A fire has ripped through a 150 year-old building at 84 Yorkville Ave. It has been declared a three-alarm emergency following a report by the security company that summoned firefighters about 8.30 a.m. There is much heroic coverage on CP24. There is a bizarre late in a tweet from TFD that police have arrested a man for attacking a firefighter..It is not known if there is any historic value to the old building, which would seem to have been damaged beyond repair. It will have been part of the original Yorkville Village before amalgamation and perhaps a haunt for the alternative lifestyle people who lived and patronized Yorkville during the 1960s.
Nearly 800 riders were safely removed from a GO train on the main line from Toronto to Oakville Tuesday night after the multi-car commuter unit struck a tractor trailer on a crossing just east of Dixie station. The tractor had apparently stalled on the crossing shortly before the train came along. To those who ride the GO it may seem like engineers on these double decker babies leave Union Station each day with instructions to find a truck and hit it. It just seems that way. Freelance photographer Dan Sutton got himself into the heart of the train and truck collision to get a very good picture. Pictures by Dan Sutton
Half a year has passed since the eviction of some 90 tenants at the heritage rental apartments on Bayview Ave. in Leaside. The modest structures known as the Kelvingrove and Glen-Leven apartments are now vacant, except for certain newer units more recently built over the garages on the spacious property. What’s being done to these small housekeeping apartments which were so prized and loved by those who were thrown out? The answer is not very much. Looking through windows and door glass of the apartments reveals quite limited types of work. Typically, the openings between the tiny kitchens and the sitting area of the apartments have been widened, as seen in the inset pictures. Workmen say that “everything” is going to be done over but by most ways of assessing this, the improvements would appear to be superficial. We see things like kitchen and bathroom fixtures. That will certainly make things nicer in the units but it does not appear that they are going to be merged to make larger and more richly-rentable places. Owned by Manitoba Pension Fund The ultimate owner of the Kelvingrove and Glen-Leven Apartments is the Civil Service Superannuation Board of Manitoba.(CSSBM). It is a pension fund for Manitoba teachers and others. A number of holding companies exist to cloud the ownership and the most commonly named of these is ADMNS Kelvingrove. Decisions about the future of the apartments, including the evictions, are made by the nine-member investment committee of the CSSBM. The Internet information provided by the NDP government reveals the committee is chaired by Peter G. Munro and includes the Manitoba Deputy Minister of Finance, John Clarkson. The Kelvingrove, Glen-Leven and related properties were the subject of a bitter battle between the owner and the Leaside Property Owners Association in the years following 2010. The LOPA said the buildings were historic and part of the community’s heritage. It won that battle. While it saved the buildings, it could not save the homes of the Leasiders who lived there. The simple red brick buildings between 1351 and 1365 Bayview on the east side were built by Howard Talbot, who served as Mayor of Leaside from 1938 to 1947.
Conrad Black owes the Canadian government taxes on $5.1 million of income and taxable benefits from 2002, according to a ruling by the Tax Court of Canada CBC
A new video of Mayor Ford recorded at a restaurant on Rexdale Blvd last night (Monday, January 20, 2014) has been posted to YouTube. Make what you will of it, assuming that you still care about Rob Ford in the slightest. You can hear him slur the police chief. There are vulgarisms and the use of Jamaican patois, according to some. Ford says “No, no, no but I’m a straight-up guy” when someone with him says he should be prime minister. His brother Doug Ford insisted the video was not shot yesterday because the mayor had not had a drink since November. However, about 4.30 p.m. at City Hall, Mayor Ford admitted that he was at the restaurant, that he was indeed drinking “a little bit” and saying it was on his own time. At City Hall this video has been like a blood transfusion to a CP24 suffering the news anaemia of a day which it is too cold for anything but traffic accidents. A number of councillors said they did not wish to be “distracted” again by the mayor’s behaviour but they were available to talk about the issue again for quite a long time and thereby propelled the story. One distressed member lamented to reporters that council was going to be distracted “this winter” Some may say the dramatic distraction is more like politicking. Stephen LeDrew comments that this video has potential to destroy Mr. Ford’s comeback attempt. The previously hapless mayor was beginning to look respectable again after his energetic performance during the ice storm. Now he just looks hapless.
