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Newsstand: December 30, 2009
Urban planner Steven Dale thinks Toronto is ready, absolutely primed, for a public transit ropeway. On that note, quick question: would a scenic, swaying ride on a gondola perched over the Don Valley be majestic, utopian, or just plain swell? Glen Murray, for one, thinks it could be all of the…above. O-ho!
In other cities right now, folks about to rob a bank probably get all bundled up and drive there, in SUVs, with the heat on full blast, and still feel like they deserve the money. Torontonians, on the other hand, can apparently just stroll to a bank in Chinatown, hold it up with a handgun, and then jog off, cash in hand. Police are looking for this guy.
Although the air outside is frigid, on paper it’s just barely warm enough for homeless people to sleep outside. If you don’t live on paper, or under a roof, we hope you’ve got thick blankets and people looking out for you.
Did you know that City Hall’s annual New Year’s shindig is called a “levee”? And that it’s descended from a fur-trappers’ tradition of dropping by to pay their respects to the “master of the fort”? Don’t drag your pelt all the way to Nathan Phillips Square, though, because this year Fort-Master Miller is bringing the respects to you, at four to six leveeing locales in Toronto neighbourhoods, soon to be announced!
Labour advocates are pressuring the Ontario attorney general to open a criminal probe in the deaths of four construction workers who plunged thirteen storeys from the side of an apartment building last week, when the platform they were on broke in half. A fifth man is hospitalized with shattered legs and a broken spine, and the Ontario Federation of Labour says criminal negligence by the men’s employer may have contributed to the accident.
And a big name just fell off the list of Toronto’s remaining interesting bookstores. Mere months after being voted Canada’s Independent Bookseller of the Year for the sixth time since 1995, McNally Robinson is declaring bankruptcy and leaving Toronto—a fact some employees only learned yesterday morning.
We originally said that the four men who fell from a platform alongside an apartment building on Christmas Eve were “window washers”; in fact, they were construction workers. Torontoist regrets the error.