[PHOTO] Montgomery Square built on Postal Station K, Yonge and Eglinton

The site of Postal Station K, a Depression-era post office on Yonge Street just north of Eglinton, was sold in 2012 to condo developers. These days, the tower of Montgomery Square is rising over the front of this historic edifice.

[CAT] Shakespeare, cuddling

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Hamilton, Los Angeles and California, Montréal, London, Shenzhen

• The clashes of radical protesters in Hamilton are becoming worryingly more prominent. What is going on there? The Toronto Star reports.
• Marginal Revolution reports that Los Angeles, and all of California, is at last overcoming the densification that NIMBYists have been trying to block.
• Foreign buyers are apparently starting to drive up prices in Québec, especially Montréal, though to a lesser degree than elsewhere in Canada. Bloomberg reports.
• CBC reports on a tour of the city of London, highlighting the purchases of Russian oligarchs, that leaves me unsettled for a few reasons.
• This report on Naomi Wu, a maker of tech goods who has become a prominent figure representing a booming high-tech Shenzhen, is fascinating. Shenzhen is clearly a city to watch. VICE has it.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Lower Bay, housing, Villiers Island, Saigon Flower, Little Jamaica

• blogTO reports on an upcoming concert scheduled for the TTC’s Lower Bay station on the 11th of March.
• A new student residence for Ryerson University with prices actually comparable to prevailing rents for a studio apartment downtown seems like not the best solution to student housing issues. blogTO reports.
• The upcoming formation of a new island, Villiers Island off the mouth of the Don, as part of the Port Lands renewal is very cool. blogTO reports.
• Julien Gignac writes at the Toronto Star about the Saigon Flower, a Vietnamese restaurant on Queen Streeet West in the shadow of the Drake with an owner who refuses to sell. I have eaten there, and enjoyed it; I applaud her.
• The disruption being inflicted on Little Jamaica, an enclave stretching along an Eglinton Avenue West being disrupted by Crosstown construction, is sad. Is there any alternative, though, if we want more transit? What can be done for the neighbourhood? The Toronto Star reports.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Kambiz Kamrani at Anthropology.net notes that the more Neanderthal DNA gets sequenced, the more we know of this population’s history.
• Anthro{dendum} takes a look at anthropologists who use their knowledge and their access to other cultures for purposes of espionage.
• Crooked Timber tackles the question of immigration from another angle: do states have the authority to control it, for starters?
• Dangerous Minds shares a fun video imagining Netflix as it might have existed in 1995.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog considers how the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is an instance of American state failure.
• The Frailest Thing’s L.M. Sacasas considers is vows to abandon Facebook are akin to a modern-day vow of poverty.
• JSTOR Daily looks at Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and why it still matters.
• Language Log considers the naming practices of new elements like Nihonium.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money suggests that, based on the stagnation of average incomes in the US as GDP has growth, capitalism can be said to have failed.
• Lingua Franca considers the origin of the phrase “bad actor.”
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that the American opioid epidemic is not simply driven by economic factors.
• The NYR Daily considers how Poland’s new history laws do poor service to a very complicated past.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw has an interesting post examining the settlement of Australisa’s inland “Channel Country” by cattle stations, chains to allow herds to migrate following the weather.
• The Planetary Science Blog’s Emily Lakdawalla takes a look at the latest science on famously volcanic Io.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel examines how the Milky Way Galaxy is slowly consuming its neighbours, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds.

[PHOTO] Bloor/Gladstone Library, as seen from Gladstone Avenue

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Anthropology.net shares in the debunking of the Toba catastrophe theory.
• Architectuul features Mirena Dunu’s exploration of the architecture of the Black Sea coastal resorts of Romania, built under Communism.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly writes about the importance of sleep hygiene and of being well-rested.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the filaments of Orion, indicators of starbirth.
• Centauri Dreams notes how solar sails and the Falcon Heavy can be used to expedite the exploration of the solar system.
• D-Brief notes the discovery of debris marking the massive flood that most recently refilled the Mediterranean on the seafloor near Malta.
• Lucy Ferriss at Lingua Franca uses a recent sickbed experience in Paris to explore the genesis of Bemelmans’ Madeline.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money noted recently the 15th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq, trigger of a world-historical catastrophe.
• The LRB Blog hosts Sara Roy’s defense of UNRWA and of the definition of the Palestinians under its case as refugees.
• The NYR Daily notes how the regnant conservative government in Israel has been limiting funding to cultural creators who dissent from the nationalist line.
• Roads and Kingdoms uses seven food dishes to explore the history of Malta.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why, even though dark matter is likely present in our solar system, we have not detected signs of it.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society examines the field of machine learning, and notes the ways in which its basic epistemology might be flawed.
• Window on Eurasia notes how the dropping of the ethnonym “Mongol” from the title of the former Buryat-Mongol autonomous republic sixty years ago still makes some Buryats unhappy.

[PHOTO] Three photos of St. Cecilia’s Church, Annette Street

St. Cecilia Church, a Roman Catholic church at Annette and Pacific perhaps most notable for its popular Vietnamese mass, is beautiful against the deep blue of twilight.

[CAT] Shakespeare, warming himself in bed

[PHOTO] Double-sided tombstone, Fatimid Egypt (@metmuseum)