Former East York mayor and Member of Parliament Alan Redway will be signing his book Governing Toronto: Bringing Back the City That Worked this afternoon at the Walter Stewart Library at 170 Memorial Park Ave in East York. The book contrasts today’s post-amalgamation metropolis with the well-remembered “Metro Toronto” in which a number of separate municipalities shared a senior government. That period lasted from 1954 to 1998. The reception will go from 2 to 4 p.m.
Cell phone video has emerged of Harrison Ford piloting his engineless vintage plane down onto the California golf course where he crashed yesterday. The video is quite graphic with commentary by golfers watching him in the sky. It is said today that Ford was given his first medical aid by doctors who were playing a round. First time it would be good to learn your doctor was on the course.
TO’s first movie house, the Theatorium, in 1906. The customers posed for the shot.
Here’s why Twitter is a good thing. Thousands of people who could not tell you what day this City was incorporated are now history smarties thanks to the Hashtag TO181. Take a look. There’s lots of action there. Seriously, Toronto the Good was stamped, sealed and delivered on March 6, 1834 and took the name Toronto at that time. It is a first nations word meaning meeting place. Toronto began as the Town of York, a community which grew up around Fort York beginning in 1793. At incorporation, the City had a population of less than 30-thousand inhabitants. A highlight of the City’s first century includes gas-fed street lamps which were installed in 1841. In 1849, King’s College was renamed the University of Toronto. In 1861 streetcar service began but they were horse-powered vehicles in the most literal sense of the term. The first Eaton’s store opened in 1869. The CNE was first held in 1879 and in 1893 Union Station (not the present building) opened.
There’s an important reminder from Wildcat Nation that the fourth game of the team’s best of five Provincial Women’s Hockey League finals is Saturday night at Leaside arena. The Wildcats won a big one Wednesday defeating the Mississauga Chiefs 3-1 to stay alive The series stands at two games to one for the Chiefs. Game time is set for 6.40 p.m.
Officers at 53 Division’s are warning South Bayview merchants in the Yonge Street, Mt. Pleasant Rd. and Bayview Ave. area of South Bayview about a rash of bogus $100 U.S. bills. Merchants and shoppers are asked to be alert and report suspicious looking American money to 53 Division. If you think you have received one of these fraudulent bills, or have any information, please contact 53 Division @ 416-808-5300, report it to Toronto Police Service @ 416-808-2222 or Crime Stoppers @ 222-TIPS.
The showpiece transit project all the way to the City Above Toronto is turning into the Disaster Beneath Contempt. It was revealed today that analysis of the Spadina subway extension, with its terminus at the Vaughan City Centre, is two years late and more than $400 million over budget. It was supposed to be built for $2.5 billion and open this year. Today Mayor John Tory was feeling the heat, even though he could hardly be blamed for whatever man-sized sloppiness caused this embarrassment. He says he is furious and vows to review of all “mismanaged” city projects. He even talked of stopping the project at York University and finishing the subway to Vaughan later. That remark seemed to gore a different ox at Queen’s Park, where Transportation Minister Stephen Del Duca represents the riding of Vaughan. He said no such delay would occur. CP24 Twitter
This video is beautiful in a number of ways. It shows a touching series of human contacts through what is essentially an X-ray view and then surprises onlookers at the gender of the people they were seeing. It was done in Santa Monica, California, which brings us to the weather and the beach. Yeah. Beautiful. The video is said to have viewed some nearly 29 million times on YouTube.
Parliament today saw and heard the short video made by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau before he attacked the House of Commons on October 22, 2014. It was recorded in a parking lot at 464 Metcalfe Street in the capital and, as RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson said, Zehaf-Bibeau was “purposeful and lucid” as he delivered his little lecture. For all of that, the self-styled avenger is revealed as a crackpot world statesman who invokes the much-loved “suicide pact” justification for attacking the west. He talks about how Canadians must stay to themselves and leave his comrades in Iraq and elsewhere to live under religious law. There is no mention of lopped off heads or the worldwide Caliphate that will dispense with democracy and Western Civilization. (Can you imagine an ISIL wrecking crew at the Art Gallery of Ontario?) The suicide pact justification? That’s when we force them to kill us by trying to stop them from killing us.
The former CIBC building at 180 Laird is nearing its renovated completion as a Local Public Eatery, an outpost in Leaside of a western Canadian chain of casual restaurants. The building was constructed by the Imperial Bank of Canada to serve employees and businesses across the street in the 1930s. In 1960 the Imperial Bank merged with the Canadian Bank of Commerce to create the CIBC. The coat of arms of the Imperial bank may still be seen over what was the front door of the bank but which is now a small front window onto Laird Drive.
With a name like Elton McDonald, Toronto’s once-mysterious tunnel builder may have a head start at parlaying his unique hobby into a new life. The self-effacing young man who quietly fulfilled a childhood dream of building a tunnel for himself and friends is finding celebrity among the media. Is there a niche for this type of work? Elton has been interviewed by the Toronto Sun and then this morning by Kiss 92.5 Radio. “I just want people to know that I meant no harm at all,” McDonald told the Sun. “It was not meant as a bad thing.” In fact, since he began working in construction at age 17, he said it was his “dream” to build something like that. He built the underground hideaway on land adjacent to his family’s home right near York University.“It was just something I always wanted to do,” he said. “I knew I could do it. It was kind of a fun project for me and some friends.” McDonald projects a sweet innocence that obviously charmed the police. No matter what they say now. cops were quite concerned about this unexplained chamber. After meeting the builder, it seemed police were prepared to take the secret of McDonald’s name to their grave. It is nice for the City and sober-sided publications like The South Bayview Bulldog to find a pleasant dreamer like Mr. McDonald behind the curtain.
Karen Stintz
Karen Stintz has emerged from the darkest part of winter to write a kind of manifesto for the corner of Eglinton Ave. West and Yonge Street. The former mayoralty candidate, Ward 16 Councillor and TTC chair says the “forlorn wasteland” of TTC lands on Eglinton between Duplex Ave. and Yonge should ultimately become a park. Here is what she says about the choice property. “For the next few years, the site will be used as construction storage for the Eglinton Crosstown. Once the Eglinton Crosstown is up and running, there will no longer be a need to operate buses at that location. If the city wants to develop the area with some condos and office space, it needs to sort out the ownership of the site and consolidate all the pieces. This might be challenging because the TTC sold a portion of the air rights to a developer. The developer hasn’t done anything but could prevent the site from being put to its best use. The other issue is to determine what that is. Although everyone agrees something needs to be done, there are varying opinions on what should take the place of the eyesore: condos, commercial space or public space. The City of Toronto’s planning department conducted an extensive visioning exercise with the community and developed a plan that included high-rise condominiums, wide sidewalks, a new park and a new street to take some of the pressure off Duplex Avenue. The solution lies with a little bit of residential development, a little bit of commercial development and a park big enough to ease the feeling that we are being crowded out of our neighbourhood. It is well-known that North Toronto has a shortage of parks and green space, and the area is growing so rapidly that a new park needs to be part of any redevelopment plan. Eglinton Park is crowded, Toronto District School Board is selling off green space, and land in the area is too expensive for the city to buy in order to make a new park. Given that the city already owns the corner, it is a perfect location. The city won’t make as much money developing a park, but city building involves more than just trying to make a buck. I would also confidently say that, if there was a plan to create a beautiful green space, there would be another issue that would find unanimous agreement.”
