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Newsstand: December 6, 2010
Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.
All this (and more!) in the news this snowy Monday morning: Rob Ford helps out with hand-outs, Eaton Centre employees have another reason to hate working this time of year, and living in churches and living in towers.
Peter Fang, the man accused of killing his father with a crossbow, lived in fear of his abusive father, according to a divorce lawyer. Quoting court documents, the attorney for William Cheng’s estranged wife says Cheng once beat his wife so badly her eyesight was damaged, forcing her to quit her teaching job in Toronto. The lawyer says a teenage Fang witnessed some of the most violent abuses, and had trouble making friends and keeping up in school, even once attempting suicide. Fang, now twenty-four, briefly appeared in court on Friday, and is remanded until another court appearance on Wednesday.
Honest Ed’s held their twenty-third annual turkey giveaway on Sunday. People lined up around the block to get their hands on one of the twelve hundred turkeys—and begrudgingly accept a matching fruit cake—provided by the Mirvish family. And the Mirvishes weren’t the only ones feeling charitable—Mayor Ford pitched in to help with the hand-out. Aaaand, cue the gravy joke.
And next stop on the holiday cheer train: bells will be ringing out at the Eaton Centre this holiday season after an eight-year ban on tintinnabulation was lifted. Salvation Army volunteers agreed to silence their bells when some vendors made noise complaints. But when the ban was publicized last week, the people (that is to say, the people who don’t work at the mall) demanded the ban be repealed. At least mall employees can take comfort knowing the bell noise is for charity, unlike the looping N’Sync Christmas song, which is for evil.
Since congregations are shrinking in size and stature, with mostly older people filling the pews, many churches around town have been forced to close and sell their properties. An aging United church in the Beach was snatched up by developers hoping to answer people’s housing prayers. But don’t worry if creepy church-houses aren’t your thing—developers will likely build condos and townhouses on the property. The Toronto Conference of the United Church has closed sixteen churches in the last year, but they see this as a chance for reincarnation reinvention, with some church properties going to affordable housing providers, and profits from other sales funding scholarships and professorships.
Speaking of re-imagining buildings, a new report on tower-living across the Greater Golden Horseshoe area is out. Like Toronto’s 2008 Mayor’s Tower Renewal Opportunity Book, the report outlines simple solutions to reduce poverty and even greenhouse gas emissions in towers. Things like changing to more efficient light bulbs or allowing small-scale shops to operate in the buildings can have a significant impact in the densely packed vertical communities. And transforming impressions of gloomy towers into a vision of the bustling neighbourhoods they really are is the first step to securing more access to public services and transit that tower-dwellers—often new immigrants and low-income families—need. Sounds like a win-win to us.