Results tagged “bloorstreetwest”

At 10:01 a.m. this morning, one of the five green-jacketed police officers standing on the corners of Yonge and Bloor walked confidently but carefully into the middle of the road. The traffic lights at the intersection had just been deactivated, and were now blank, and, after stopping cars in all directions, he waved one direction of cars through, then stopped it, then waved through the other. It was a brief moment of forced acclimatization for the drivers and reassurance for the pedestrians waiting on the tips of the corners: another officer a few minutes earlier had joked to pedestrians that "you don't want to be the first one to be hit by a car." A second later, the traffic lights were all back on, a solid red for all drivers in all directions, and the little stickmen beamed white from every pedestrian signal box. Inside a stopped van, one male driver gestured to his female passenger back and forth across the intersection in front of him, explaining what this all was, and the pedestrians followed his lead.

Earlier this afternoon, hundreds of cyclists converged on the stretch of Bloor Street West outside of the Sephora where, two nights previous, bike courier Darcy Allan—Al—Sheppard was killed. Many had just come from a mass ride that had started on Bloor at 5 p.m., picking up the crowd of about one hundred cyclists waiting at Bay and Bloor, and another crowd waiting at Bloor and Yonge, before riding together down Yonge, then along Queen, then back up University, escorted and gently directed by bike cops the whole journey.

              

Emma Flannery Lawrence Healey and Richard Rosenbaum are at it again. Last summer, they constructed faces along Queen Street West by sticking googly eyes on inanimate objects; this summer, they've done the same along Bloor Street West. "We decided to do this when—about a year ago—we realized that there is literally nothing that cannot be made more hilarious with the addition of googly eyes," Healey told Torontoist. "We look either for things that look like they need eyes (certain objects, like newspaper boxes or crosswalk buttons, fit this description perfectly) or things that already have faces where we can just place the googly eyes. The thing is that once you spend enough time scouting out things that look like little faces, you start seeing them everywhere. I've been fighting off the urge to stick googly eyes on all of my belongings, the back of my cat's head, [and] the Queen on every twenty dollar bill..."

If you are walking by the northwest corner of Bloor and Spadina, be sure to look down: there is a message amongst the black splotches of chewing gum and the general grime of the city that reads "Cultivate Grace," a message that may at first look as though it were spray-painted onto the concrete but that was actually created by a stencil and a high-pressure water hose and is repeated every twenty feet from Spadina to just past Brunswick Avenue. That's right: the whiteness of the letters is the original colour of the sidewalk under your feet.

While investigating the strange posters around town that accuse Laila Restaurant (553 Bloor Street West) of being hazardous to your health, Torontoist decided to take the opportunity to actually try some of their killer food ourselves.

Many are up in arms over the anonymous, dramatic posters about Laila being plastered on hydro poles and mailboxes, even in neighbourhoods far away from the actual restaurant on Bloor Street West. Each and every one reads:

LAILA'S KILLS

Continue reading "Laila, Darling, Won't You Ease My Worried Mind?"

After a year of Whip TV’s cryptic advertisements that hinted at it, the Kingsway Theatre will officially reopen this Friday after hosting a special sneak peek and open house (featuring a free screening of Spike Milligan’s 1962 comedy The Postman’s Knock) last night. The art deco theatre, located at 3030 Bloor Street West near Royal York Road, opened in 1939, but has been closed since 2006. Before the doors were open to the public last night, Torontoist got taken on a tour by the theatre's new manager, Rui Pereira.

The Comedy Bar at Bloor and Ossington is finally having its grand opening this weekend. Even though it's been up and running for about five months, owners Gary Rideout Jr. and James Elksnitis think the venue is now completed at last, and ready to be promoted as such. Torontoist has been there on a handful of occasions over the past few months, and one of the interesting things about these visits—aside from the comedy—was seeing it progress through its renovation and development. We have never exclaimed "hey! They have a ceiling now!" with such sincerity before.

Overheard by reader Wade Vroom along Bloor Street West on the way into the Bloor & Ossington LCBO on Monday. A couple is walking arm in arm, discussing moving in together.

Seen at the Shoppers Drug Mart on the corner of Walmer Road and Bloor Street West.

The construction hoarding around the perennially under-renovation Bloor and Gladstone Library has been serving as an outdoor gallery for local and visiting artists since last November, when a series of framed photographs by a photographer known only as "P3" appeared. Anyone can add their own work to this wonderfully improvised and growing exhibition—just don't forget your screwdriver.

While February 14th is reserved for lovers, and February 18th is all about families, February 13th has 'em all beat...tomorrow, Wednesday, is none other than Dead Bra Day! This is a chance for all bearers of boobs to come on out to Secrets From Your Sister (560 Bloor Street West) and:

Toronto has been called a city of neighbourhoods: The Beach, Yorkville, Chinatown, Little Italy, Greektown, The Annex; all have their defining characteristics that make them appealing to locals as well as visitors. And when it comes down to it, most of these areas are well-defined by the intersection of two major streets.

