The South Bayview Bulldog

So, what does Rosie ODonnell have in common with the Toronto Star? Ms O’Donnell and the notoriously chippy Donald Trump battled it out in public over everything from politics to Trump’s hair. Trump didn’t like the slights delivered on air by the equally caustic Rosie. Now the Toronto Star has revealed Donald Trump refused to invite the Star to his big condo reception yesterday.  The Star, under the leadership of publisher John Cruickshank (right) has been sniping on matters medium and small from unhappy buyers of Trump condos to his flip-flop endorsement of Mitt Romney. Mr Trump collects public arguments — but then so does the Toronto Star. A spat made in Heaven. “Gee, is it something we said?”

The high excitement of travel is never totally free from peril. The government’s air safety board has concluded that a sleepy Air Canada co-pilot first mistook the planet Venus for an aircraft, and then sent his airliner diving toward the Atlantic to prevent an imaginary collision with another plane. It’s an event to start the fail-safe experts heading back to the drawing board in their quest for safety. The picture above shows a sparkling Venus. If this is what the pilot saw as he woke up it would be frigthening indeed. Sixteen passengers and crew were hurt in the January 2011 incident, when the first officer rammed the control stick forward to avoid a U.S. plane he wrongly thought was heading straight toward him. Bloomberg

The Garden Court Nurseries 1466 Bayview, an institution for homeowners in surrounding neighborhoods, is on the market. The strip of land on the north-west corner of Davisville Ave. and Bayivew Ave is 95.5 ft by 25 ft and  is zoned Commercial or Commercial-Residential. The asking price is $829,000.  The obvious question will be what use could be made of a piece of land this size? The notice in HomeFinder.ca invites potential buyers to “Build Your Dream Business” on the site. Garden Court has reigned as the place to go for generations of families seeking bedding plants each Spring and Christmas trees in December. It’s safe to say that over the decades millions of trips have been made to Tremblett’s Valu Mart lot next door to Garden Court. It’s not known if there has been any discussion with Trembleltt’s about this piece of property adjoining the grocery store.  

Donegall Drive is a typically active street for re-sales and renovations. A recent sale at 74 Donegall reveals again the value of these homes. This two-storey, three bedroom  property is just south of Fleming. Bonnie Byford RE sold the home for $831,000. That’s 109% of list.  Picture on right shows a selling feature — fine wood and glass detail. 

It’s the season for garage sales and they got off to a good start at 221 Moore Ave today. The owners had been out of the country and when they returned they realized how much stuff they had accumulated over the years. 

Hope you were looking around today as you went about your business. It was the day the trees turned green all over South Bayviewland.  Here we see the exhilerating sight on Bessborough Drive at mid-afternoon.