Just off West Queen West, around the corner from 48 Abell and the Drake Hotel, on the wall of a long blue warehouse complex that is supposed to come down shortly to make room for a condo, stands Mr. Loogie. It's a façade in more ways than one. A constructed storefront for a constructed store, you walk in through its front door and find yourself in the workspace of an artist, with wood and......

The sign of the hipster apocalypse is spelled out in Helvetica. Black and white. "Now Hiring." Yes. American Apparel is "Now Hiring." If this means nothing to you, you're either far behind or just ahead. Because it means that, soon enough, American Apparel will mean nothing at all.......

After a six-month pilot project by Toronto Police Services, the closed circuit television cameras placed at Queen Street West and Bathurst were removed yesterday morning. The intersection was chosen due to a higher-than-average violent crime rate, though some local residents at a January public forum felt the cameras would shift illegal activities to neighbouring streets. The CCTV tests around the city have also raised privacy issues and sparked debate about their crime-fighting effectiveness. Reader Simon......

There goes another chunk of the 'hood. The ground is all chewed up, the renta-fence is in place, and Queen West's on-street parking just got a little bit worse. The cars have been kicked off the corner lot at Queen and Portland streets, ready for the construction crews to move in. The neighbourhood is a big step closer to getting ninety more condo suites, anchored by a big-box Home Depot. May, 2010, is the......

For his latest project, Posterchild (Torontoist fave, and, yeah, Torontoist staffer) bought five dollar-store disposable cameras and stuck them to walls along Queen Street West and College Street inside homemade boxes he'd painted "Take A Photo, Leave A Photo" onto. Torontonians took care of the former half of the instructions by taking photos of themselves and their friends, and, weeks later, Post fulfilled the latter—with the three boxes that hadn't been stolen—by developing the film,......

Cheap Thrills is a new bi-weekly column filling you in on fresh ways to get your kicks in the city and on the cheap. Photo by phocrastinating from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Booze-fuelled fun is pretty much the cheapest thrill in the book. It'll make you giggle at cheap shots and cheap jokes, and maybe even make you laugh about a night with a cheap hooker. But "cheap" doesn't necessarily mean "inexpensive." That's where we......

Once a week, Vandalist features the best street art and graffiti from around Toronto. You should contribute. By SpecterNEAR QUEEN AND JOHNPHOTO BY ICM......

Three months or so after the Toronto Star predicted that it might save the “blighted” intersection of Bathurst and Queen, Starbucks is finally open on the northeast corner, the former site of a doughnut store/hangout for what outsiders regarded as degenerates, dope fiends, and all-round ne’er-do-wells. Beauty, as always, is in the eye of the beholder. But after a couple of weeks customers seem thin on the ground, and the corner—which fond locals still......

As part of International Car Free Day, organized in Toronto by Streets are for People, participants took over parking spaces along Queen Street West on Sunday and held concerts, played games, and generally had fun in their rented spots. The band Mr Something Something held a well-attended pedal-powered performance opposite Trinity Bellwoods Park. At 6 p.m., everyone joined together for a parade to Old City Hall, meeting up with the Bells on Bloor bikers at......

Go ahead. Add "post-almost-bike crash traumatic disorder" to the list of things for which we are suing the manufacturers of Crocs (you know, the molded rubber-substitute monstrosities reluctantly categorized as "shoes"). That's after, of course, "severe aesthetic distress," "acute depression in regards to the future, as in, what could possibly be the next craze? Styrofoam sneaker-pumps?" and "recurring nightmares caused by the sight of a pylon-orange, perforated pair on the feet of the hitherto......

It's reassuring to know that while there's always a scheduled event in Toronto (World Naked Bike Ride, Rendezvous With Madness Film Festival, Nuit Blanche, Winterlicious, dandy bicycle polo, and pillow fights), the citizenry of this town refuses to spend the intervening hours sitting still. Consider, then, this dashingly handsome couple seen recently strolling westward on Queen Street West at Roncesvalles. The twosome was on its way to a gay affair—of that we can be......

Some people see faces in everything. And some, like Emma Flannery Lawrence Healey and Richard Rosenbaum, make their own. Last Thursday, the pair spent three hours stalking along Queen West from University Avenue to Crawford Street, converting a sea of inanimate objects—fire hydrants, Toronto Star boxes, crosswalk signal triggers—into faces with googly eyes purchased from the Bloor and Bathurst Midoco. This won't be the end, either; they're planning to do another run soon. Photos above.......

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve. Sign of Adultery BY SNIDERSCION......

