[PHOTO] East on Geary at Dufferin, Toronto

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Standing on Geary Avenue just east of Dufferin Street, this one of Toronto’s newest hip streets looks perfectly ordinary and quietly miraculous under the line of street lights.

[URBAN NOTE] Three notes about Muslims, their haters and my neighbourhood and cats, in Toronto

• Daily Xtra‘s Arshy Mann and Evan Balgord report on how the Jewish Defense League plans on marching in Toronto Pride. Grand.
• Spacing’s Shazlin Rahman reports on the Jane’s Walk she organized around sites of significance to Muslims around Bloor and Dufferin.
• The Toronto Star‘s Nicholas Keung and Raju Mudhar reported earlier this month on the happy reunification of a Syrian couple with their cat.

[PHOTO] Shrine among the flowers in late evening, St. Mary of the Angels, Dufferin and Davenport

I was walking south on Dufferin Street towards St. Mary of the Angels, a Roman Catholic Church on the southeast corner of Davenport Road and Dufferin in Davenport, when I saw this shrine and these flowers.

[URBAN NOTE] “Toronto’s Dufferin Street named second worst road in province by CAA”

Oh, my Dufferin Street! From CP24:

The Canadian Automobile Association says Burlington Street East in Hamilton has won the dubious distinction of being voted Ontario’s worst road for 2017.

[. . .]

Dufferin Street has made nine appearances on the provincial top 10 list since the campaign’s inception more than a decade ago.

[PHOTO] Wallace Emerson Community Centre in spring

I love these arches, and will be sad to see them go with the impending condo development at Dupont and Dufferin.

[URBAN NOTE] Four articles about changing Toronto neighbourhoods, and Hamilton as Brooklyn

• NOW Toronto recently had a cover article looking at the history of the Annex’s Brunswick House, now converted to a Rexall. Could it have been the Bloor’s equivalent to the Drake?
• The Toronto Star reports on growing tensions in Parkdale over the Metcap rent strike.
• NOW Toronto looks at how artists are starting to take over the Galleria Mall, to imagine what could be.
• NOW Toronto suggests that Hamilton could, maybe, be about to evolve into the GTA’s equivalent of Brooklyn.

[URBAN NOTE] “Beyond ­Galleria Mall”

NOW Toronto‘s Joshua Sherman tells the story of a Jane’s Walk organized by Shari Kasman around the parking lots of Dufferin and Dupont.

“Thanks for coming to this beautiful parking lot on this beautiful, sunny day in Toronto.”

Shari Kasman is speaking into a red-and-white megaphone. And it’s not sunny at all. It’s a drizzly May 6 Saturday afternoon outside the Galleria Mall at Dufferin and Dupont.

Kasman, a local artist and author, is starting her latest guided tour, Parking Lots & Parking Spots: Galleria Mall & Beyond. It’s one of nearly 180 that took place last weekend in Toronto as part of the annual Jane’s Walk festival, named for the late urban activist Jane Jacobs.

While other local Jane’s Walks explore the historic aspects of the city, this tour is dedicated to the unglamorous and utilitarian: where Torontonians in a small pocket of the west end park “from the perspective of a non-expert,” Kasman tells NOW ahead of the event, making it clear this tour is no joke.

She may not be a parking authority, but Kasman, who already has two other Galleria-based Jane’s Walks under her belt, has been busy reading up on the subject for the past few weeks.