathan Bunce, Wavelength Founder...