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve. Hug Tree BY IZAK_NEUTRON......

Spacing reports on the fate of the Hug Me tree at Queen Street West and Peter Street after it was found knocked down yesterday. After narrowly avoiding being hacked up by the City's Forestry department, the tree is back—intact—in the hands of Elicser, the artist who had been painting it for the past few years, thanks in part to a woman whose husband proposed to her in front of the tree six years ago.......

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve. Gas Mask Deer BY J IS FOR JETSETTER......

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention that they deserve. Queen St W. & Gladstone BY MARCO BUONOCORE......

And Torontoist was there to make a video of it. Context after the jump.......

Earlier today, Torontoist got sent a series of photos that appear to show a mouse inside Second Cup's 307 Queen Street West location. The three shots (one above, and two after the fold) were taken by Kate Bowen this past Sunday at 2 a.m., while she was waiting for the Queen streetcar. According to Dinesafe, the store passed its last health inspection, on June 11 this year. Toronto Public Health, where we forwarded the......

A fire broke out on Queen Street West and Cameron Street at around 11 p.m. last night, with February's block-consuming fire just up the street nowhere near forgotten. SoundProof Magazine staff photographer (and Torontoist Flickr Pool contributor) Stephanie Cloutier arrived just before the firefighters did. She writes on her photo's page:My friend Connie and I were leaving the Cameron House when a group of people standing on the sidewalk and street were screaming across the......

One of the greatest and most frustrating things about street art is that its lifespan is inherently finite. Especially in high-traffic areas, no piece is permanent, static, or safe. Take the wall on Queen Street West just out from below the railway and just west of Gladstone. Kevin Steele, who has spent much time documenting Queen Street West (his beautiful stitched-together photos of the block of buildings that burned down earlier this year remain the......

fuck this grassroots gone corporate This post + this post = this post. Discuss. Photo taken at the northeast corner of Queen and Spadina by Jonathan Goldsbie.......

Summer is a time to get intimate with the gritty streets of our little borough, and this is exactly what industrial design students from OCAD have set out to do in their exhibit TORONTO UNBOUND. Together with the design school and the City of Toronto, OpenCity Projects has put together a creative lab to come up with design ideas for Toronto's neighbourhoods, to help foster communication between the members of that specific community and......

Sarah Lazarovic—curator of the garage-based Montrose Portrait Gallery of Canada—is painting a portrait of a Torontonian every day. Each Monday, we'll feature one of those portraits here. Suggestions for subjects welcome. Flower man pops in and out of Queen Street bars, trying to unload $5 roses on couples who mostly pretend he's invisible. He's less flashy than his Bloor counterpart, who also deals in neon baubles.......

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention that they deserve. BE HERE NOW, -or WHATEVER BY DEUTSCHMARCO......

It was a depressing weekend for hundreds of kids who were eagerly awaiting SMILE, the first of the final three events from the famous all-ages event promotion crew Goodfellaz. The five were forced to cancel an hour before the event because the venue—BLAK (formerly Crosstown)—was not only deemed unsafe for occupancy by the fire marshal, but had its liquor license suspended by the AGCO. Sources within the club tell Torontoist that there is virtually......

Photo by Caesar Sebastian. Justice brings their gigantic glowing cross and their hot electro-house beats to the city on Monday. While the Sound Academy (ex-The Docks) is usually an awkward place to see music, it's well suited for this show. There will be plenty of space for people to "D.A.N.C.E." and the duo has a sound large enough to match the venue. They'll be joined by fellow Parisian Busy P and Fancy at the......

Detail of photo by the Frankfurt School from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.. This week is Freedom to Read Week, a national event that encourages Canadians to value their right to choose what they read, and to recognize the individuals who fight to protect that right. Celebrations against censorship are happening across the country—locally PEN Canada is presenting an evening of readings and performances to promote a new anthology, Writers Under Siege: Voices of Freedom......

Last week’s fire on Queen West didn’t only destroy some of the neighbourhood’s best stores; it also put the dozens of people who lived in apartments above the shops out of a home. Some of these folks didn’t have insurance and lost most of their possessions. Many of the artists who lived in the buildings lost their work, and thus their source of income. It’s great to see a neighbourhood—and Toronto as a whole—come......

A variety of opportunities for residents to help out the victims of the Queen West fire have been popping up all over the city. Right now, the best way you can participate is to walk into any Scotiabank location and make a cash donation to the newly-established Queen Street Fire Fund––effective today, the fund set up by the City of Toronto will assist all of the residents affected by the fire––but as Ward 20......