The South Bayview Bulldog

Work will proceed 24 hours a day at the intersection of Parliament St and Gerrard St East starting Monday and run through to Monday, June 4 at 6 a.m. for the replacement of streetcar tracks. But work to break concrete will stop at 11 p.m. The City says road users should expect delays and increased traffic on nearby roadways. Motorists should use alternate routes such as Jarvis St, River St, Bloor St East and Dundas St East.  Pedestrians will be detoured around the work area on sidewalks or walkways. Cyclists are encouraged to dismount and walk around the intersection.

Homes coming down on Rumsey

Homes were being demolished on Rumsey Rd. north of McRae Dr. Thursday morning in a plan to build single family dwellings in their place. It appears the designated buildings are 177, 175, 173 and 171. An earlier story was incorrect in this regard. There is still no signage on the location but the City building website indicates application has been made to build in accordance with the present zoning. In other building news, a residence worthy of Rosedale or perhaps the Bridle Path has gone up at the corner of Parkhurst Blvd and Bessborough Drive (below) This large new structure has space at the north end for parking although there does not seem to be work underway on a garage. There is no back yard but the front yard is spacious and presumably could be judiciously fenced. Or not.

78 Parkhurst at Bessborough

Ivy Glen Homes

Project at 1951 Yonge at Davisville

Josh Matlow (Ward 22) has convened a meeting Thursday night  at  Greenwood College School, 443 Mt.  Pleasant  Rd. at Davisville Ave., to air plans by the Times Group for the northeast corner of Yonge St. and Davisville Ave. The proposed project is known as 1951 Yonge St.  Matlow calls it “completely inappropriate.” He has shepherded a motion at City Council asking the Ontario Municipal Board to deny any approval of the project. It calls for two towers (34 and 25 storeys) apparently on either side of the  historic J. J. Davis store built in 1894. That historic store is now a Starbucks. Matlow has said that as currently proposed, the two towers would have unacceptable shadow impacts on the Davisville school field. Of further concern, is the potential traffic impacts to the local community, especially the area surrounding the school. “I will fight the most recent proposal to add more traffic onto Millwood,” he said. The meeting begins at 6.30 p.m.

Police are investigating the discovery of a hidden camera reportedly found in the washroom of the Starbucks at Yonge and King Sts. A customer told the store’s manager about the camera last Wednesday. It was hidden in the electrical outlet in one of the washrooms at 4 King. All washrooms at Starbucks are unisex. A day later, Starbucks alerted Toronto police to the hidden camera. Police have the camera in their possession and have launched an investigation. In a statement, a Starbucks spokesman said “employees regularly clean and stock the washrooms multiple times a day. Employees are told if they notice anything or are alerted to anything unusual to immediately report it to police.”

This was the first day of the 2018 Ontario general election campaign and Premier Wynne made a visit to Etobicoke Lakeshore, Ford Nation country. She hopes it will be more than symbolic. The above useful summary from City News also has Doug Ford saying he will go back to “the original plan” for the Scarborough subway. What does this mean? Josh Matlow (Ward 22) and other  downtowners have long sought a return to the plan for a multi-stop LRT. Ford also said a PC government will assume all costs and planning for Toronto subways while leaving the TTC to run the system.

VOTING

It is also revealed Wednesday that vote counting in the June 7 election will be done by electronic tabulating machines. Don’t panic. There will still be paper ballots if the system collapses. The linked CBC story is here and reveals among the comments a stream of thought that electronic voting is unreliable, or subject to manipulation.  Elections Ontario

• As campaign starts, Ontario’s election is Doug Ford’s to lose

What a mess. Check out the man who falls in it. To the right, Italian sweethearts who died in the dreadful Grenfell apartment fire in London last June have been immortalized in a fairytale. Interesting. Below that, we see an 11-year-old girl tumble out of the back seat of a car-jacked SUV in Illinois. Her father had been forced out of the driver’s seat moments before. And finally, all about false eyelashes, those decorations of the window to our soul.

All aboard!

A rare quirk of TTC labour relations will open Line One this weekend because the union doesn’t care to work. The Amalgamated Transit Union has cancelled an agreement on overtime because he believes the service is understaffed. The subway was to close between Lawrence West and Sheppard West stations on Saturday for the weekend (May 12 and 13) but now will be open. The TTC was made an essential service in 2011 after a stoppage in which there was essentially no notice, leaving passengers stranded after a night out.

OTHER NEWS

• CPP to inverst in South Korean office complex
• Summer jobs program shows ‘totalitarian’ tendency: ex-religious freedom envoy
• La Presse to become a non-profit run by a social trust
• Ford vows to replace sex-ed, math curricula, tie university funds to free speech

A resident of Sutherland Drive is appealing on Facebook for security camera footage after the theft of valuables from a car overnight. The home is located between Bessborough Drive and Bayview Ave. The poster asks that “If you have cameras and footage of people checking locks last night PLEASE let me know so I can share this with the police.” If unable to enter the FB account write to The Bulldog at news@bayview-news.com and it will be passed on. Leaside Community

Tires squeal

An overcorrection as a motorcycle goes by

Disaster

Adrian Ghobrial of City News recounts the tricky business of showing off in your high-powered car down by the waterfront. Amusing in a way. Or is that mean-spirited? Well never mind, because there’s much joy in Newfoundland and Labrador as the government there decides to sell marijuana in grocery stores. A footnote to this is that Loblaw owns the name Dominion down there. Just like the one that used to sit at Eglinton and Bayview, except there’s no pot at the Metro. On we go with the ABC story of the guy who invites women to dinner and then, on the pretext of a call from his son, leaves the table. He never comes back and they have to pay. Finally, Kim Jong un was back in China over the weekend. Xi Jinping, the supreme everything, is getting ready to meet with the South Koreans and Japanese. It makes Kim nervous.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will stay in the Iran nuclear deal at least until he sees if European countries are prepared to stay in. His foreign minister try to encourage those countries. especially the UK, France and Germany, to negotiate a revised deal after the US decision to pull out. Otherwise, he will restart enriching uranium “in the next weeks.” It is seen as a doubling-down for the cleric who has seen his signature foreign policy achievement threatened. Trump signed a presidential memorandum withdrawing from the 2015 agreement and he is planning to reinstall sanctions on the Iranian regime. Plan to sell Boeing jets to Iran will be cancelled.

Urban Toronto updates design tweaks for Plaza Midtown, a Quadrangle-designed development. It will add two condominium towers to an existing Tower-in-the-Park site in Midtown Toronto southeast of the of Yonge and Eglinton. One feature among the towers is a park of some 1550 square metres at Soudan and Dunfield Aves. See story here