Extra, Extra: Down a Flagpole, Up a Hip-Hop Icon

By Hamutal Dotan

Every weekday’s end, we collect just about everything you ought to care about or ought not miss.

Photo by {a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/katyharmer/5470202202/"}katyharmer{/a} from the {a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist"}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

• Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West) has long harboured a dream. A big dream. Epic, in fact. Mammoliti wants to build the largest flagpole in the universe continent, and for a while it looked like he’d succeed. Sadly, the Emery Village Flag Pole is no longer slated to be installed on City land, as per this week’s operating budget draft [PDF, page 8], and pointed out by City Hall observer Matt Elliott. No word on whether there are plans to find another home for the flagpole elsewhere in Toronto.
• Toronto is getting a new food co-op—the first in 28 years. The Star talks to organizers as plans for the West End Food Co-op take shape; it should be open in the spring.
• Also underway: plans for the Eglinton Crosstown transit line. While debates about bridging over or tunneling under the Don are being waged, residents a bit further west got a more concrete sense of their transit future. Monday night, an open house on the Bathurst Station planned for that route.
• Raekwon is a hip-hop legend, and he’s set up shop in Toronto. Ice H20 Canada, his label, has opened its office on Yonge Street, and the Grid chatted with the Wu-Tang star about his plans for it.