Posts Tagged ‘leslieville’
[URBAN NOTE] “Why does Toronto’s east end hate everything?”
The Toronto Star‘s May Warren introduces readers to the possibility of east-end Toronto being NIMBYish.
Over the years, residents in the east end neighbourhoods of Leslieville and the Beach have complained about everything from breweries to music festivals and even a mysterious hum only some can hear.
But the region’s latest grievance – that toddlers playing in a park are too loud – has some wondering whether the east end doth protest too much.
“NIMBYism at its worst. This is why the Beach has such a bad rep in the city,” wrote one member of The Beaches Facebook group. “Give me a break, get a life. Let kids be kids,” wrote another.
“It’s probably just our demographic here,” said Beach Village BIA director Jessica Wright. “We’re bringing in some younger people but at this point it’s still a little bit of an older crowd.
“They’re used to kind of a sleepy neighbourhood a little bit.”
[PHOTO] Seasonal St. Patrick’s Day Greenery, Dollarama, Leslieville
Thursday evening, when I went into a new Dollarama in Leslieville I found one aisle filled with St. Patrick’s greenery.
[URBAN NOTE] “The Hells Angels era in Leslieville goes out with a sale”
As Brad Wheeler noted in The Globe and Mail, even the Hells Angels are being priced out of downtown Toronto.
Along the gritty, drab stretch of Eastern Avenue between Carlaw and Logan Avenues, more than one shabby storefront has a sign of warning to any would-be intruders: “Beware of Dog” at one place, and, at another, “Dog on Duty.” But there was a time in the neighbourhood when an angry pitbull would be the least of a punk’s concern.
For at 498 Eastern Ave. was an inelegant cinderblock establishment known to be the downtown clubhouse for the Toronto chapter of the fearsome Hells Angels. But these days, on the concrete-shielded steel front door, the outlaw bikers’ logo is barely discernible – a fading scar that remains after the gang was booted from the building after a police raid in 2007. The ownership of the land and building – commandeered by the federal government under proceeds-of-crime legislation – has been in dispute since then, but a court decision recently gave Ottawa permission to sell the 30-by-120-foot property.
The plot and its eyesore pile have now been conditionally sold, sealing the fate of a colourful part of Leslieville’s rough-and-tumble past that existed right under the noses of long-time area residents, who barely even noticed the quietly operating hooligans in their midst.
So long then, Angels, we barely knew you.
[PHOTO] Ephemera of Leningrad, Gadabout Vintage, Toronto
Leslieville’s Gadabout Vintage ((1300 Queen Street East) has a vast collection of knick-knacks, including this thing, a box with a photo of a statue of Peter and Catherine.
[PHOTO] Legends of Cthulhu for Sale, The Sidekick
WARPO’s Legends of Cthulhu action figures were on sale yesterday at east-end comic book café The Sidekick. Doubtless they still are.
[PHOTO] A cottage at the Beaches
It’s a long-standing matter of occasional controversy whether the Toronto neighbourhood located immediately east of Leslieville is called “the beach” or “the Beaches”. Regardless, at the end of our Thursday tramp along Queen Street East Erin and I came into this neighbourhood where we saw this decidedly unusual house, a post-Second World War home that is quite . . . colourful. And alive.
With the reeds and the Tibetan prayer flags and the orange of the picket fence and bridge slats and fence tips and pumpkin contrasting so brightly with the painted-purple metal fences and guardrails, how can you look away?
This, the pond visible to the left of the footbridge, looks to be quite ecologically authentic. Towards the bottom you can see at least four goldfish happily swimming about.
[PHOTO] Some photos from Leslieville’s Gadabout
Gadabout (1300 Queen Street East) is a shop with a marvelous collection of items from the early to mid 20th century, everything from vintage clothing to English-French dictionaries for chemists to autographed old postcards and at least one Cub Scout cap. It’s famous: see these articles at Teen Vogue, Toronto.com, blogTO, the New York Times, the Toronto Star and the National Post if you don’t believe me.
As for sequencing, the photos are arranged in order of increasing distance from the street. Think of this series of seven as approximating what you’d see as you ventured inside.
[PHOTO] Some Thursday Leslieville photos
Thursday afternoon with my friend Erin was spent on an enjoyable photobloggish stroll along Queen Street East through Leslieville, an east-end Toronto neighbourhood on the far side of the Don from the downtown that’s slowly gentrifying but retains a pleasantly quirky individuality. Here’s some of the trip’s photos.
This Chinese puzzle cube is available for $C 8 at the fantastic Ethyl (1091 Queen Street East), a furniture shop with a very Mad Men theme that has an excellent owner-manager to boot.
Talk about cute ways of attracting people to your electronics store.
Who remembers the pumpkin where we’re done using it?
Meat on the Beach (1860 Queen Street East) looks interesting from the street.
A Bit More Detail 