[PHOTO] Five photos of Spadina Avenue at night

[PHOTO] Into A&A Department Store, 251 Spadina Avenue

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Chinatown, neigthbourhoods, Port Lands, TTC maps, TTC open house

• Downtown Pets and Aquarium has reopened, just south of its old Chinatown location. blogTO reports.
• John Lorinc at Spacing writes about what Toronto should do as it moves towards an intensification of development in its neighbourhoods.
• Blayne Haggart writes at The Conversation about how the Sidewalk Labs plan for the Port Lands in Toronto really should become an election issue.
• Sean Marshall takes issue with some of the maps used by the TTC to advertise its different and varied routes.
• Robert Mackenzie at the Transit Toronto blog notes that, on Saturday the 21st, the TTC will be hosting open houses at the Leslie Barns and Greenwood Yard.

[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.

[PHOTO] Three photos of a robin with worm on the lawn of CAMH, Spadina Avenue

The scene of a robin with its caught worm dangling from its beak as it patrolled the lawn of CAMH on Spadina caught my attention Sunday morning. Our contemporary dinosaurs continue to live up to their great ancestors.

[PHOTO] Ten photos of Queen Street West, Yonge west to Dufferin

Early Thursday afternoon, I took an extended walk west along ‘a href=Èhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Street_(Toronto)#Yonge_to_University”>Queen Street from Yonge towards Dufferin. Spring is here, but it is not here just yet; the grass is green but the trees have not yet sprouted new leaves. Can it really be only two weeks until the first cherry blossoms appear?

[URBAN NOTE] On the closure of Statler’s and the fate of cities

Last night, a link I tweeted to blogTO’s report on the sudden closure of Church Street’s Statler’s went viral in a minor way. Massive rent increases were too much for this Village bar, notable for its performance spaces and its links to the theatre community to bear, leaving Statler’s fans bereft.

Statler’s closure leaves me concerned for the future of Church and Wellesley as a LGBTQ district. Given the dire economics of nightclubbing generally and rising rents on Church Street particularly, how long can this neighbourhood and its institutions persist? Condo towers, like Vox Condominiums just east of Wellesley station, have been steadily advancing on the heart of the Village from the north and the south over the past few years, and I can imagine a collapse. Will there end up being a new Village elsewhere, in Parkdale or on Weston Road or in Etobicoke? Or will nothing follow Church and Wellesley?

I am also more concerned for Toronto generally. That note about Statler’s was one of three I shared that day noting the closure of other Toronto institutions on New Year’s. Ten Edition Books on Spadina Avenue collapsed on New Year’s after nearly three and a half decades, driven out by the desire of the University of Toronto to redevelop this stretch into student housing. On the east side, meanwhile, the famed Coffee Time restaurant at Coxwell and Gerrard, an affordable coffee place’s connections to locals, has closed down permanently. (There was even a great documentary filmed about this place.)

Where are the replacements? Where are the new shops and restaurants and clubs, the new community institutions, the new neighbourhoods, to replace the old ones made increasingly unaffordable? Am I missing out on the regeneration of Toronto, or is a new monoculture taking over? And is Toronto alone in these trends among world cities. I surely think not.

[URBAN NOTE] Twelve Toronto links (#toronto, #topoli)

• Because of a lack of support from the University of Toronto, Ten Editions Bookstore on Spadina Avenue between College and Bloor has closed down permanently. blogTO reports.
• Statler’s on Church Street, a popular Village bar known for its performance spaces, closed down suddenly on account of massive rent increases. blogTO reports.
• The famed Coffee Time restaurant at Coxwell and Gerrard, subject of a documentary that looks at this affordable coffee place’s connections to locals, has closed down permanently. blogTO reports.
• Gilbert Ngabo at the Toronto Star reports on how Torontonians now have now choice but to use the Presto card. My experiences reflect others’ in that things have been working out for me, so far.
• GO Transit’s connections directly to York University have ceased in the wake of the subway extension, as promised. Many who depended on the direct link are unhappy that it is no longer being sustained. Global News reports.
• This Toronto Sun article shares the call of a brother of a victim who died by suicide at a TTC station for more action to prevent such unfortunate events.
• Steve Munro reports on the different challenges facing the TTC board in 2019.
• Enzo DiMatteo at NOW Toronto makes the case that Toronto needs to continue to address gun violence as a public health issue if it is to control this plague.
• A tall and skinny home in Riverdale that has gone on sale for $C 3 million has as many detractors as supporters. Global News reports.
• CBC Toronto notes that the new nickname of the Economist for Toronto and its tech sector, “Maple Valley”, is not catching on with locals.
• Marco Chown Oved at the Toronto Star shares the story of Don Sampson, a long-time resident of the Toronto Islands who faces losing the family home there because he cannot inherit the property from his brother.
• The cast of the venerable Global Television drama Train 48, filmed on a GO Transit Lakeshore West train in 2003-2005, recently reunited. Global News reports.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Chinatown, Alternative Thinking, Bloor West, Black Toronto,Quayside

• Toronto’s Chinatown on Spadina Avenue is facing pressures from gentrification, including architectural ones, the Toronto Star observes.
• blogTO notes that the building housing shop Alternative Thinking is the only survivor of the old Honest Ed’s-anchored Mirvish Village.
• Urban Toronto shares revised plans for 2452 Bloor Street West, in Bloor West Village near Jane.
• Black people in Toronto tend to live in “segregated” neighbourhoods, census and other data suggest, according to this article in the Toronto Star.
• Global News notes the demand of privacy commissioner Anne Cavoukian for the data being gathered by Waterfront Toronto in the Quayside project.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Lawrence Heights, waterfront, Distillery District, Chinatown

• Christopher Hume at the Toronto Star notes how the ongoing attempt to revitalize Lawrence Heights will try to plug that neighbourhood back into the wider city of Toronto.
• Urban Toronto notes efforts by condo designers to make the Sugar Beach towers suitable for families.
• Ontario Place would be a perfect place for a swimming pier, wouldn’t it? CBC reports.
• Daily Hive notes that the Distillery District will soon house the Collège Boreal.
• blogTO notes a classic Chinatown building on Spadina Avenue that has been given a terrible makeover.