The wheatpaste of Fathima Fahmy was the first to go up just over a month ago. Two stories tall, it stands on the side of a newly-vacant apartment building slated for demolition in the heart of Regent Park. Since then, ten other larger-than-life portraits of other residents like her—those living in the fleet of low-rise buildings that are to be torn down and built on top of as part of Toronto Community Housing's $1 billion......

Every so often a building is unveiled that causes Torontoist to twitter with preteen enthusiasm: "OMGz!!! WTF is that!? That is sooooo cool!!!" The ROM Crystal is one of them, the AGO is too, and so is the building pictured to the right. That building wasn’t so much unveiled as stumbled upon by Urban Toronto Forum member current, who saw the poster and thought it seemed pretty neat. But wait just one second—where’s the......

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......

Being a high school student in Rexdale’s Jamestown community comes with its share of obstacles: at the time of this post, 55% don’t finish high school, and 44% of families are single-parent households with an average income of $22,000. Many are new to Canada, and strange labour laws can put immigrants with medical degrees in front of deep fryers instead of utilizing their proper skills. Many homes have more than one family living in......

Oh man! What a pickle. This week we have the release of one of our favourite films in ages, This is England, and one of our favourite films of all time, Blade Runner, in its super-special, Ridley Scott-approved final cut. So, what do we lead with? It’s an impossible situation! If Torontoist was some kind of a 1960s robot, we’d be wobbling back and forth, smoke spouting out of our metal brain holes, yelling,......

If there’s one thing Torontoist likes to do, it’s moan about stuff, but on the face of it, that Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days receiving a theatrical release here is something that should be received without complaint. After all, journalists have praised the film, including Norm Wilner at Metro, who calls the film "marvellous filmmaking." But really, it just gives us a chance to moan about the lack of......

There has been a lot of debate recently about how and to what extent corporations should be allowed to fund community initiatives. City Hall is currently ablaze with lobbying and ambivalence as we draw nearer to City Council's vote on land transfer and vehicle ownership taxes, a decision that could easily blow the door open to more private sponsorship of community services and public space. Meanwhile, over three hundred volunteers from twenty companies, including......

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......

If you've been treasure hunting at the AGO lately, another expedition may yield you some more in-your-face booty. Four hundred portraits by artists hailing from three community organizations—Adelaide Women's Art Studio, ArtHeart and Sketch—are being contributed to the ongoing In Your Face exhibition, which has already received nearly 20,000 submissions since its opening in August 2006. Currently, just over 4,000 works are on display. Collected from the general public to showcase Canada's mosaic diversity,......

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......

Fresh off their massive St. Patrick's Day celebration, Steam Whistle is throwing another bash tonight, but this time in support of a much nobler cause than getting smashed and pretending you're Irish for a day. Tonight the doors to the Roundhouse (255 Bremner Boulevard) open at 8 p.m. for sets by Woodhands, Modern Boys Modern Girls and These Electric Lives in the first installment of Steam Whistle's Unsigned music series. It's $5 at the......

Almost 80,000 high school students applied to Ontario universities this year, and the universities are using the surge as a powerful bargaining chip. If you're a student of the University of Toronto, you'll know that the current strategy for dealing with this increase in enrollment is to pack the students in tight. With their debt climbing into the $100-million range, universities are demanding financial assistance from the government or they will stop accepting so......

Condoleezza Rice promises to "look into" why Maher Arar is still on an American terrorist watchlist. Remember when you were at work and someone at work kept stealing your yoghurt and you were pissed so you went to your supervisor and complained and he said he'd "look into" it? This is kind of like that, except Maher Arar is probably a lot less important to Condoleezza Rice than yoghurt is. Queen's Park Grits and Tories......

The subject on everyone's mind at Spacing this morning is Regent Park's revitalization project. Our favourite public space newswire will be featuring a series of documentaries on YouTube called Regent Park TV, a project by the Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre. The Toronto Public Space Committee will be screening another series on Regent Park at the Toronto Free Gallery on Thursday, December 14 @ 7:30. "You better be going to school this......

Everything you ever wanted to know about the new Quebecois nation but were too afraid to ask, courtesy of Metafilter. But more importantly, Snoop Dog was arrested after a performance on Leno. Everyone who is surprised, raise your hand. What, no one? Royal LePage Realty is listing a house in East York for the grand total of $1, something we thought was just a trick used by eBay sheisters trying to unload wholesale iPod cases.......

