[PHOTO] Three photos of towers in Yonge and Eglinton

My lunch break at work coincided with the early evening, rains in the afternoon having cleared the clouds away. Walking north up Yonge in the midtown neighbourhood of Yonge and Eglinton, the towers stood out clearly against the blue sky under the brilliant sun. The Montgomery Square Tower condo development built on stop of the historic Postal Station K is nearing completion, while the red brick tower of 40 Orchard View Boulevard–home to the Northern District branch of the Toronto Public Library–stands just west of a vast pit that is surely going to be the base for another development. Yonge and Eglinton is fast becoming a high-rise district of some note in the City of Toronto.

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[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: #yongeandstrong, Bloordale, rental housing crisis, Green Line

• Toronto Life has a nice photo-heavy feature sharing the experiences of some of the witnesses and survivors of the North York van attack.
• NOW Toronto reports on the discontent of Bloordale residents with the latest proposal for development on the southwest corner of Bloor and Dufferin.
• Prices for rental housing continue to rise beyond the city of Toronto, in the wider GTA. CBC reports.
• The idea of a crisis of affordability for Toronto renters, with one-quarter having to pay half or more of their income in rent, is very real. The Toronto Star reports.
• Public consultation on the plan for a Green Line network of parks, extending from Bathurst Street up to Earlscourt Park, will close on Friday. Submissions can be made here.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: walking on Yonge, Ford Country, Doug Ford, Finch West, Airbnb

• John Lorinc considers walking in Toronto, on Yonge Street, in the wake of the van attack, over at Spacing.
• This classic Toronto Life tour of “Ford Country”, the Toronto landmarks in the career of the Ford brothers, is quite relevant in this election year.
• Royson James is quite right to note the limit of Rob Ford’s outreach towards black and other minority youth, over at the Toronto Star.
• blogTO reports on the start of construction of the Finch West LRT line. I sincerely hope it won’t be disrupted by election year change in the way the Eglinton subway was by the Harris government.
• Sean Grisdale at Spacing notes the highly concentrated, and negative, impact of Airbnb on housing in downtown Toronto neighbourhoods.

[PHOTO] Five photos of the Toronto van attack memorial, North York (#yongeandstrong)

The memorial to the Toronto van attack on the 23rd of April still stands on the eastern edge of Mel Lastman Square in the heart of North York, flowers and cards and stuffed animals and memories. As I was walking around the site under a perfect blue sky, I could see chaplains setting up a tent nearby with signs inviting passersby to talk if they needed to.

[PHOTO] Three photos from sunset from Yonge between Bloor and College

On the evening of Thursday the 3rd of May, as I walked down Yonge Street I saw the evening sky shading to twilight in all kinds of gorgeous shades.

[PHOTO] Looking south on Yonge at Eglinton, past the construction

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Sidewalk in Toronto, Alok Mukherjee, Yonge Street, King Street, HQ2

• Toronto Life has a Q&A feature with Dan Doctoroff, the main behind the Sidewalk Labs’ plan for Quayside, here.
• Alok Mukherjee shares an extract from a book on Toronto policing in the Toronto Star, noting how the police treatment of the G20 protests upset him.
• Yonge Street beyond the downtown, up in North York, desperately needs to be tended to and made better. New urbanism can work there, too. NOW Toronto makes the case.
• The Toronto Police Service has not been doing a very good job at all of ticketing drivers ignoring the changes on King Street. Why is that? Global News reports.
• In the era of Trump, the location of Toronto outside of the United States may well be a trump card for Amazon as it preps for HQ2. CBC reports.