Raising banners, flags, and fists, a polyglot crowd descended on the U.S. Consulate with a deafeningly simple point: “Kosovo Je Srbije”—Kosovo is Serbia. Saturday’s demonstration comes on the heels of Kosovo’s secession from Serbia, a move that has sparked outrage among Serbs and many in the international community. Despite this, Kosovo’s declaration of independence on February 17th has been recognized by many Western nations, including the United States, Germany, France, Denmark, and Turkey. While......

What kind of people don't like riding their bikes in a Toronto winter? People who have never tried it, that's who. Even as more and more people choose not to get off their bikes when November comes around, many non-cyclists still view winter cycling as unwise, dangerous, or impossible. So as part of its first Bike Winter campaign to raise awareness of cycling as year-round transportation, the City of Toronto is hosting the Coldest......

It is a peculiarity of our city that its grandest monument was erected to honour a largely forgotten and misunderstood war. Yet, the life of the South African War Memorial—the tall granite column overlooking the intersection at Queen and University—reveals a great deal about how the city’s priorities and values have evolved over time. Although University Avenue terminated at Queen Street at that time, it acted as a stately boulevard connecting the new government buildings......

Photo by Taller, Better at Skyscraper City. If you walk down the boutique-laden streets of Yorkville, you may notice a turn-of-the-century building in a Georgian revival style. The building at 100 Yorkville was the birthplace of the eminent Mount Sinai Hospital, built in the 1930s as a maternity and convalescence ward. Much homier than its current giant box on University Avenue, this yellow brick building has a symmetrical dignity rarely seen in contemporary architecture. But......

RISE/ABOVE at Dundas Street & University Avenue. You probably haven't seen the arrows around our city unless you've been looking for them—or looking up. Scattered throughout downtown Toronto are forty-three arrows just like the one pictured, all carefully hung high above street level by an globe-trotting artist known, appropriately, as ABOVE. In what ABOVE calls "Word/Play," each side of an arrow (or "Arrow Mobiles") contains one half of a pairing of words. The signs......

Once one of the tallest buildings in Toronto, the most marked characteristic of the Canada Life building today is the weather beacon with its cryptic code of flashing lights and colours. We were surprised to find, however, that the beacon feature located 100 metres from the ground was only added in 1951, and it had been originally built as a mooring point for airships—once viewed as the future of luxurious air travel until the......

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. The revulsion with which Torontonians responded to last week's sudden advertising invasion got us wondering: If that's how the public reacted to forty street-level ad structures in place for two days, how will people feel about the one hundred twenty new "info pillars" that will be in place for......

Yesterday, Environics released the results of a study commissioned by Goodyear Canada about driving attitudes. It found that 74 percent of Canadians hate drivers “who engage in road rage/impolite gestures.” Another 72 percent are angered by motorists who tailgate or follow too closely, who allow their doors to hit the car next to them, or who speed up to block others from passing or changing lanes. Environics' Vice-President of Consumer Research David MacDonald added......

We're sometimes cynical about token gestures calling for world peace, but at least this one looks nice. And kinda like that legendary British Airways commercial. Today at 3 p.m., the Humanist Movement is calling on Torontonians to help assemble a giant human peace sign in Nathan Phillips Square, continuing a tradition started in Budapest and since performed internationally in public spaces. The demonstration is part of an event happening in at least four other......

If there's one thing that you don't expect to see on a Friday evening in downtown Toronto, it's a chartered streetcar full of fully-costumed pirates rolling along University Avenue in an event organized as a fundraiser for an "Imaginarium." Yar?!......

Apparently police in Montreal will now be fining pedestrians who jaywalk, we figure this'll be like fining Montrealers for smoking. The anti-jaywalking blitz has raised the hackles of one Torontonian, Joe over at the Biking Toronto blog. It also raises an interesting question is jaywalking a dangerous social habit that the police need to hand out tickets for or is it just a normal part of vibrant city life? Cyclist Joe argues that cars and......

As part of Toronto’s Live With Culture initiative, an all-night party to celebrate contemporary art is scheduled to start this year on September 30 at 7:00pm and end on October 1 at 7:00am. The event is called the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche and is modeled after an annual Parisian festival that began in October of 2002 and has already spread to other cities such as Brussels, Rome, and Madrid. Private and public buildings will be......

You’ve probably heard the stories. It must have happened to your friends or roommate or sister or boyfriend or co-worker. Bike. Theft. These two ugly words have recently become this Torontoist contributor’s least favourite term. Bike theft has been plaguing the city for years, but most recently it seems that more and more people have become bike-timized. Contrary to popular belief, Toronto is not the number one city for bike theft. In fact, according to......

Hidden in the Village by the Grange food court, just across from gallery goers (AGO) and gallery makers (OCAD), lies Helena’s Magic Kitchen.  Helena’s offers Eastern European traditional dishes such as perogies (6/$3), goulash, and cabbage rolls, in addition to other fresh goodies including daily soups, quiches, crepes ($5), frittatas ($4) and more.  This secret spot of OCAD students is a fave with Torontoist too, especially with its veggie friendly appeal – choose from lentil......