Ok everyone, vote wisely. Your new city council will actually have the powers to do things without turning to the province, thanks to the new City of Toronto Act. Oh, and they'll be in power for the next four years too. More proof that we live in wonderful times, the Ministry of Transportation unveils the new fancy fare cards which will be faster and more convenient than those shiny little tokens. Now we just have......

There are several films out this week. As there are every week. But for some reason Torontoist just isn’t that interested in them this time. Oh, sure, we could riff on the new Will Ferrell vehicle, Stranger than Fiction, but we are… Disinterested, as we said. Thankfully the professionals aren’t so undisciplined, with Eye Weekly’s Jason Anderson praising the script as “clever and idiosyncratic”, and Barrett Hooper from Now calling it “genuinely funny and surprisingly......

Between July 2003 and January 2006, photographer Geoffrey James took his panoramic camera across our city, taking shots of areas as diverse as High Park, Dundas Square, Kensington Market, Regent Park, and Liberty Village. Those photographs are collected in his newly-released book, Toronto, and the shots tell a story of a city in flux, both confident in its history and insecure about where it's headed. Besides photographs, Toronto also features an expansive introduction by......

The 4th annual Regent Park Film Festival hits tonight, 6pm, at Nelson Mandela Park Public School (440 Shuter Street) with Wrecking Ball Videos, an evening of films made in Regent Park by youth trained at Regent Park Focus, not-for-profit organization that promotes health in vulnerable communities across Ontario. The festival continues until the 12th with a diverse programme that reflects on the lives and experiences of multicultural communities in Canada, based, as it is, in......

As David Miller heads for a “well, there’s no one else to vote for” style victory for his second term as mayor of Toronto, it’s easy to forget that only three years ago he was a virtual unknown who surprised everyone by becoming mayor of Canada’s largest city. During that campaign, filmmaker Andrew Munger had unprecedented access to the candidate, his family and campaign team. Mungers' film Campaign: The Making of a Candidate is......

Regent Park is 69 unattractive acres of our city’s east end, bordered by Gerard south to Shuter St and Parliament east to River St. The area was considered a slum until the 1940s and 50s when a social housing community was built to ameliorate the slumminess. Currently, the area consists of delapidated buildings overstuffed with occupants, which are surrounded by sketchiness on the streets. At a cost of $1 billion, the City of Toronto is......

Those new Toronto Star "Why" ads are the best "slice-o-life-in-Toronto" Torontoists has seen in a while. A gay couple, the ugly art across the street from the Star's own offices, rowdy soccer fans, sick beaches (or is that "beach"?) and a muzzled pit bull! Damn, they even have a shot of the slowly disappearing Regent Park in it! How summer of '06 topical! But the best shot is the last shot: Poor Siu Ta,......

A 41-year old experienced long-distance runner died at the marathon over the weekend. The man finished right near the end of the race. The City is considering creating a law that forces homeowners to disconnect their downspouts. The sewer systems is apparently having a tough time dealing with all of the runoff during rain and downspouts on eavestroughs contribute to this problem. It will apparently cost around $600 a home. A few houses and apartment......

Jane Pitfield should send a thank you card to Royson James' office. The Star columnist must've hit a nerve with the mayor's office with yesterday's column. It accused the mayor's office of sitting on a proposal to buy the Green Lane landfill and possibly costing the city millions. The mayor denies this and talked to the Star's publisher. Jane Pitfield's campaign is capitalizing on this mistake. The fire department is estimating that yesterday's huge warehouse......

The AIDS conference started last night and while Bill and Melinda Gates were there Stephen Harper sent his health minister. We think Stephen owes Tony one. Clement had to face a crowd who repeatedly chanted "Where's Stephen Harper" and some who held up signs and placards protesting the Conservative government's poor record on fighting AIDS in Canada and abroad. Even the co-chair of the conference criticized the PM for not showing up. The Star......

Everyone is talking about how TTC Operators will now turn a blind eye on those who are evading fares. The union is complaining about the rising number of assaults and "passenger rage." TTC Chair Howard Moscoe says that people still have to pay their fares. The Sun's story is here and has some wacky numbers like the fact that assaults have gone up over 30% in a decade. The Star's piece has more of the......