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Newsstand: March 24, 2010
Illustration by Roxanne Ignatius/Torontoist.
First of all, good news! The Crown corporation in charge of the CN Tower is not impressed by used-car website Vehicle Gateway’s “plan” to rename the landmark the “VG Tower” and light it up in eerie green forever. In fact, the Canada Lands Corporation hadn’t even heard about the claim until it showed up in headlines. Another warning sign came when Vehicle Gateway representatives refused to discuss the subject when CN Tower staff called them to ask what was up with their so-called bid. Even if the whole thing were a terribly heavy-handed publicity stunt, it paid off, if you believe that no press is bad press. And on an unrelated note, Torontoist is pleased to announce that we have just concluded a $170 trillion, three-thousand-year deal to acquire the naming rights for this very city, effective at the end of this sentence.
The TTC may want to save some time at its March meeting today to discuss the complaints of the Downtown Yonge Business Improvement Area, who say that the five subway stations from Wellesley to King are decrepit holes which reflect badly on all of downtown. The BIA cited dozens of little problems, including missing or burned-out lights, broken benches, leaks, and out-of-date maps of the stations’ vicinity, and said that only four of the problems they’ve identified have been corrected since last May.
At today’s meeting, the TTC will also be discussing putting suicide barriers on subway platforms. Eighteen people committed or attempted suicide last year, causing about twenty-three hours of delays. The decade before that saw 150 people kill themselves by jumping onto the tracks. According to TTC Chair Adam Giambrone, the barriers would come at an estimated cost of five hundred million dollars.
In the meanwhile, Giambrone’s return to TV could signal the end of his time in public office. By bringing back On the Rocket, the CP24 show where he takes questions while riding around in an out-of-service streetcar, Giambrone is resuming a job he’d have to quit immediately if he registered as a candidate for re-election as the city councillor for Ward 18 (Davenport). Giambrone says he hasn’t made up his mind to run or not.
And local author Margaret Atwood is finally getting some attention for her novels The Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood. We kid, but actually the international award Atwood has won sounds kind of fun. She and the Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh are co-winners of the Dan David prize, an eccentric program that recognizes achievement in three different fields each year. Its categories are “Past,” “Present” (which Atwood won), and “Future,” each of which carries a one-million-dollar pot. Atwood and Ghosh will each donate 10% of their share to graduate students in literature, another of the award’s conditions.
Look at this picture of teens playing Rock Band on a projection screen at the Pickering Public Library! Following that program’s model, the Toronto Public Library is hoping to set up gaming equipment at eight of its branches and acquire a three-hundred-thousand-dollar video game collection to lend out. It’s a solid plan: alongside arguments about games boosting problem-solving skills and literacy, there’s also a growing body of statistics suggesting that young adults drawn into libraries by video games often end up picking up a book or two while they’re in there. You’re tricky, TPL, but that’s why we love you.