The Pug Awards are back! Now in their fourth year, the awards name the best and worst new buildings in Toronto, as determined by visitors who choose whether they love or hate the 21 nominees on the Pug Awards' website. In the previous three years, Toronto Police Service 51 Division's building, the National Ballet School, and Gardiner Museum have all been winners, based on percentage of positive votes; Wellington Square, Glen Lake, and—most spectacularly—Be......

In May 2006, artist/curator Jessica Rose and dancer/choreographer Jenn Goodwin were both working for the city, organizing Toronto's first Nuit Blanche. The pair began going on runs around City Hall on their lunch break to blow off steam. Since then, Rose and Goodwin have organized runs around various art centres around the city as The Movement Movement: a community art project where marathon meets performance. On Monday, April 21 at 8:00 p.m., The Movement......

Is invisibility a type of discrimination? This is the question posed by the ROM's latest exhibit Out From Under: Disability, History and Things to Remember. Billed, shockingly, as the "first of its kind in Canada," it's clear that disabled people as a minority group have not had their voice properly heard thus far. "Today, we're making history," said Sheldon Levy, president of Ryerson University, Wednesday at the ROM. Their School of Disability Studies is the......

Alternative education, anyone? This Thursday is the opening of the ROM's latest exhibit, Out From Under: Disability, History, and Things to Remember. A joint project with Ryerson University's School of Disability Studies, the thirteen-panel installation tracks the hidden history of disability in Canada. Each panel is given a one-word title, and a corresponding object that acknowledges the past contributions of Canadians with disabilities. Dressing contains sixteen identical sweatsuits, the typical uniform of the inmates......

The wraps finally came off the renovation of Museum subway station at a grand opening today. Amidst the coming and going of subway trains and riders, a large group of press and luminaries, penned in by watchful officials, gathered. Mayor David Miller praised the project as "a shining example of what our public spaces can be." While there has certainly been criticism of the project and its funding, it's hard to not find the......

Who knew that a year ago, while surly construction workers were working away at completing the incredibly polarizing ROM Crystal, the ROM's head honchos decided that the new building needed a signature drink to go with it? It may seem odd to picture the charmingly quiet-natured former Globe and Mail editor and current ROM Director and CEO William Thorsell pounding back different martinis with the ROM's governors and trustees and arguing well into the......

It's been thirteen years now since the Royal Ontario Museum's McLaughlin Planetarium was shut down. The utilitarian building––half a dome unceremoniously shoved on top of a rectangular prism––was, until recently, all but forgotten, obscured by construction offices for the extremely un-utilitarian Crystal being built around the corner. When those construction offices moved out in December, however, leaving a mass of wide open space that hadn't been wide open for several years, the Planetarium quietly......

Contributor Tony Makepeace is taking us for some spins around our city with his fantastic VR panoramas. You can look up, down, side to side, in and out—pretty much every direction but back at yourself, which would be kind of creepy. Say hello to Panoramaist: the Toronto shoe-gazer's worst enemy. Click on the preview image above to launch the QuickTime VR panorama in a new window. Panoramaist is best viewed on a fast computer. See......

A little more of the renovation of Museum subway station has been revealed, showing oddly contrasting purple columns and white moulded volutes. (See also Rannie Turingan's video taken from a train pulling into Museum station.) Still under wraps until the official unveiling in April are the individual column designs themselves. The subway revitalization project, which includes Museum, Osgoode, and St Patrick stations, has not been without its critics. Joe Clark calls the project a......

Forget Harlequin––the results from NOW's massive love and sex survey are now out. It's got all the usual features of the Love and Sex issue, like a front cover (at left) that'll make prudes just as mildly uncomfortable as the usual back American Apparel ad will, and tons of glorious, glorious data, this year from just under 6,000 respondents. Among the salient points from the forty questions: we are getting gayer ("sexual fluidity is on......

The amount of events this week are bursting at the seams. Keep Toronto Reading is kicking it into full gear this month with various readings across library branches, Lit Lunches, and various One Book events. There are just too many to list here. Visit the KTR calendar to see all event details and plan out your literary excursions. And if you have any kids, you can join Gisèle from TVOKids for various library tours, as......

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. Toronto's Crystal BY INSIGHT IMAGING:......

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. Crystal Planet BY WVS (Be sure to check it out large or play around with its interactive version.)......

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. "Initially, when I saw the design, I was most reticent." Those words were Michael Lee-Chin's, on Daniel Libeskind's concept......

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. From price hikes to bomb hoaxes, the ROM has been a constant news item this year. But while Thorarinn......

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. That’s right. We said it. Hate is a villain. Torontonians spend a whole lot of time complaining. It’s only......

As part of the TTC's subway revitalization project, Museum subway station has been undergoing renovations under the direction of architects Diamond and Schmitt. The redesign of the station [hotly-contested by some––Ed.] is themed after Egyptian antiquities in the Royal Ontario Museum above, with hieroglyphics decorating the giant lettering and castings of artifacts wrapped around the columns to form a hall of caryatids. After five months of renovations the first glimpses of the finished design......

