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Extra, Extra: The Future of Union Station and the Fate of a Banksy
- A trio of 3D simulations of a revitalized Union Station were posted today on unionstationTO’s YouTube channel. One (above) shows an army of CGI worker-drones strutting through the station at rush hour, while the other two deliver short fly-throughs of the future lower level and ground floor of the station. Construction on the $640-million project began last year and is expected to be completed by 2015.
- Like giving feedback? The TTC has three online surveys running right now: one to help it name the stations on the Spadina Subway Extension (read more about that here), another to gauge how effective riders think their Next Vehicle Arrival Text Message service is, and a third, simply called “Customer Service,” that asks questions such as “How reliable do you find the subway service?” and “How clean do you find the subway stations?”
- Following Banksy‘s visit to Toronto last spring, the pieces he left behind have evolved, or disappeared, or, in a couple cases, been left alone. Former Torontoist editor-in-chief David Topping investigated one surviving piece that Banksy left on the side of a vacant building at 90 Harbour Street. Now, however, the work—which features a security guard holding a muzzled balloon dog—clings to a freestanding pillar in the middle of a construction site. Menkes Development Ltd, which owns the land, says they will preserve the piece but “the future plans for it have not been finalized.”
- Unless you’re a time traveller or really very old (congratulations if you’re either of those), you weren’t around for cycling’s heyday in Toronto, which was in the 1890s, according to the Toronto Standard‘s Simon Wallace. That was when bikes with smooth-riding tires came on the market and cycling became an even bigger issue at City Hall than it is today.
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