Behold what might eventually become of Sniderman's Corner: an attractive first rendering of the Ryerson Student Learning Centre. To be built at Yonge and Gould on the former sites of Sam The Record Man and the freshly-vacated Future Shop, the building represents Ryerson's desperately coveted access to the Yonge Street strip. To be designed by critical darlings KPMB Architects and Daoust Lestage, the institutionally glassy building will incorporate the historically designated Sam's marquee, which......

Ottawa to introduce new fuel economy standards. They will be "at least" as stringent as American fuel economy standards. In response, David Suzuki blew upon a party horn sarcastically and waved a tiny flag, his derision apparent to all and sundry. Bobby Fischer dies at 64. The former world chess champion was famous for beating the Russians, and for being quite possibly fairly insane, which inspired the nifty little film Searching For Bobby Fischer.......

A couple weeks back, Spacing Wire posted this brilliant old TTC ad that made us hungry for more forgotten gems of Toronto advertising. The video in question was uploaded by a user calling themselves WNED 17, and their entire archive is made up of similar videos. In fact, their profile page provides a mission statement: "Youtube user WNED17 is proud to present repeat portions of broadcast captured in the 1980s and early 1990s via......

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......

If you missed the disappointing auction, you still have a chance to grab something from the now defunct Sam the Record Man—this time, for free! The building at Yonge and Gould Streets has been clearing out today and leaving the odds and ends outside under a sign indicating they are free for the taking. Unless you’re into Daddy's Boys on VHS or collect foam boards advertising CDs and their prices, there isn't much. But......

Ontario Environment Minister Laurel Broten will not build a two-storey garage for their home after all. Not that Torontoist doesn't think that the garage was a bad idea, because we do, but one of her neighbours is trying to get the court to make her pay him back the $10,000 he spent preparing for the municipal board hearing. Isn't that kind of excessive? Dude, you got what you wanted. Torontoist does not see where in......

Sam Sniderman (aka. The Record Man) wants the Sam's building to be sold to Ryerson University. Unfortunately, this does not comply with the conspiracy to turn every store on Yonge Street into a discount shoe outlet or nail salon. Sorry. Toronto couldn't handle a dirty bomb. According to a federal study, "the explosion of a small dirty bomb near the CN Tower would spew radioactivity over four square kilometres, resulting in mass anxiety, a......

We don't normally post ridiculously open-ended questions on Torontoist, but the discussion about the Sam the Record Man sign and the excitement over a new column about Bad Buildings in the city got us thinking about that whole "Toronto aesthetic" thing that keeps coming up time and time again in our city. Not about defining that aesthetic, though (there isn't an over-arching one—if anything, the lack of an aesthetic is our aesthetic), and more......

Who's up for a trip through time? While an H.G. Wells-style contraption or fourth dimension-smashing telephone box are not available in the consumer market, there are simpler methods of going back through time. All that's required are a date and the arcane knowledge of knowing how to load a microfilm reader. Toronto has a rich newspaper history, with no fewer than three dailies at a time battling for the city's readers. This series of......

Photo by David Sherret from Flickr. Torontoist has already devoted a great deal of time and space to Sam The Record Man and its closure tomorrow evening. We petitioned you to “Save Our Sams,” covered the auction and heritage designation of the sign and building, and as many of the comments in response to the posts have indicated, our readership is very polarized on the amount of attention we—and the media as a whole—are......

The biggest bargain in Toronto shopping this year belongs to Jason Naworynski of Etobicoke, who bought the Meteor neon sign inside Sam The Record Man—the whole thing, including the neon-lit marquees on either side—for a bid of fifteen hundred dollars; easily less than a tenth of its original sale value (let alone its historical value). Jason was the only bidder on the item, despite Sam's being packed with bidders for its bankruptcy auction (and,......

The Star is reporting this morning that The City of Toronto has designated the Sam The Record Man store as a heritage building, protecting the signs from being auctioned off. Kyle Rae said that "[the City will] sit down with the owner or future owners as the property is being sold, and we hope to be able to maintain the two discs and `Sam' signs on the rooftop as part of the ongoing history......

Photo by Eyeline-Imagery in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. In less than two weeks, all of Sam the Record Man's contents are going up for sale at auction. Yesterday, we confirmed with Benaco Sales Ltd., the auctioneers for the property, that the most coveted and contentious part of the building—its entire front façade, including the iconic "THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT" records and "SAM" logos (minus the red backdrop, which is unmovable)—would indeed be part of the sale.......

So much for preserving Toronto's cultural heritage—it looks like pretty much the entire stock of Sam The Record Man's flagship store is going up for auction. On Wednesday, June 27th at 10:30 a.m., Benaco Sales Ltd. will hold an auction on location inside the flagship, at 347 Yonge Street. Contents include "Outdoor neon records, unique neon signage, Olde English Shoe shine stations, Antique English Pub Bars, Store Fixtures, Marquee Signs, Pos and Security systems,......

Sam the Record Man is closing its Yonge Street store on June 30. Remember when Sam's was the only place you could get a cassette of The Lowest of the Low's Shakespeare My Butt? Remember cassettes? Two high profile cases got their day in court yesterday. Wing-Piao Dumani Ross and Alexander Ryazanov, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing the 2006 death of cabbie Tahir Khan. The pair were sentenced to house arrest for a year,......

We rarely do an Extra, Extra, but tonight's an exception for two reasons: first, two major crime events -- a bus hijacking and a shooting -- happened in downtown Toronto over the past twenty-four hours that merit mentioning; and second, in each story the facts are getting lost along the way and, as usual, the media is muddling the details of what actually (seems to have) happened. It's our goal in this recap to......

No, we’re only kidding, we’ll try and not make this a weekly thing (after all, we hate Youtube clogged blogs as much as the rest of you) but after last week’s reminder of SCTV’s brilliance we thought it was well past time to revisit SCTV’s glorious take on early 80’s Yonge Street in Garth and Gord and Fiona and Alice. See! Sam the Record Man! Observe! That store that still sells bongs, posters and......

"Hey hey. Ho ho. Ashlee Simpson is a no-talent goat." That sort of taunt, made up this very second, could very well be included in the grass-roots movement to embarrass Ashlee Simpson today at Much Music. The group making the noise, headed up by some Ry-High students, has put forth the following message: We are meeting in front of Ryerson’s School of Image Arts building (122 Bond Street, close to Sam The Record Man)......

The prospect of seeing giant-sized pictures of this guy flashing on a screen at Dundas Square just got a lot better. Cell phone behemoth Nokia is planning a North American first in Dundas Square with their "Say Hello Toronto" big screen ads. Using the Nokia 3220 and the Nokia 6225 mobile phones with built in digital cameras, Denzil Minnan-Wong and other downtown passersbys will have the opportunity to be photographed and see their photo displayed......