[PHOTO] Twenty-nine photos of Winter Stations and Woodbine Beach (#winterstations, #woodbinebeach)

Saturday, the 21st of March, was a perfect day to see the public art works in the 2020 Winter Stations, the sadly diminished crowds enabling me to have a socially distanced trip down to Woodbine. There, the three of the four Winter Stations artworks that were not destroyed by errant children at play still stood, sounded even when designed to do so. The grey sky hung over the damp brown beach, and the pale green-blue sea lapped at the shore.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, New Orleans, Berlin, Hasankeyf, Hong Kong

• Why not build a public beach in the Montréal neighbourhood of Lachine? Global News considers.
• The Vietnamese cuisine of New Orleans does look good. VICE reports.
• CityLab describes an effort to build a smart city in Berlin, in Siemensstadt. I wish Berliners better outcomes than what Toronto seems to be getting in the Port Lands.
• Guardian Cities reports on what seems to me to be a terrible plan to flood the ancient settlement of Hasankeyf in Turkey for dams.
• Saša Petricic at CBC looks at how the political consensus in Hong Kong has broken down, perhaps irretrievably.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Kingston, Town of the Blue Mountains, Québec City, Calgary, Edmonton

• Kingston will be hosting an open house discussion on the legacies of its most famous resident, John A. MacDonald. Global News reports.
• The Toronto Star reports on a beach and land ownership controversy in the Georgian Bay resort Town of the Blue Mountains, here.
• CBC Montreal reports on the closure of the Québec City church Très-Saint-Sacrement, after just under a century of operation, here.
• Cost increases for the Green Line LRT in Calgary may lead to route changes. Global News reports.
• The Brick has taken over the space of Sears in the West Edmonton Mall, offering hope to shopping malls of survival. Global News reports.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Ryan Anderson at anthro{dendum} looks at the unnatural history of the beach in California, here.
• Architectuul looks at the architectural imaginings of Iraqi Shero Bahradar, here.
• Bad Astronomy looks at gas-rich galaxy NGC 3242.
• James Bow announces his new novel The Night Girl, an urban fantasy set in an alternate Toronto with an author panel discussion scheduled for the Lillian H. Smith Library on the 28th.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the indirect evidence for an exomoon orbiting WASP-49b, a possible Io analogue detected through its ejected sodium.
• Crooked Timber considers the plight of holders of foreign passports in the UK after Brexit.
• The Crux notes that astronomers are still debating the nature of galaxy GC1052-DF2, oddly lacking in dark matter.
• D-Brief notes how, in different scientific fields, the deaths of prominent scientists can help progress.
• Bruce Dorminey notes how NASA and the ESA are considering sample-return missions to Ceres.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina looks at the first test flights of the NASA Mercury program.
• The Dragon’s Tales looks at how Japan is considering building ASAT weapons.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina looks at the first test flights of the NASA Mercury program.
• Far Outliers looks how the anti-malarial drug quinine played a key role in allowing Europeans to survive Africa.
• At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox considers grace and climate change.
• io9 reports on how Jonathan Frakes had anxiety attacks over his return as Riker on Star Trek: Picard.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the threatened banana.
• Language Log looks at the language of Hong Kong protesters.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how a new version of The Last of the Mohicans perpetuates Native American erasure.
• Marginal Revolution notes how East Germany remains alienated.
• Neuroskeptic looks at the participant-observer effect in fMRI subjects.
• The NYR Daily reports on a documentary looking at the India of Modi.
• Corey S. Powell writes at Out There about Neptune.
• The Planetary Society Blog examines the atmosphere of Venus, something almost literally oceanic in its nature.
• Noel Maurer at The Power and the Money considers how Greenland might be incorporated into the United States.
• Rocky Planet notes how Earth is unique down to the level of its component minerals.
• The Russian Demographics Blog considers biopolitical conservatism in Poland and Russia.
• Starts With a Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers if LIGO has made a detection that might reveal the nonexistence of the theorized mass gap between neutron stars and black holes.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps looks at Marchetti’s constant: People in cities, it seems, simply do not want to commute for a time longer than half an hour.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little looks at how the US Chemical Safety Board works.
• Window on Eurasia reports on how Muslims in the Russian Far North fare.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at cannons and canons.

[NEWS] Five links: gay genes, stone walls, US wealth, beaches, media

• That, as a new study suggests, there is no single gay gene, but rather multiple different originals for non-heterosexual sexual orientations and behaviours, makes intuitive sense to me. The Washington Post has one take.
• Atlas Obscura looks at the history behind the stone walls of New England.
• Justin Fox at Bloomberg examines how the once-commanding lead in incomes of the middle class of the United States over the middle classes of other countries is starting to fade.
• CityLab looks at how, too often by design, beaches in the United States are inaccessible to mass transit. (Toronto is lucky.)
• La Presse shares a proposal by Radio-Canada to move away from a media model of competing with other outlets towards one based on collaboration.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Belleville, Flint, Kingston, New York City, Vancouver

• Rising real estate prices in Toronto are driving similar increases in communities far from the GTA like Belleville. The Toronto Star reports.
• VICE reports on how good food can lead the rehabilitation of Flint, Michigan.
• Kingston will take three years to build its latest bridge. Global News reports.
• Beaches like NYC’s Rockaway Beach are facing pressures from climate change and from gentrification, CityLab reports.
• Many of the homeless camped in Vancouver’s Oppenheimer Park are being rehoused, as part of a slow-moving campaign. Global News reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links; transit, Jane-Finch, Rob Ford, Riverdale Park East, beaches

• The federal government will provide a billion dollars in funding to Toronto transit, including to Bloor-Yonge station and GO Transit. CBC reports.
• The Jane-Finch anti-violence barbecue has celebrated its tenth anniversary. CBC reports.
• blogTO notes that people in Toronto can vote for–or against–naming a new street in Etobicoke’s Six Points after Rob Ford.
• blogTO reports on the joys of Riverdale Park East.
• Shawn Micallef writes at the Toronto Star about what the city can do to make it easier for Torontonians to get to their city’s beaches.

[PHOTO] Nine photos from in and around Kew Gardens, The Beaches

As part of a campaign by the Beach Village BIA to attract pedestrian traffic to The Beaches, outdoor screenings of different movies have been scheduled every Wednesday night in Kew Gardens. I’ve gone to the past two, certainly appreciating the chance to explore.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: HTO Beach, street art, transit, Draper Street, real estate

• Toronto’s HTO Park, a fake beach on the waterfront of Queens Quay, has been flooded out by Lake Ontario, too. blogTO reports.
• This open-air street art museum around Dundas West is an ingenious idea. blogTO reports.
• David Hains at Spacing explains how the TTC plans for major sports events, like the recent Raptors series.
• One house in Corso Italia has just gone on the real estate market for the first time since 1919. The Toronto Star reports.
• The row of vintage homes on Draper Street and its recently passed keeper are memorialized nicely here. The Toronto Star reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Winnipeg, Vancouver, Stockholm, Vienna, Mariupol

• The salvaging and restoration of the Fortune Block in downtown Winnipeg is a victory indeed for preservationists. CBC reports.
• One hopes that Vancouver manages to settle on a plan for revitalizing its West End beaches. Global News reports
• Guardian Cities suggests that Stockholm has done a good job of keeping a proper work-life balance for its residents.
• Guardian Cities reports on the specific contributions of women to modern Vienna.
• Open Democracy reported before the Ukraine elections from the Donbas front line city of Mariupol, seeing how exhausted the locals were.