Results tagged “yongestreet”

At 10:01 a.m. this morning, one of the five green-jacketed police officers standing on the corners of Yonge and Bloor walked confidently but carefully into the middle of the road. The traffic lights at the intersection had just been deactivated, and were now blank, and, after stopping cars in all directions, he waved one direction of cars through, then stopped it, then waved through the other. It was a brief moment of forced acclimatization for the drivers and reassurance for the pedestrians waiting on the tips of the corners: another officer a few minutes earlier had joked to pedestrians that "you don't want to be the first one to be hit by a car." A second later, the traffic lights were all back on, a solid red for all drivers in all directions, and the little stickmen beamed white from every pedestrian signal box. Inside a stopped van, one male driver gestured to his female passenger back and forth across the intersection in front of him, explaining what this all was, and the pedestrians followed his lead.

Looking back, it's hard to imagine there was a time when Steven Seagal ruled the box office. Come to think of it, it was a bit baffling then too. The man's Wikipedia page makes him look like something of a Renaissance man (a singer-songwriter, no less!), but before he got all puffy and lame, the black belt "actor" was king. A man for his age. A man big on movie titles with three words.

We learned earlier this week that even London's Daily Telegraph has some opinions about where to eat and party in Toronto. Okay, that's great. Every city is measured by those things, to a certain extent. Thanks, London.

For years, Ben Kerr was a staple at Yonge and Bloor. And for a little while longer, he is again. Kerr—a regular mayoral candidate, winner of NOW's Best Local Busker award, promoter of the virtues of cayenne pepper, and wearer of excellent t-shirts—made the northeast corner of the intersection his own for well over a dozen years, singing with a karaoke machine or a guitar, until he died at his Jones Avenue home in June 2005. Earlier this year, the city paid tribute by naming a laneway near Kerr's former house after him, but some obliging stencillist (maybe, just maybe, the same person doing famous Bills by "Post No Bills" signs) has decided to honour Kerr much nearer to the site that made him famous. Kerr now watches the intersection from the southeast corner, on the gray walls that surround the future home of 1 Bloor, the kind of too-tall condo that Kerr once told NOW "cuts off the sunshine." But not yet. Roll over the photo above to see the stencil closer. Photos by Michael Chrisman/Torontoist.

The night's journey could begin one of three ways. On this evening, it starts at Yorkdale subway station, where you take in the illuminated beauty of Michael Hayden's Arc en Ciel before boarding a train to head downtown. You stroll along the streets, eventually winding up on Yonge Street. Passing on buying a slice from any of the pizza joints south of Gerrard, you soak up the neon lights of record store giants A&A and Sam the Record Man. Another night, you take a similar journey from the comfort of a car, passing several of the same sights and ponder as you listen to the jazzy background music if you should check out that early Coen Brothers movie playing at the Rio.

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.

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.

Photo by Jonathan Goldsbie.

Photo by CFernando from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Every Saturday morning, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today.

As part of International Car Free Day, organized in Toronto by Streets are for People, participants took over parking spaces along Queen Street West on Sunday and held concerts, played games, and generally had fun in their rented spots. The band Mr Something Something held a well-attended pedal-powered performance opposite Trinity Bellwoods Park. At 6 p.m., everyone joined together for a parade to Old City Hall, meeting up with the Bells on Bloor bikers at Spadina Avenue. At Queen and University, the parade circled the intersection, stopping traffic in all directions for about ten minutes before continuing on its way.

Contributor Tony Makepeace is taking us for some spins around our city with his 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.

It's so beautiful it doesn't even look like Toronto. Not that Toronto can't be beautiful, but there's a certain otherworldliness to these images. This is something we see in other cities, not here.

Toronto Police have just announced [PDF] that the Yonge-Dundas scramble lights, which stop vehicular traffic in all four directions at the intersection simultaneously to allow pedestrians to cross in whatever direction they want, are going into effect as of 11 a.m. Thursday morning. The city, which also briefly experimented with a scramble intersection (also know as the Barnes Dance) in the 1950s, has not-so-elegantly re-anointed it "the Pedestrian Priority Phase."

Something about this picture is about to change.

When we first got a tip from Andrew Hunter that "someone has installed a new type of bike post along Yonge north of Lawrence," we were concerned that it might be the vanguard of the Coordinated Street Furniture onslaught of mass-produced uniformity. When we went down (yes, down) to visit the area, however, we were quite relieved to discover not Kramer-designed brontosaurus ribs but elegant, artfully crafted flourishes of metallic whimsy. Inspired by a similar project in which psychiatric survivors designed bike stands for the curb in front of the Parkdale Activity and Recreation Centre (PARC), the Yonge Lawrence Village BIA commissioned two of the artists behind that project, Phil Sarazen and Jack Gibney, to fashion sixteen pieces, each featuring "a different aspect of community living." Studded into each block on both sides of Yonge Street north from Lawrence to Yonge Boulevard, they succeed in being everything that Astral's street furniture is not, and should serve as an inspiration to all neighbourhoods and BIAs as to what is possible when you're willing to invest in your community rather than sell it out.

If you happen upon a group of tourists decked out in Chicago Bears regalia (with or without helmets) on your daily commute to work in the next few days, we think we may know the reason why. The Chicago Tribune recently informed its readers that a visit to Toronto would be well worth their while. The author of the article—who claims to have visited Toronto 137 times—recommends "10 Things To Love" about Toronto; let's see how your list compares.

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.

Panel from Emily Pohl-Weary and Willow Dawson's Violet Miranda: Girl Pirate #4, courtesy of Willow Dawson.

Image: Cicada Design/Diamond + Schmitt Architects

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.

In the most important news story of the day, two people have been arrested in the mysterious case of Huckleberry, the dog who vanished from outside a Yonge Street bakery and was returned after his owner offered a $15,000 reward. Police haven't said whether they believe Huckleberry was in on the caper.

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.

Founded in 1888, Whaley, Royce & Co. quickly billed itself as "Canada's Greatest Music House." Initially manufacturing a wide range of instruments, the company focused on brass and drums from the 1920s onwards under the Imperial, Sterling and Ideal brands. The company maintained a publishing arm until a fire in 1969 destroyed its stock.

It’s wild outside, huh? So wild that it allows us to segue into talking about must be astonishingly terrible.