Results tagged “torontolifesquare”

One month ago, we reported on Toronto Life Square's quiet transformation into 10 Dundas East, the result of the magazine's struggle to get their name removed from the flailing project that dominates the northeast corner of Yonge and Dundas. Digital signage around the building was being changed (to a much worse design), though "Toronto Life Square" signs still lingered—as the name did on the building's website.

What do you get when you put together three four-year-olds, a box of crayons, and a white sheet of paper? The new signage inside of Toronto Life Square.

Last Friday, Torontoist visited Google Canada’s headquarters in the Toronto Life Square Complex to discuss Toronto and Google Maps with Mike Pegg, Google Map's product marketing manager and the founder of Google Maps Mania (a blog devoted to Google Maps mashups and tools) and Tamara Micner, Google Canada’s communications officer. For the last few months, Google has remained elusive about its plans for Toronto's Street View, and we were hoping that our meeting might shed some light on its "impending" release. But unfortunately, we couldn’t pry a date out of our hosts. "We want to launch as soon as we can," said Pegg, somewhat ambiguously.

Toronto Life Square—the massively unattractive ogre on the north-east corner of Yonge and Dundas, which houses not only a Future Shop, Google's local offices, and an AMC that uncomfortably doubles as Ryerson classrooms, but also a vast and ever-growing pool of all of our tears—is "broke," according to the Globe and Mail. What's more: Toronto Life, who scooped up the naming rights in 2007, "has been locked in a months-long legal dispute to remove its name from the project." (Perhaps the magazine finally realized the irony of suggesting that the building that loomed over Dundas Square added anything to Toronto life.) The Globe notes that, under the building's original owners, a subsidiary of PenEquity, it racked up some $280 million in debt, and has now been placed in receivership, meaning that it'll soon change ownership but not, unfortunately, disappear altogether. That fate will, for now, remain confined to the dreams of those who want to believe Toronto could have done so much better.

Toronto Life Square boasts a massive external screen array advertising stores and upcoming movies. One thing they probably didn't think they would be advertising was Windows Genuine Advantage.

          

Although the current business climate has caused a number of major corporations to scale back their workforces in and around Toronto, online giant Google, which first opened its local operation in 2002, recently bucked the trend by moving into a new custom-built space overlooking Dundas Square from the sixth floor of the Toronto Life Square complex. And unlike the company's old digs—a general-purpose office near Union Station—its new Canadian headquarters is very much in keeping with the legendary Google vibe.

As you strut into Extreme, indie-electro is blaring, beautiful twenty-somethings are chugging from flasks and sipping on vodka redbulls, and sushi is offered to all guests on a platter. Attendants dressed in all black-and-white wait in the washroom, eager with hand towels and breath mints. Bars line the perimeter of the underground mecca, a rare place where both hip teens and once-hip businessmen can gather to sip on the same poison. The DJ is Paper Magazine's 2007 Best DJ of the year, Dim Mak Records head, clothing line owner, and blogger (but who isn't) Steve Aoki a.k.a. Kid Millionaire. It's eleven-thirty, and the club shows no signs of slowing―that is, 'till the clock strikes midnight, and all the beautiful princesses must return home, before their Jimmy Choos turn back to Nikes, their Rock and Republics become Lululemons, and this nightclub reveals its true self―a fitness club. An Extreme Fitness club.

Well, it sure is classier than the Scotiabank. For one thing, the AMC Yonge & Dundas 24, opening today, isn't called the "Scotiabank." And its interior design scheme (seen above) is premised on the role that movies play in the popular imagination, rather than the role that you play in Taco Bell's quarterly profits. And the music selections playing in the lobby (Soundgarden, Nirvana, and The Who during Tuesday's press preview) don't seem to be the product of deals with record labels. AMC goes out of its way to make known its interest in movies. Too bad it couldn't give a crap about film.

Ever wander past Yonge and Dundas, and wonder what in the world is going on inside that big building constructed of towering TV screens, covered in abnormally-sized ads and lacquered with logos?

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....

The arrival of Toronto Life in the mailbox each month is something to look forward to, except for one thing: the ridiculous payload of advertising that comes with it. Now, we understand that magazines generally lose money on subscriptions, and Toronto Life's $24 annual fee is worth every penny, but we think that Toronto Life is starting to look more like Toronto Life Square. Subscription card "blow-ins" and heavy-stock ad inserts are extremely unpopular...

After decades of being situated as an icon of Queen Street West, it has been revealed that Citytv will be moving to a new high-profile location: Dundas Square.

Welcome to Torontoist's new weekly Lit. Listings of all things bookish, wordy, and between the covers. We want to highlight the "lit" in Toronto's literary scene: as you, dear reader, may have noticed, a lot of writing about writing is dull, and could be improved with a bit of light.