Results tagged “regentpark”

Derek Ballantyne—housing activist, former CEO of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC), and now COO of Build Toronto—was awarded the tenth Jane Jacobs Prize yesterday afternoon in a small, affection-laced ceremony at the Munk Centre for International Studies. Though award distribution often brings with it a share of bluster, this particular event was laden with warmth and humility, with speakers eager to share credit for their accomplishments and visibly grateful to the woman who gave the prize her name.

For a decade, Doors Open has provided Torontonians with the opportunity to discover and explore some of the unique architectural gems that this city has to offer, at no charge. Since its inception in 2000, it has grown every year, both in attendance and in the number of buildings to visit, and this year's edition—taking place on Saturday (May 23) and Sunday (May 24)—will feature free access to nearly 175 buildings of architectural or historic significance, many of which are usually closed to the public. This year's theme is "Lit City: Toronto Stories, Toronto Settings," the grand finale of a three-month festival that honours literary writers who find inspiration in Toronto and use the city as a setting in their work. Libraries and buildings of literary significance have always been a staple within the official Doors Open program, but this year nearly a quarter of the venues have a prominent literary connection.

As a film location, Toronto's bread and butter can easily be summed up: generic thrillers and TV movies. Heartwarming tales of the human spirit (like Good Will Hunting), or true-blue blockbusters (like The Incredible Hulk) are merely exceptions that prove the rule.

View Torontoist's 2010 Toronto map (1.9 MB .PDF)

Toronto's extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn't always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city.

Toronto's extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn't always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city.

Anyone remotely interested in urban or social studies should be fairly captivated by AZURE Magazine's latest hulking tome, a special issue entitled "How To Build A Great City." In it, AZURE explores the staple themes: bike lanes across the world, the value of subway lines versus a city's (or in their case, town's) total monetary intake, and a piece that, as always, showcases how painfully far we are behind the Danes. Make no mistake, these articles aren't a rehash of pop journalism tripe capitalizing on fashionable themes; AZURE's triadic focus has always been "Design, Architecture, Art" and the content of the publication is always refreshing and informative. To wit, columns examining architecture as it relates to its surroundings give hope where we're accustomed to being saddled with the cheapest, most convenient, and worst examples of building conceivable.

          

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 Regent Park Revitalization project—have been installed, all eleven of them photographed, constructed, and put up by Dan Bergeron (Fauxreel).

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 website? Where’s the contact info? Is this for real?

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.

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.

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 a theatrical release for Reprise (also distributed by Mongrel Media) again. Nice to see they have faith in a Romainian flick about abortion that won an award in France, but not, you know, just about the best film ever that won an award right here in Toronto.

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.

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?

If you've been treasure hunting at the AGO lately, another expedition may yield you some more in-your-face booty.

Did you hear? Nuit Blanche is back!

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.

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.

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.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the new Quebecois nation but were too afraid to ask, courtesy of Metafilter.

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.

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 touching.”

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 Mark Kingwell and a surprisingly entertaining Notes section (no, really).

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 the multicultural Regent Park, Canada’s oldest (and largest) public housing community. Most importantly, though, all the screenings are free!

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.

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.