[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] Seven Toronto links

• Some of the apartments hit by the Gosford apartment fire have been repaired and opened to their tenants again. Global News reports.
• Steve Munro maps the 70 O’Connor bus route in action as a case study, here.
• Condo developers have created the new neighbourhood of “West St. Clair West” out of, among other established neighbourhoods, Carleton Village. blogTO reports.
• The plans for the controversial new Pharrell Williams condo development at Yonge and Eglinton look interesting. blogTO shares.
• Should Toronto have free public mass transit? NOW Toronto makes the case.
• Brian Doucet at Spacing Toronto takes a look at the Toronto CLRV streetcars in their North American context, here.
• The repeated flooding of the Toronto Islands, as NOW Toronto points out, surely demonstrates the reality of climate change for Toronto.

[URBAN NOTE] Fifteen Kingston, Ontario links (#kingstonon)

• CBC reports on suggestions that Kingston should plan for a population expected to grow significantly in coming decades, to not just expand but to have intensified development downtown.
• The rental housing market for Kingston is very tight, not only because of large student populations. Global News reports.
• Kingstonist reports on Queen’s plans to build a large new student residence on Albert Street, here.
• The Whig-Standard carries an account of the new Queen’s principal being interrogated by Kingston city council over issues of friction between school and city, including costs for policing (and not only at Homecoming weekend).
• This summer, farmers in the Kingston area saw poor crop production as a consequence of the weather. Global News reports.
• Happily, the budget of the city of Kingston was made to accommodate costs for Murney, the police force’s horse. Global News reports.
• Weston Food’s plant in Kingston has seen forty jobs cut. Global News reports.
• Lake Ontario Park, in the west of the city, may be reopened to limited camping. The Whig-Standard reports.
• Kingston hockey player Rebecca Thompson is now playing for the team of Queen’s. Global News reports.
• Queen’s University is not alone in urging its exchange students in Hong Kong to evacuate. The Whig-Standard reports.
• Yesterday, a plane crashed in the west of Kingston, killing all seven people aboard. CBC reports</u..
• Chris Morris at Kingstonist has a long feature examining the Kingston Street Mission, interviewing outreach worker Marilyn McLean about her work with the homeless of the city.
• Kingston-born street nurse Cathy Crowe talks about homelessness, in Kingston and across Canada. Global News reports.
• The family of Royal Military College cadet Joe Grozelle, who disappeared from his campus and was later found dead two decades ago, wants his fate reinvestigated. Global News reports.
• A hundred students at a Kingston public school are being taught how to skate, part of a pilot program. Global News reports.

[PHOTO] Looking west at Humber Bay Shores

[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links

• I do hope Toronto does something with the abandoned foot court on Queen West and John. blogTO reports.
• blogTO looks at the new Villiers Island set to occupy the mouth of the Don River in the Port Lands.
• An Ossington laneway is going to be repainted after a botched improvement project destroyed its public art. The Toronto Star reports.
• Steve Munro fisks a defense by the Toronto Board of Trade of the proposed Ontario Line, here.
• Andrew Cash, sadly not elected in my riding of Davenport, writes in the Toronto Star about the importance of Toronto having active local MPs.
• National Observer looks at how the City of Toronto is encouraging residents grow gardens for pollinators.
• Samantha Edwards writes at NOW Toronto about how the long-closed Paradise on Bloor theatre is set to reopen in December.

[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] Sixteen photos from a stroll west of Lake Ontario from Dufferin Street to Palace Pier

Walking west one evening last week along the Lake Ontario shoreline, from the Dufferin Loop all the way to the Palace Pier on just the far side of the Humber River, was enjoyable. It was a glorious summer night.

[PHOTO] Looking south down the Islington Avenue Bridge

[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] Eight Toronto links: neighbourhoods, housing, mass transit, Great Lakes

• I do agree with the argument of Emma Teitel in the Toronto Star that, between the east and the west of Toronto, the west is the more snobbish. (West-ender, here.)
• blogTO notes that home prices in Toronto are ridiculously out of the reach of average millennials.
• Is multi-generational housing the solution to the housing shortage in Toronto? The Toronto Star reports.
• Toronto Life profiles</u. the photos taken by Jesse Colin Jackson of the now-demolished Regent Park building of 14 Blevins Place.
• The story of the terrible, expensive architectural problems with the TTC’s Pioneer Village station is appalling. The Toronto Star reports.
• Steve Munro notes how the TTC is decidedly unhappy with the failings of Presto.
• Christian Mittelstaedt writes at NOW Toronto about how the flooding of the Toronto Islands this year can be traced, in part, to problems with how Canada and the United States jointly manage the Great Lakes.