Reader gjp19 has commented on the LRT construction post –Ed: Having attended plenty of LRT meetings in recent months, my main question to the representatives from Metrolinx was what measures would be put in place to lessen the traffic chaos to residents near the construction as well as to drivers. I was told many times all that information would be shared in late Winter/Spring as construction would most likely not start until the Fall of 2014. I am so glad that the representatives at the meetings were up to date on one of the largest construction projects in Toronto. But hey, I did in fact receive an email telling me when construction would start a week before it looks to commence. No wonder Torontonians have zero faith in that we can manage projects on a large scale (Pan Am, Olympic bid, the Gardiner Expressway, etc) – gjp19
There’s a cold alert, as if you needed to be told. For weather, South Bayview is like the south side of Mars today. Well, you can always duck into Chai or Second Cup, unlike Mars. An Arctic air mass (the hated Polar Vortex) has settled over southern Ontario, plunging much of the region into a deep freeze that is bringing wind chills as low as -35. Environment Canada is encouraging people to limit their exposure to the cold and bundle up when they head outdoors. (Well yeahhh!). In Toronto, the temperature dropped to -20 C with a frigid wind chill of -30 overnight, creating dangerous conditions for homeless people who spent the night on the street. So that’s the sorry weather word. Do you want to know about the frozen streetcars? Well here it is because we have some space to fill. The cold weather is causing problems again for the TTC’s fleet of aging streetcars. Customers can expect longer than normal wait times on all streetcar routes due to weather-related equipment problems. Shuttle buses have been brought in to supplement streetcar service.
Moms-to-be-and-more will close an hour early at 5 p.m. on Thursday, January 23, 2014. The store will be the site of filming which is being done there. Moms-to-be-and-more will re-open at the regular opening time of 10 a.m. on Thursday, January 24, 2014.
A dark plume of smoke rose up from the Pickering water treatment plant this morning (Tuesday, January 20, 2014). Firefighters were fighting a fire at the plant and by 11 a.m. appeared to be beaten down. The Dufferin Creek Water Pollution Control Plant is located on McKay Road near Squires Beach Road, south of Highway 401. Durham police say an explosion occurred inside one of the buildings but no one suffered any injuries and everyone is accounted for.
There is a terrible tangle of cars along with a huge 18-wheeler transport truck piled up on Kingston Rd. near the corner of Bellamy Rd. at mid-morning (Tuesday, January 20, 2014) Video shown at CP24 shows EMS personnel using heavy rescue equipment. As many as five people are injured. Occupants of the vehicles which have been released from wreckage are being loaded onto ambulances. Police advise drivers to stay away from the area.
As posted earlier, work is imminent on Eglinton Ave. E in connection with the construction of the Crosstown Eglinton LRT. Metrolinx says digging may start as early as this week to prepare for the large so-called launch shafts for tunnel boring machines (TBMs). The site will stretch east from Brentcliffe Road. It appears that the boring work done in 2014 will take place between Brentcliffe and the vicinity of Yonge Street. As construction approaches certain neighborhoods, more localized construction notices will be distributed. The two TBMs will begin tunnelling at the launch shaft east of Brentcliffe and work their way west towards Yonge. It appears the westward progress of the tunnels requires a large work zone east of Brentcliffe Road over to Leslie Street during this phase. Barriers and other protection measures will be used to separate the work zone safely from the public. Traffic lanes will be shifted to the north side of Eglinton Avenue between Brentcliffe Road and Leslie Street to allow construction crews to begin excavation of the shaft from the south side. Traffic will be reduced to one lane in each direction along Eglinton Avenue East in the work zone east of Brentcliffe Road. A long-term closure of the pathway to Eglinton Ave. from Aerodrome Crescent is required. A short-term closure of the north side pedestrian walkway along Eglinton Avenue is required for approximately 4-6 weeks. The sidewalk on the south side of Eglinton will be open during this time. Subsequently, a long-term closure of the south side pedestrian walkway on Eglinton Avenue is required for the construction of the Tunnel Boring Machine launch pit. The sidewalk on the north side of Eglinton will be open for pedestrian use.Pedestrians are reminded to cross the streets at corners with traffic lights or stop signs. Crossing in the middle of a block can be dangerous. Please take care when travelling near construction areas and watch for additional signs directing pedestrians. Barriers will be used to separate the work zone from the traffic. Both eastbound and westbound TTC bus stops in the construction area may be relocated for the safety of the transit riders. With the Metrolinx new release.
