Farrow Partners from Globe and Mail

Writer Dave LeBlanc can hardly contain himself at the prospect of building apartments/condos on top of the Bloor viaduct. Some might feel better if he toned down his enthusiasm for Kool-Aid.  We don’t need a Jim Jones school of architecture. Was it Kool-Aid that inspired Davisville Public School? It seems to have been built with no particular concern for function. Maybe condos on the viaduct make more sense than playful windows on Millwood Road. Ask the fire service about both. Sorry to be so stuffy. Kool-Aid drinkers need something to scoff at, unless they meet a worse fate. Globe and Mail

Heavy equipment being used to empty scorched cargo from tractor trailer involved in double fatal crash on EB 401 in Port Hope. pic.twitter.com/nDvG4OXthw

— Kevin Misener (@Kevin_Misener) August 4, 2017

Does it sound heartbreakingly familiar? Once again people are dead — two in fact — as trucks rear end and catch fire in slowing traffic caused by construction. It is surely one of the most lethal combinations on Ontario roads. This time it occurred Thursday night on Highway 401 near Port Hope.

The bed race shenanigans are here in preliminary form as the Toronto Professional Fire Fighters Association and Toronto Police Service’s 54 Division face off Friday (today) in a head-to-head pre-event race at Michael Garron Hospital Foundation 825 Coxwell starting at 11 a.m. This is an interest builder for the big event which occurs during Taste of the Danforth. The race aids the Micheal Garron Hospital Foundation. 

An apartment management firm, CAPREIT Limited Partnership, has had to back off on an arbitrary decision to charge tenants for the use of their window air conditioners. The company that manages an East York apartment building told tenants with the units to pay $150 (apparently an annual fee) or remove them. Some tenants did so. Others paid the money which will be refunded says CAPREIT.  A East York tenant’s complaint to the CBC was raised with the  Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations. The charge does not appear to be legal. “There will be no change to the status of tenant-owned air conditioning units at this time,” said a letter sent to tenants on Thursday from the management company, CAPREIT Limited Partnership.

Eva 68 and Linda 51

Mac’s Milk gasoline

A mere 18 metres from disaster

Adonis wanted for HIV status

Peter and Knowlton

Manbridge goes Letterman

Sisters Eva, 68 and Linda, 51, met again at Toronto Airport as Eva arrived with other relatives from the Czech Republic. The story is told by City News here. Then, even as the corner store and gas bar mammoth Couche Tard continues its misbegotten plan to change the name of Mac’s operations in Toronto to Circle K, Mac’s thrives in the Ontario hinterland. Seen right at top, Mac’s gas is sold in three octane levels along with Mac’s milk in Elmvale north of Barrie. Middle left, investigators in San Francisco say the Air Canada jet that nearly landed on a busy taxiway was a mere 18 metres off the ground before it went around. What’s worrisome is that digital avionics baloney doesn’t seem be to be able to tell the pilots to stop it.

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Then, middle right, RCMP have issued a national warning about the handsome gent named Brian Carlisle, 47, who they say is HIV positive and is not telling women he consorts with about this life-threatening fact. Cops admit this is a violation of Carlisle’s rights but say the public good must precede that. And finally a last look at replacing a CBC anchor then and now. Two white guys, Peter Mansbridge and the late Knowlton Nash more less agreed on the job then. Now not so much as four people, Adrienne Arsenault and Ian Hanomansing in Toronto, Rosemary Barton based in Ottawa and relative newcomer Andrew Chang hosting from Vancouver take a team stab at the anchor duties.  “When I retired from the CBC, they needed four people to replace me.”  Honest, Peter didn’t say that. But he could have. Then, Wendy must be stinging. Often old people are treated that way. Oh yes, it looks as if Peter is growing a David Letterman-like beard.

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The fire deaths of the four members of the Geoff Taber family in their cottage at Stoney Lake north of Peterborough early Christmas Eve morning may have been made more likely because smoke detectors were installed too low on the ground floor. The cottage had a high vaulted ceiling and open staircase which might tend to send smoke and flames up before it set off wall alarms on the first floor. It is a theory put forward by the Fire Marshall in the absence of any breakthrough on the cause of the inferno that took the lives of Taber, his wife Jacqueline Gardner and their sons Scott and Andrew. The fire appears to have originated in the living room but there is no cause determined. It can only be imagined the panic that overtook the family in the terrible circumstances as parents may well have done selfless things to save their sons. CBC

Taber family Georff, Jacqueline, Andrew and Scott

He’s at baseball camp

Help find Miss

The fine work of Susan Wright

Wilson Lau

Mysterious and exciting?

East York’s Baseball Mom One @EYbasemum1 is tweeting about her favorite subject Tuesday. He is at East York Baseball Camp these days and very happy. Good going guy. Upper right, signs have been posted around Davisville and Mt. Pleasant in hopes of finding Miss. If you discover her, tweet @katangus  Below that we see Susan Wright with friends in Thorncliffe Park where she is a mainspring of the Summerlunch Plus program that will serve 18,000 meals to students from low-income families over the summer. The Bulldog’s hat is off to you Ms. Wright. Lower left, it is Wilson Lau’s pithy remark that the activity at 1560 Bayview Ave is “mysterious and exciting.” We agree. Check it here in Monday’s post

Ciaren Maxwell, a celebrated royal marine, was a Catholic boy who was beaten up by Irish Unionists in Northern Ireland. In adulthood, the respect accorded his regiment and patriotic work it did were not enough it seems to outrank ties of blood and religion to an Irish terrorist gang dedicated to killing police. Maxwell used his training and access to explosives and equipment to construct bombs for the terrorists. Monday he was sentenced to 23 years in prison but the penalty seems unlikely to erase the mistrust sown by his conduct.

Lease signs down

Markers?

The three walk-down spaces in the building at 1560 Bayview Ave. have had the lease signs removed (at least they were gone Monday) and the front windows recovered with blank paper. Through the uncovered window on the space on the corner of Bayview and Belsize Drive, floor markers may be seen. These suggest that the X on the box marker is a locator for installation of something. It is not much and speculative to be sure but the neighbourhood is long-suffering when it comes to the chronically vacant spaces in this prominent corner building.

In the St. Clair Reservoir

Free kids tickets to the CNE

1960s GMC pickup

R. J. Barrett

Councillor Joe Mihevc (Ward 21) has had a tour of the seldom-seen St. Clair Reservoir that sits below Winston Churchill Park. The enormous holding place for fresh water was built in 1931. Fascinating place. Mihevc (centre) is seen with water personnel. Then to the right, free passes for kids to the CNE are available at local Meridian Credit Union branches like the one managed by Shirley Breen on Mt. Pleasant at Soudan Ave. What a deal. There’s a limit of ten per family. Below that, a tweeted picture of a 1960s vintage GMC pickup seen in the SmartCentre parking lot. Rusted but elegant. And to the right,  the absolute basketball whiz kid R.J. Barrett of Mississauga. He has announced he will “reclassify” himself at the Florida high school he is attending in a move to permit a debut in the NBA sooner. Reclassification is a murky device which may not pass muster in Ontario.

CAR FIRE – Southbound DVP South Of York Mills
2 right lanes are now blocked
Traffic backing up
Fire O/S
We are on the way.#GO1373943 ^sh

— Toronto Police Operations (@TPSOperations) July 31, 2017