Results tagged “scarborough”

Final Destination

"When you see eight large columns and three heads of Zeus, you will know you have arrived in the correct spot."

        

If you're familiar with Passmore Avenue in Scarborough at all, it's probably as an unremarkable industrial street that runs in two discontinuous sections between Kennedy Road and Markham Road. But along with the rest of the concession roads in Scarborough, it long predates suburbia: it was laid out and cleared in the 1800s. On an 1878 map, Passmore (then known only as Concession Road 5) stretched 14 km clear across the township of Scarborough with only three short sections missing where the road would have crossed the Rouge River. More modern maps and aerial photos show that Passmore remained a country road crossing Scarborough well into the 1960s, when portions of it started falling victim to suburban development or neglect.

UPDATE: DECEMBER 10, 2008

"Uh, I'm gonna hold that one up," said Councillor Bill Saundercook, raising his hand to put a hold on item 21 at last Wednesday's Public Works and Infrastructure Committee meeting. The report in question was "2008 Bikeway Network Program – Phase 5 Installation of Bicycle Lanes [PDF]," and it's likely that committee chair Glenn De Baeremaeker tensed up in the split-second before Saundercook, with perfect comic timing, dropped his punch line: "Just kidding."

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.

It seems that the mere presence of teenagers is enough to herald the downfall of a neighbourhood. The Star quoted a mid-Scarborough building superintendent commenting on the harbingers of doom: "We've seen a big change in this area. In the last six months, we've started to see young people hanging around in groups." After two stabbings (one fatal) in three weeks, the Star now describes the area as a "new trouble spot" that's "violence-racked." No word on what the local hipster hordes think.

God works in mysterious ways. Rather than manifesting Himself and, say, ending world hunger, killing the devil, or giving us all the ability to fly, He has taken a significantly more Dennis the Menace-y route to salvation, blasting the Virgin Mary into a tree in a backyard near Danforth Avenue and Birchmount Road.

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.

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