Results tagged “torontopublicspace”

On Friday night at 10:30, the Toronto Public Space Committee's Art Attack will "descend on the streets to re-imagine bus shelters as sensational structures of snow," converting the two ad-adorned boxes at Queen and Jones into something a little more whimsical.

Kincardine-born, Mississauga-bred, Toronto-based, and Berlin-bound, Joel Gibb is the musical and managerial head of The Hidden Cameras, the fantastic and always well-populated music collective whose members have included Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy), Reg Vermue (Gentlemen Reg), Laura Barrett, Maggie MacDonald (Republic of Safety), Dave Meslin (founder of the Toronto Public Space Committee), Bob Wiseman, Steve Kado (founder of Blocks Recording Club, member of Barcelona Pavilion and Ninja High School), Ohad Benchetrit (Do Make Say Think), Don Kerr (The Rheostatics), and many, many others.

They're in cabs, ATMs, and the Entertainment District, and they're about to be in all TTC vehicles. By next June, every one of the TTC's 1.5 million daily riders will be photographed multiple times over their journey.

Sunday afternoon is the Toronto Public Space Committee's third annual Human River Walk, a trek along the course of the buried Garrison Creek, from Christie Pits to Fort York in a parade of blue, symbolically bringing the river back above ground for one beautiful afternoon. Along the route, there will be music, performances, and stories about the history of the creek, the neighbourhoods, the trees, and Toronto's stormy relationship with its water. But, above all, it is a parade and much fun for the whole family—really!

Tomorrow night, scores of arts collectives and community groups will be putting on impressive exhibits, performances, and workshops as part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche. The Toronto Public Space Committee thought it would be neat to do something, too, but guess which word in the event title made the TPSC uncomfortable.

When Monkey Warfare premiered at TIFF last year, Torontoist's Mathew Kumar gave it a less-than-positive review. (Its director and star were none too pleased.) When it opened at the Royal in December, however, I commented, "I personally love Monkey Warfare....I've been urging everyone I know to see it; the film fills me with a glee that makes me want to shout its title from the rooftops....On a number of levels, the film is an ode to my dual passions of film and public space advocacy in Toronto; I feel like it's a movie made for me and my friends....While I would stop short of calling it the film of my life, Monkey Warfare succeeds at being something that few films I have ever seen actually manage to be: anthemic."

Toronto is a city of trees. From centuries-old native oaks in our parks to imported Norway maples planted on lawns, Toronto’s greenery may not always be evident, but it is an integral part of the city’s life and history. Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests (LEAF) and the Toronto Public Space Committee (TPSC) have come together to create a series of tree tours that explore the urban canopy. Toronto Tree Tours offers guided walks as well as providing the maps required for self-guided tours. This week, Torontoist checked out the Dovercourt Park and Neighbourhood tour.

When it premiered at TIFF last year, Radiant City, ostensibly a documentary about urban sprawl, stirred up a bit of controversy. Its portrayal of the soul-rotting effects of the suburban environment on one aggressively average family was met with a variety of bemused reactions, some positive, others less so. (End of Suburbia this wasn't.) Torontoist's Mathew Kumar, for example, savaged it in his spoiler-happy review. But three months later a panel of "filmmakers, festival programmers, journalists, and industry professionals" decreed it one of the ten best Canadian films of the year. And when it opened in New York last May, even the hard-to-please Village Voice seemed to like it, deeming it "enlightening and disturbingly funny."

When the Information and Privacy Commissioner for Ontario published its guidelines for the use of video surveillance cameras in public places back in October 2001 [.PDF], it summarized that institutions considering their use "must balance the benefits of video surveillance to the public against an individual’s right to be free of unwarranted intrusion into his or her life. Pervasive, routine and random surveillance of ordinary, lawful public activities interferes with an individual’s privacy."

"Oh my God, my blow-up doll has been brutally murdered!" shrieked the young woman from the southeast corner of John and Richmond as she clutched her fake-blood-soaked inflatable companion. "My only friend, and someone brutally shot her! The horror! Why hasn't the police security camera done anything about it?!"

