A plan has been filed at City Hall to uncover and save the facade of Chester Public School built in 1891 at 954 Broadview Ave. between Danforth and the Pottery Rd/Mortimer Ave. corner. The project is part of an 18-storey retirement home plan set on the high bank of the Don Valley. It is put forward by developer Revera Living and designed by Montgomery Sisam with heritage aspects overseen by ERA Architects and would reveal the old school for the first time since it was mostly hidden behind a 20th Century addition. Urban Toronto correctly calls it a forgotten heritage gem.
Wanzhen (Peter) Lu has been found apparently safe in Gravenhurst. Police say Lu, 22, knocked on the door of a home on Doe Lake Rd. in the Muskoka town and asked for help Tuesday night. “Shortly before 9 p.m. a man walked up to a residence on Doe Lake Road in Gravenhurst and he was looking for help,” Sgt. Andy Pattenden said. “He knocked on the door of the residence and a homeowner found him there and called police right away.” “I can tell you that officers with the Ontario Provincial Police attended and found the man and have identified him as 22-year-old Wanzhen Lu.” Pattenden said Lu was taken to hospital with minor injuries. “I can tell you that our investigators have been in very close contact with Lu’s family prior to their arrival in Canada from China and since they’ve been here our investigators have been able to provide this great news to the family, who I’m sure are sincerely relieved at this time,” he said. Lu is currently being interviewed by investigators as this case is “far from over,” Pattenden said. “Four suspects are still outstanding in this case,” he said. “We’re very concerned that they are still out there and I can tell you that our efforts are far from over.”
Police say that the man who was taken into custody yesterday on suspicion of being involved in the kidnapping has now been released unconditionally. It appears that police believe they were entirely wrong about this man’s involvement at any level. They say that the motive for this apparent abduction remains unknown but they hope to learn more from Mr. Lu. Gravenhurst is a town of some 12,000 people on the shore of Lake Muskoka. Doe Lake Rd. is a rural stretch with few homes. It seems at least possible that Lu was released by his kidnappers and walked some distance to find help. The CBC is reporting that it has obtained vehicle registration documents of a Range Rover used by Mr. Lu showing a lien put on the vehicle as of March 25. On Tuesday, the Range Rover remained in the garage from which Lu was taken. Pictures at what appears to be Lu’s Instagram account (@my.666666) depict great affluence.
The Ford government has sent two letters to the City essentially telling Councillors that it is going to take over the planning of four urgent subway construction projects planned for the near future. It says that the province is “committed to a three-stop extension” for Scarborough ending at the Scarborough Town Centre. This tosses out the much maligned one-stop wonder approved under the Liberal government. The PC cabinet letters say the government is also proposing that a significant portion of the Eglinton West extension to the Crosstown light rail transit (LRT) line be underground as opposed to a surface level right of way line as now planned.
Whither the tunnel
And the letters say the province wishes to co-ordinate work on the Relief Line South use “alternate delivery methods and an approach that would create such a free-standing project which would enable the procurement of a truly unique artery spanning the City that is not beholden to the requirements of the technologically-outdated Line 2.” Just what this means in specific terms is unclear to the lay reader. And finally the province wants work on the Yonge Subway Extension north to take place in tandem with the Relief Line “so that the in-service date for the extension is fast-tracked to the greatest extent possible.” The letters were sent to City Hall Tuesday. Province details plans to alter four major transit projects in Toronto
Metrolinx plans to close Leslie St. presumably near Eglinton for the months of July and August to permit construction of the LRT. There was a mailing or door to door delivery Tuesday in the area of Leaside telling of this plan. The Councillor Jaye Robinson, is aware and said that she will attend Metrolinx Community Meeting scheduled for April 4 at the Japanese-Canadian Cultural Centre, 6 Garamond Ct. There is substantial indignation plan on Facebook
Postcard delivered in Leaside and presumably elsewhere Tuesday.
Among the angry posts are appeals about the overall difficulty of exiting Leaside to the north. One says “Please do not let Metrolinx do this! If they block the road for cars, they will block the ONLY route for cyclists to get to Sunnybrook Park to access downtown since Wilket Creek is never going to reopen. We have no alternate routes for any form of transportation with this crazy idea.” Another says: “At times getting out of Leaside to go north on Bayview can be next to impossible during the evening rush hour, backtracking to Leslie was the only option to get out of town, now that option is gone.”
