[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links

• Google has apologized for the negative shade its image search cast on Scarborough with a Twitter thread. Global News reports.
• The National Post looks at the story of the architecturally remarkable Integral House, on sale for $C 21.5 million.
• South Indian Dosa Mahal, a beloved Bloordale restaurant apparently displaced by landlords, has found a new home. blogTO reports.
• The infamous Parkdale McDonald, at King and Dufferin, has officially been closed down, relocated. blogTO reports.
• The Ontario Cannabis Store is experimenting with a same-day delivery program. NOW Toronto reports.
• Lia Grainger writes at NOW Toronto about how poor city planning has resulted in multiple dangerous intersections. (I know of two in my broader neighbourhood.)

[URBAN NOTE] Nine Toronto links

• Metrolinx using paid influencers to promote the Ontario Line is certainly a choice. The Toronto Star reports.
• Union Station retiring an old mechanical system 90 years old used to control TTC vehicles is a landmark event. The Metrolinx blog reports.
• Jamie Bradburn looks at the birth of the Gardiner Expressway, here.
• Alok Mukherjee at Spacing questions why police in Toronto have stopped enforcing traffic regulations.
• Protesters charged with blocking the Bloor Viaduct during the Extinction Rebellion have had the charges dropped. Global News reports.
• Sean Marshall shared his account of his address to the Toronto Police Services board, here.
• Jamie Bradburn looks at the history behind the mid-20th century expansion of Church Street.
• NOW Toronto notes that workers at the Broadview Hotel have become unionized.
• Samantha Lui writes at NOW Toronto against the false negative stereotypes applied by so many–even briefly by Google–to Scarborough.
• CBC notes that a lawsuit surrounding benefits fraud by TTC employees has been settled, expensively.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links

• A new project hopes to revitalize the Golden Mile of Scarborough, along Eglinton Avenue. The Toronto Star reports.
• blogTO looks at how IKEA is going to be opening a new smaller store in downtown Toronto in the next two years, here.
• blogTO looks at a plan to make 80 Bloor Street West, in Yorkville, into a golden skyscraper 79 stories tall.
• Sadly, Chick-Fil-A at Yonge and Bloor still has long lines. blogTO reports.
• Radheyan Simonpillai reviews the new Kevin Donovan book The Billionaire Murders, looking at the unsolved killings of the Shermans in 2017.

[URBAN NOTE] Eight Toronto links

• Samantha Edwards writes at NOW Toronto about the controversy surrounding the visit of transphobe author Meghan Murphy to give a speech at the Palmerston library, with authors even threatening a boycott of the network.
• Natasha Tusikov writes at The Conversation about how Sidewalk Labs’ proposals for the Port Lands would give it great and unaccountable political power.
• blogTO looks at the 1945 proposal for a subway in Toronto, one with a west-east axis not on Bloor but further south on Queen.
• blogTO looks at Sparkles, the nightclub at the top of the CN Tower that reigned over the Toronto scene in the 1980s.
• Will the Scarborough neighbourhood of Birchcliffe-Cliffside by changed for the worse by new dense construction? The Toronto Star reports.
• People who, in illegally climbing the Scarborough Bluffs, get trapped on said feature might soon be charged with the costs of their own rescue. blogTO reports.
• The growth of popularity of specifically Toronto slang is fascinating. Global News reports.
• Jamie Bradburn shares an old article on St. John’s Norway cemetery, here.

[URBAN NOTE] Ten Toronto links

• blogTO reports that Presto machines on TTC vehicles are regularly falling out of service because they need to be emptied of coins, here.
• CBC reports that Ontario Place might well accumulate a spa under Ford government auspices, here.
• NOW Toronto argues that new Ford changes to social housing, including zero-tolerance on fighting, will worsen the plight of residents.
• ACORN is leading a protest in Weston by tenants against allegedly neglectful landlords. CBC reports.
• Residents of a Roncesvalles apartment block are contesting their landlord’s reclassification of their complex as a tourist-oriented property. The Toronto Star reports.
• What will become of the Ontario Science Centre, 50 years old? The Toronto Star reports.
• That average monthly rents for a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto are now hitting $C 2500 is terrifying. The Toronto Star reports.
• Users of the Scarborough RT may find themselves riding buses instead of the RT (or a subway) for a good long while. The Toronto Star reports.
• Toronto is doing its best to preserve its biodiversity, particularly in its ravines. The Toronto Star reports.
• Transit Toronto notes that, in exchange for Toronto accepting the Ontario Line, Ontario will not try to upload the TTC.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: fall, Danforth church, 51 Metcalfe, No Name, Toronto Zoo

• blogTO notes that this fall in Toronto is likely to see erratic temperature swings.
• This sign on the lawn of a church on the Danforth warning off trespassers might have a defensible rationale, but it still seems off to me. The Toronto Star reports.
• This rental at 51 Metcalfe Street does seem sad to me. blogTO describes it.
• I rather like this No Name mural. blogTO shows it.
• As argued here at the Toronto Star, the Toronto Zoo probably should also be understood as one of the key elements of Scarborough.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Valley Land Trail, e-scooters, rental housing, Brooke Lynn Hytes

• The new Valley Land Trail in Scarborough looks amazing. blogTO explains.
• John Lorinc writes at Spacing about the challenges posed by the legalization of e-scooters in Toronto.
• Why are there not more apartment buildings being built in Toronto, given the pressing demand for rental housing? The Toronto Star reports.
• David Sajecki at Spacing writes about how the construction of a low-rise apartment building at 1103 Dufferin Street, one that blends seamlessly into Wallace Emerson, points the way forward for the city.
• At Toronto Life, Emily Landau profiles Toronto-born drag queen Brooke Lynn Hytes.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Zanzibar, Chinatown, Golden Mile, beer, ravines

• The story of Toronto nightclub Zanzibar is, indeed, a fascinating one. (Soon to go, with the rest of Yonge Street.) The Toronto Star has it.
• Will gentrification undermine Chinatown, downtown on Spadina Avenue? Global News reports.
• The Golden Mile of Scarborough, along Eglinton Avenue, is set to be radically transformed by development. blogTO reports.
• Oh, why not allow for the sale of beer at some convenience stores in TTC stops? blogTO has it.
• Alireza Nareghi looks in MacLean’s at the threat posed to the ravine environments of Toronto by invasive species, and at what is being done to save them.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Zellers, Dufferin Mall, Toronto Islands, Japan, Guild Park

• Narcity notes the sad news that the last Zellers stores in Canada, including the one in Etobicoke, will be closed by January 2020.
• Tanya Mok at blogTO looks at the successes of the Dufferin Mall.
• blogTO looks at the William Meany Maze on the Toronto Islands.
• Jamie Bradburn writes of the early history of Japanese restaurants in Toronto.
• Melanie Zettler at Global News writes about the history of the Guild Park and Gardens, in Scarborough.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links: Port Lands, Ontario Place, churches, mass transit, Scarborough

• Guardian Cities takes a look from afar at the controversy over Google in the Port Lands of Toronto.
• CityLab looks at the debate over the future of Ontario Place in the Doug Ford era.
• Richard Longley at NOW Toronto looks at how six churches in downtown Toronto have survived the condo boom.
• The City of Toronto has blamed the Ontario government for the delayed transition to Presto. The Toronto Star reports.
• Matt Gurney writes at TVO about how Toronto, having coasted by on surplus capacity, is now facing a transit crisis.
• Osobe Waberi writes at The Discourse about the transit desert that dominates much of Scarborough.
• A fourth subway stop has been proposed for the already expensive Scarborough subway extension. The Toronto Star reports.