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Newsstand: December 13, 2010
Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.
It’s Monday and two weeks from now Christmas will be over, but lucky for Newsstand it’s still around the corner. Making tweets today: no one gets what’s happening to Transit City, decoding Ford, Legion hall becomes hippy hang out, and how to survive the season.
Hey, look, it’s another reason Transit City was a pretty good idea: business owners along the planned routes anticipated a boon. Two such business owners signed a fifteen-year lease and invested in renovations for their dentist office at Sheppard Avenue and McCowan Road in hopes the Sheppard light rail line would transform the commuter thoroughfare into a destination. They are just two of the many people confused about the fate of Transit City—or any feasible transit improvements—in the next four years. According to TTC chair Karen Stintz, the task now is largely just “tweaking” the plans and then sending the new plans off to council for a vote. Confusion alert: the mayor has suggested otherwise.
The Globe attempts to demystify the enigma wrapped in a bromide wrapped in a short-sleeved dress shirt that is Mayor Ford with an examination of his muses. No, Don Cherry is not one of them; Ford had never met the hockey yell-atator before the investiture. Instead the mayor turns to a college football coach, his father, and deputy mayor Doug Holyday (Ward 3, Etobicoke Centre) for inspiration.
Artists get ready to feel really bad, because that new studio space you’re getting is actually the second home and scene of fondest memories for a Canadian veteran. The Canadian Corps Association’s Toronto headquarters at King and Niagara was established in 1958, with twenty names on the mortgage. Now that only one of the founders remains, the Legion hall building has been sold for one-million dollars to convert into art studios. Let’s hope the artists make good use of what E.V. Heesaker, World War II vet and lone guarantor calls “the best dance floor in the city of Toronto” and keeps up the Wednesday night cribbage.
It’s pretty much winter now, and the sooner we all accept that, the sooner we can prep our minds, bodies, and bicycles for the season. Winter cycling requires increased awareness, sweat-wicking undergarments, lobster gloves, and a facemask. And no humility.
And with the season comes all of the lights and with the lights come the neighbours who put Clark W. Griswold to shame. Two Pickering families are in the midst of a “Battle of the Bulbs” to see which house can waste the most electricity. Their insanely elaborate holiday displays include working train sets, cross-country skiing polar bears, and a twenty-two foot light-up tree made up of seventy-five hundred lights. The neighbours say the contest is friendly and more for the benefit of the neighbourhood than besting one another. The Wright family uses their house’s power of attraction to raise food and funds for a community food bank. Last year the display helped bring in over a thousand kilograms of food and fifteen hundred dollars in cash. So if you decide to drive your car out to see the Ilona Park Road decorations for yourself, be sure to bring items for the food drive.
‘Tis less than two weeks till Christmas, and all along the dial, incessant Christmas music raises bile. But if you thought radio DJs charged with playing, and listening to, Christmas carols for their entire shift hated their lives, you were only kind of right. They grin and bear it while visions of beer pints dance in their heads. Cheers!