The South Bayview Bulldog

This looks like an engrossing show. It has a trace of the medieval Cirque de Soleil style.

With prom goers in Vancouver

A group photo has emerged of the prime minister with kids on the Vancouver waterfront on their way to the prom. The PM was jogging by and things just happened. The video at the left updates the horrifying attack on pedestrians in Times Square. A huge memorial to Alyssa Elsman, the girl who died, has formed at the spot. And the back story to the sea lion leap that took a young girl into the water in BC. is to the right.

Citidis Spirit train by Alstom

They will run in Ottawa

Urban Toronto has a lot of research in the linked post on the back-up French train maker Alstom, which has just been given a contract to make cars for Metrolinx. As reported at the time, these cars (designated the Citidis Spirit) may or may not run on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT depending on whether Bombardier can possibly fulfill its committment. (As the TTC chair has tartly remarked, “I’ll  believe it when I see it.”) In any case, the Alstom cars are longer than Bombardier cars and if they run on the Crosstown, there may have to be changes so they fit. Read the comments. Take a look  Urban Toronto

The heartbreaking case of a 90-year-old man from New Westminster who became a serial target of fraud perpetrators is told by the CBC. In all of Ron Jones dealings with scammers by mail and phone, there is a striking absence of any reference to those outside the scam who would have stopped it. Mr. Jones had a daughter nearby and access to the authorities. The final deceit involved the claim that there was an arrest warrant for Jones and that he should pay money to catch those who had previously duped him. It should cause anyone to call police when the idea of paying money to get rid of an arrest warrant are put together. In the end, banks and a lending firm forgave more than $100,000 in loans. CBC

The North Leaside Traffic Committee has recommended the one-year trial closing at Bayview Ave. of all three east-west streets north of Eglinton. These are Glenvale Blvd, Broadway Ave. and Craig Crescent. The NLTC has studied and rejected an alternative scheme for an elaborate one-way street system for North Leaside. The committee, which was created by Councillor Burnside in 2015, proposes to place so-called concrete Jersey Barriers at Bayview and the entrances to these three streets to stop traffic both ways. The scope of the committee’s recommendations is enormous. Members seem to concede there is little chance for them to foresee all the consequences of their recommendations nor the things which are likely to flow from the re-making of Eglinton Ave. after the LRT is built and running. Councillor Burnside has written a summary of the work and this analysis is worth reading. A visual spread-sheet of the two NLTC proposals is here.  Residents are asked to fill out a survey.The survey is for every voting-aged member of a household. The survey is designed that way to mimic as closely as possible the City polling process, if required in the future, should the community indicate an interest in moving forward on a particular proposal.

INTEREST TO ALL SOUTH BAYVIEW

The potential impact of any traffic-calming plan has relevance to the broader area. The impact for those west of Bayview on Broadway and other streets of the dead-ending at Bayview and Broadway is unclear. The Leaside planning process has thrown up guesses about the numbers of people who will occupy new high-rise development such as that to be built  at the Sunnybrook Plaza site. Some say there will be as many as 10,000 people added between Bayview and Brentcliffe alone. The future political impact of these residents seemed to weigh heavily on planning.

When Peel police we were called to a backyard party and rock session Saturday in Mississauga the teen band Vinyl Ambush feared the worst. But after discussing the noise complaint, a certain PC Clark got a hankering to play a set on the drums. He and his partner negotiated a curfew of 9 p.m. with the band. They left but shortly after Clark and his buddy returned to the home. Clark asked drummer Jack Laing if he could have a go. The result is the video on the left. The newly-formed band was in the yard to play at a birthday for the father of one of the band members. The arrival of the police made the young musicians nervous at first. “I dropped my guitar, put it down and moved away,” the band’s guitarist Pedro Alvarado told CityNews. “I thought he was going to give us a ticket or something for being loud, but then he said ‘rock on.’” “He played perfectly all the way through,” said lead singer Belle Matthews. “It was amazing, I was astounded” “I’ll probably remember this for the rest of my life,” bassist Corwin Bjelic told City.