While Newmindspace have organized subway parties in Toronto, SkyTrain parties in Vancouver, and métro parties in Montréal, sometimes nothing beats an old-fashioned streetcar party for a beat-bumping, track-turning, three hour party tour of the city. The TTC will rent a streetcar (PCC, CLRV or ALRV) for a minimum of three hours for a pretty steep fee to just about anybody. The customer can request a custom route, like Newmindspace has, that takes advantage of......

Rosie DiManno sucks. Every day (or so), poor Toronto Star readers are subjected to another over-the-top, awkwardly-written, occasionally-insulting column about the day's top depressing story from the purple-streaked purveyor of pulp. It's about time someone took out the trash. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "busy" as "occupied with constant attention; actively engaged; doing something that engrosses the attention." We've been that recently, too engrossed with things like the ROM bomb scare to think too much......

Torontoist has already done a pretty good job of letting you know how rad Posterchild is. In fact, the extent to which Torontoist writes about Posterchild could be seen as the textual equivalent of a marriage proposal. So without rehashing what has already been said about our favourite local street artist/public space crusader, just know that his radness is still on the upswing with new and improved versions of what he’s known best for:......

In Tuesday's news round-up, we told you that the plan to sell McDonald's the land at Bloor and Avenue had been halted until January 18. It's a good thing, too, as there are many questions that must be answered before the $3.38 million sale is finalized. Is it in the best interest for Toronto taxpayers? Is the sale a smart corrective action to the bungled 1971 lease agreement or another dumb move we'll regret for......

On Thursday evening, Torontoist broke the news that Wednesday's bomb threat at the Royal Ontario Museum was OCAD student Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson's final project for an advanced video class. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp's readymades (like Fountain, pictured above), Jonsson told us that the piece was about recontextualization, the idea that context changes art's meaning; in this case, something that is, he said, "quite clearly not dangerous, but when you put it in a different......

The half-wit OCAD student who planted a fake bomb at the ROM on Wednesday has turned himself in to police and been charged with mischief and common nuisance. Ha, closing a major thoroughfare, wasting the time of hundreds of police and emergency service personnel, and forcing the cancellation of an AIDS gala—what a lovable scamp. The death rates at Canadian Hospitals have now been made public in a report from the Canadian Institute for......

Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson has, as he put it to Torontoist in a phone interview earlier today, "seen better days." The Integrated Media OCAD student and his final project for his advanced video class are the direct cause––intended or not––for yesterday's bomb scare at the Royal Ontario Museum, and, a day later, Jonsson is now suspended from OCAD and is wanted for questioning by police. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp's readymades pieces (the most famous of......

Overheard outside the ROM during last night's bomb scare. A small group of friends is standing on the corner of Bloor and University, facing the museum. Guy: You know, if they could figure out a way to destroy just the crystal and leave the rest of the museum intact, I think I'd be okay with this.........

Dalton McGuinty's throne speech will focus on poverty and climate change. They were going to focus on Desperate Housewives, but the writer's strike got in the way. If you wanted to know more about the phony bomb scare last night at the ROM, Torontoist has the goods right here. Buy all our playsets and toys! Opposition rebels against Tory climate change proposals. Harper says that the Commonwealth's climate change plan would have meant a doubling......

Photo by David Topping. A mysterious bag discovered in an alleyway beside the Royal Ontario Museum at about 7:00 p.m. tonight has shut down all traffic––pedestrian and vehicular––on Bloor between St. George and University and on Queen's Park southbound from Bloor and Harbord. UPDATE (10:45 p.m.): CTV is now saying that police have found "what appears to be a pipe bomb," and that the building was (half-)evacuated (contrary to what we were originally told).......

Dr. David Evans is an Associate Curator in the ROM's Vertebrate Paleontology department. Upon assuming the job in May, he was assigned the task of finding a flagship sauropod specimen to display in the museum's upcoming exhibit (opening December 15) within the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. Little did Evans know that he didn't have far to look. While on a scouting trip to Wyoming, the bone buff came across an article by noted sauropod expert......

The Royal Ontario Museum didn’t know what to expect when it began organizing its new exhibit, Canada Collects: Treasures from Across the Nation (October 6–January 6). Where usually a curator arranges carefully selected artifacts into an intellectual framework that brings out their larger meaning, for this exhibit, the ROM invited institutions and private collectors from across the country to contribute an object of their own choosing. With over 70 items from 50 contributing institutions......

Photo by marco 2000. On Monday night, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) hosted a members-only event to provide an inside look at its ongoing renovations before it shuts its doors to the public for its last phase (to be completed sometime in 2008). Dubbed “Transformation AGO,” and overseen by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry, the AGO is one of the final buildings to be completed as part of Toronto’s “Cultural Renaissance". Perhaps people are feeling......