The charity Toronto Cat Rescue (TCR) has posted photos of a Toronto home where some 100 cats were being kept in what is said to be “hoarding” conditions. The location is not given. It says 50 cats were removed and it is asking for cat-lovers to adopt one or more. It also asks for donations. The limit by municipal bylaw is six cats per home. It’s not clear from the post if the other cats were left at the home at or placed elsewhere. Toronto Cat Rescue, a volunteer-driven group, was notified about the house by an online report. It then notified Toronto Animal Services and the Toronto Humane Society and the three groups coordinated a response. There is a long thread associated with this post. One says that the home seems very clean for that of a hoarder person. FacebookTCR principals
Inspector Sonia Thomas as a newly-hired WPC in 1986
Inspector Sonia Thomas of 53 Division recalls her mother worrying how she would ever get on by joining the police in 1986. As told by Thomas, they didn’t see too many black police officers when she was growing up near Oakwood Ave. and St. Clair Ave. W. Her mom, trained as a nurse in England, was concerned when she learned Sonia was joining the Toronto Police. “She had concerns about how I was going to rise through the ranks in an organization that didn’t have people at the top that looked like us,” said Thomas. Nonetheless, Thomas made history in 2010 by becoming the service’s first black woman senior officer. She retires on March 28. Thomas Legacy in Fellow Officers
A power outage in the Upper Beaches has been fixed, Toronto Hydro has tweeted. At its largest, the blackout was bounded by Cowell Street, Danforth Avenue, Victoria Park Avenue and Lake Ontario.
Delivery nurses at the Maine Medical Centre in Portland are what you might call “into their jobs” as the wonderful photo above attests. Then, Apple will do what most everybody is doing in 2019, start a streaming service. It may turn out fine but the usual audience of trained seals for Tim Cook at today’s announcement was so boring. Below that, CityNews reports on a salacious and genuinely unnatural garment for babies which was being shipped by Amazon. Watch out for nasty language. Finally, great fun Monday as the Raptors hung out with kids at the MSLE Launchpad.
Canada’s billionaire power couple, Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman, have donated $100 million to the University of Toronto for an artificial intelligence complex. The gift, from the couple known mostly by private-equity firm Onex Corp. and Indigo Books & Music Inc., is the largest in the university’s history and biggest for Canada’s technology sector, said the academic institution. It will be used to build the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Centre starting this year. Toronto Star
Billionaire power couple Heather Reisman and Gerald Schwartz
Police have located the minivan that a Chinese national was stuffed into against his will on Saturday night but there is still no sign of Wanhzen (Peter) Lu and police say the kidnappers’ motive remains unclear. Police hinted that his parents, or perhaps other relatives, are on their way to Canada from China. The black Dodge Caravan caught on security camera footage was located in Toronto but was empty. Lu, 22, was allegedly kidnapped shortly before 6 p.m. on Saturday, after he and a female passenger exited a black SUV in the underground parking garage of Lu’s condo building in Markham. The police say there is dead silence from the apparent kidnappers. Lu, a post-secondary student was hit by a man with a stun gun before three other men dragged him into the van and drove off. Lu’s woman friend witnessed all this and is “traumatized” but physically unharmed. She raised the alarm. YRP spokesman Andy Pattenden called the case “odd” and said the motive remains a mystery. “We like someone to tell us,” he told reporters.“Why him? Why not the friend he was with?” Pattenden went on.
CTV says Justin Trudeau and then Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould disagreed vigorously over who should fill the vacancy left at the Supreme Court of Canada by the retirement of Beverley McLaughlin. The news service says that a year before cabinet discussions about a plea deal for Quebec engineering company SNC-Lavalin, Trudeau and Wilson-Raybould jousted over the minister’s recommendation of Manitoba Justice Glenn D. Joyal. Trudeau is said to have been concerned that Judge Joyal wasn’t committed to protecting rights that have been interpreted under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This was true particularly of LGBTQ2 rights and possibly abortion access, neither of which are specifically enshrined in the Charter. CBC says that Joyal was too conservative in his view of activism on Charter Rights for Mr. Trudeau. Wilson-Raybould not only wanted Joyal named to the court to fill the vacancy left by McLaughlin’s resignation, she believed Joyal should replace McLachlin as the top court’s chief justice, a position that caused Trudeau to question his justice minister’s judgment, sources told CTV. Trudeau quashed the recommendation and instead named Alberta judge Sheilah Martin to the court. Justice Richard Wagner became chief justice.
Faces, faces and (at left) Brian Nadon and his friend Ginger make the news for their plan to cycle from Vancouver to Florida to raise funds to battle PTSD. Ginger will be in the trailer cart. Take a look. At centre, Wayne S. Roberts, widely known and liked in Leaside, has moved his long-time firm Blade Branding to 15 Gervais Drive across the Don Valley Parkway. The familiar Blade sign still stands at the former location, 146-150 Laird, but that building is being re-developed (below). Finally, with Spring cleaning fever in the air, Kate Gardiner has become a social media sensation for her zeal at picking up trash wherever she finds it. Love your style, Kate.
Places we knew have had to move out at 146-150 Laird Drive