Windows and doors boarded over

Old sign is gone

No more peeking inside

The old Four Season Auto Glass and repair shop at Laird Drive and Wicksteed Ave has been boarded up and given a slap or two of white paint. It appears that the empty property may remain this way for a while. It certainly seems to suggest that demolition is not imminent, contrary to much speculation. Four Seasons Auto at 199 Laird sold for $10.5 million

The CBC has compiled a list of money paid to the heads of charities on the Ontario Sunshine List for 2016. These are organization getting at least $1 million in public money to support them:

• Piers Handling, $352,260, Toronto International Film Festival Inc., Director & CEO.
• George Habib, $342,831, Ontario Lung Association, President & CEO.
• John Rafferty, $326,300, The Canadian National Institute for the Blind, President & CEO.
• David Samuel Hillier, $322,877, Shepherd Village (seniors’ care), President & CEO.
• Conrad Sauve, $321,299, The Canadian Red Cross, President & CEO.
• Barry Bisson, $316,731, Shad Valley International (education), President.
• Medhat Mahdy, $305,303, YMCA of Greater Toronto, President & CEO.
• Paul Goodyear, $303,956, The Governing Council of the Salvation Army, Territorial financial secretary.
• Anthony Sargent, $299,999, Luminato (Toronto Festival of Arts), CEO.
• Myroslav Klymkiw, $297,440, Canadian Film Centre, CEO.
• Michele Maheux, $284,279, Toronto International Film Festival, Executive director and chief operating officer.
• Kevin Frey, $268,836, Right To Play International, CEO.
• Julia Dumanian, $268,749, Canadian Hearing Society, President & CEO.
• Catherine Macdonald, $264,953, Ontario Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, CEO.
• Susanne Gillespie, $264,300, Pathways to Education Canada, President & CEO.
• Sharon Broughton, $258,411, Kids Help Phone, President & CEO.
• Geoff Cape, $255,329, Evergreen (urban sustainability), CEO.
• Deborah Sevenpifer, $253,784, YMCA of Greater Toronto, Chief financial officer.
• Andria Spindel, $252,709, March of Dimes Canada, President & CEO.

Lee statue has stood since 1884

Hoisted off pedestal in New Orleans

Considered offensive

Robert E. Lee has gone down to defeat again, this time at  Lee Circle, a downtown corner in New Orleans, named for him 130 years ago. City Council voted to kick the Confederate general off his pedestal in the face of complaints that his presence was racist. In video, Donald Trump performs a sword dance, traditional symbol of friendship. And to the right, the circus is over. Literally. Today will see the last performance ever of the Barnum and Baily Ringling Brothers extravaganza.

Hives on high at Canadian Opera Company

Reader Monica Mueller says she’s noticed a plenitude of honey bees around her Millwood Rd. and Bayview Ave. home in recent days. She notes they are calm and easy to handle. Mueller is a member of the Citizen Science honey bee group, people keeping track of bees and doing what they can to perpetuate nature’s essential creatures of pollination. She wonders if others have similar observations and whether the bees are from local urban hives such as those at Casa Loma or downtown atop the Canadian Opera Company building. Do other readers have honey bee observations?

The new Leaside location at 900 Don Mills opens this Tuesday, May 23.

— Urban Nature Store (@urbannaturestor) May 20, 2017

An unidentified girl was pulled off the dock at Steveston in Richmond, B.C. by a large male sea lion who naturalists say probably mistook the girl’s white dress as fish. Her shocked family members quickly pulled the child, perhaps aged 9 or 10, from the water and she is okay. The incident was recorded by Michael Fujiwara, a student at Simon Fraser University who happened to be nearby and began to take video of the family feeding the sea lion. Needless to say, part of the aftermath is a warning not to feed wildlife. Fujiwara says the family began feeding the seat lion bread crumbs. The video is charming in the  beginning. Then the young girl gets closer to the edge of the dock, leaning over the edge and finally sitting on the edge. The alarming snatching of the girl occurs at about 1.35 of the video above. She sits on a protective ledge of the wharf within easy reach of the sea lion’s leap. He comes out of the water and  grabs her dress with his mouth and take her into the water. Fujiwara said the child was shaken up but all right. So was her family.. “They were pretty shaken up,” he said. “Her family were just in shock.” Family slammed for ‘reckless behaviour’ after sea lion drags girl into water in Richmond, B.C.