From mid-September through year-end, all City Community Centres will be closed on Mondays. Skating rinks won't open until January. Fewer potholes will be repaired. Snow won't be cleared unless there is at least 15 cm of it (the current minimum is 8 cm). New materials from Public Health will only be available in English.

On the west side of Dufferin Street, just south of Bloor, is a Wal-Mart. It is (currently) the only one in the former City of Toronto.

Lynsey Kissane, the project coordinator of Evergreen at the Brick Works, sent Torontoist the above photo, telling us "I have seen this truck-vertisement around a lot and don't think the blatant irony would be lost on anyone."

Torontoist has been saying for years that City Council provides better bang for your buck than any other piece of live entertainment in this city. At absolutely no cost (unless you count, you know, taxes), you can attend this extravaganza that combines the spectacle and epic scale of a mega-musical with the manic energy of a really good Fringe show.

The Toronto Public Space Committee last night Art Attacked every single Astral pillar in the city. Photos are here and here, with more to come.

On Monday and Tuesday nights, the Toronto Public Space Committee will be holding its third Art Attack event. The first, in 2002, had people meet up at the Tranzac to make art and then tape it over outdoor advertisements in the Annex. Last summer, the art-making took place at the Gladstone Hotel and the ad-jamming occurred mostly in the West Queen West area (with one excursion to King and Strachan to hit the Monster Bin at that corner).

Torontoist has no over-arching editorial stances.

A source at City Hall recently warned that the ONESTOP Media Group, which operates the advertising screens on TTC station platforms, will soon make another play to put video ads inside subway cars (the Toronto Public Space Committee successfully warded off their last attempt). The new cars the TTC has ordered will have video displays, anyway (see after the jump), but as of yet there are no plans for them to be used for advertising.

Last summer, Clear Channel Outdoor threatened to sue the Toronto Public Space Committee; last week Astral Media Outdoor threatened to sue Rami Tabello and his IllegalSigns.ca. That left one bidder for the "street furniture" contract with a relatively fuck-up-free slate.

A little less than two years ago, Dave Meslin sat before the Toronto Public Space Committee and said, "Harmonization could be the best or the worst thing we have ever seen." Riding high on a series of victories for public space in Toronto, the radically optimistic committee sincerely believed that harmonization might spell the end of advertising on street furniture. As this fateful day has approached, however, it is clear the proposal is leaning toward "the worst."

In yet another show of contempt for the residents of Toronto, Transportation Services and "Clean and Beautiful City" staff have opted to put the models of the City’s proposed street furniture on display to the public for one day only; they will be visible in the City Hall rotunda from 8:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, April 4. This is a project that will determine the look and feel of all of Toronto streets from this September through August 31, 2027 — and you're being given an eleven-and-a-half-hour window to glimpse the possible outcomes.

Yesterday the City of Toronto unveiled the designs submitted for the "Coordinated Street Furniture Program," its plan to grant a billboard company a twenty-year monopoly on providing and maintaining bus shelters, garbage bins, benches, and other items for Toronto’s sidewalks.

Last week, Matthew Blackett quietly announced that his comic m@b would be taking an early retirement after four years of syndication in Eye Weekly. "I'm still happy with m@b", he writes, "[but] I've lost the energy to think about it. The spark of inspiration of when I saw someone do something insane, or say something off-kilter, has dulled and rarely goes off these days. I'd rather play Tetris on my cell phone that try to eaves-drop on the people in sitting in front of me on the streetcar." The comic's final appearance is slated for Thursday, March 29.

Tonight, the Toronto Public Space Committee's Streets to Screens series wraps up with a screening of Ron Mann's Rochdale College doc Dream Tower:

Tonight, the Toronto Public Space Committee presents the fifth of six films screening at the Bloor Cinema as part of its ongoing Streets to Screens fundraising film series (which also includes monthly screenings of public space-themed NFB shorts at the Toronto Free Gallery).

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.

Did David Miller do it for you the past three years? Did Jane Pitfield plagiarize your heart? Or did Kevin Clarke shout his way into yours? And what of the 30-odd other mayoral candidates, and that whole "choosing a city councillor" thing?