University students, busy families, and Crackberry-addicted workaholics, rejoice! No more take-out! No more factory-made frozen dinners loaded with fat and sodium! No more sad, sad "dinners" of Oreo cookies with gin and Seven-Up.

Sure, they penned the obviously raddest one-hit-wonder of 1996, but since that fateful year, full of cheerleaders and homoerotic football players, Nada Surf have continued to rage against the dying of that hit-single light. They may have fallen off MTV's radar, but so have most things north of Christina Aguilera's baby-bump. Since leaving Elektra in 1998, the band have built a quiet following of appreciative indie rockers around the world, unconcerned with attaining the high-rotation status that launched their career in the first place. Their last record, 2005's The Weight is a Gift, was called "a top-notch collection of sad-eyed guitar ballads" by Rolling Stone, and was their second album to be released by some label that also includes a band that's all about killing people in taxis, or something. Its follow-up, Lucky, is scheduled for release on February 5, and for no particular reason at all, the band are celebrating early with a Toronto in-store this Wednesday, January 9.

In Tuesday's news round-up, we told you that the plan to sell McDonald's the land at Bloor and Avenue had been halted until January 18. It's a good thing, too, as there are many questions that must be answered before the $3.38 million sale is finalized. Is it in the best interest for Toronto taxpayers? Is the sale a smart corrective action to the bungled 1971 lease agreement or another dumb move we'll regret for...

Near Manulife Financial: Bloor East citizens would like less poo in their public spaces. With condo fever gripping the still-shabby southeast corner of Bloor and Yonge due to the future One Bloor 80-storey tower, the Bloor East Neighbourhood Association (BENA) met Wednesday night at the Rogers Centre (333 Bloor Street East) to discuss how their little stretch of street could be transformed to rival the world-class reputation of Bloor West. BENA, representing ratepayers along...

Thursday evening, CEPAL (the Canadian-Palestinian Educational Exchange) presents a talk by Dr. Norman Finkelstein at U of T's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). Just a few months ago, he was Professor Norman Finkelstein, but he made himself some powerful enemies, and now he's pretty much out on the street (i.e. lecture circuit). Apparently, that's not an uncommon development for academics—even Jewish ones—who are critical of Israeli policies and the advocates for same.

This Friday, November 16, we (Newmindspace) will be hosting our very first lightsaber battle! This summer at Burning Man, we witnessed a 10,000-person lightsaber battle put on by a camp called Watto's Junkyard, easily the largest lightsaber battle since the Jedi Civil War. However, with our limited resources, we realized that without a large donation from a rich weirdo (which are plentiful in San Francisco), we would probably not be able to get the plastic, LED-lit, colour-changing expanding kind without some sort of fundraising "starter battle" first.

The Revue cinema is due to reopen its doors on October 4th, and if you’ve been waiting for the chance to buy tickets for the opening night, they’re now on sale at She Said Boom (393 Roncesvalles Avenue) at $20 for the film and the after-party or $10 for just the party at the Lithuanian Hall (1573 Bloor Street West). The opening night film is secret, but it was selected by an online poll, so it’s one of the films on this page, probably!

Seriously, who cares about Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt or George Clooney or Ben Affleck or whoever? Jerry Seinfeld––one of the greatest comedians, one of the greatest television actors, and owner of 47 Porsches––is coming to Toronto on Wednesday. He'll be at the Manulife Centre (55 Bloor Street West) at 9:45 a.m. to promote Bee Movie, the new animated movie that he directs and stars in.

Last Monday was not just the start of the Ontario general election campaign—it was also the beginning of a campaign to change the way we elect our representatives to Queen's Park. On October 10th, Ontarians will vote on a proposal by the Citizens' Assembly (a randomly-selected group of 103 Ontarians) to switch to a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system, similar to that used in some other countries including Germany and New Zealand.

All summer long, Toronto has been jam-packed with countless cultural festivities, and as the last weekend of the summer begins to dawn on us—with students gearing up for school and vacations coming to an unfortunate end—why not end the summer with some Ukrainian style?

It's not just for pot-smoking, Cheetos-eating, reluctant-to-bathe college dudes anymore.

"Honest Ed" Mirvish passed away nearly a month ago, but Toronto is still in mourning. On Sunday, August 12, his family will be hosting a celebration of life outside of the Honest Ed's Emporium (581 Bloor Street West) in lieu of Ed's famous annual birthday party—he would have turned 93 on July 25.

One of the pillars of the TTC's plan to trim its budget is to cut some twenty-one "poor performing" bus routes. But what, exactly, is a "poor performing" route? As it turns out, transit whiz Steve Munro claims, it sure isn't what the TTC says it is: "in a flat fare system," he writes, "it is impossible to allocate fare revenue in any way that makes sense and produces meaningful comparisons between routes."

When searching for a suitable title for the sequel to last year's massive street parade/subway party , we needed only to consult a thesaurus. Not only a 2000-era epic trance track by Ian Van Dahl, Castles in the Sky are also seemingly impossible tasks. Some people call them "pipe dreams." We call it the next Newmindspace event this Saturday.

Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love My Bike

Toronto’s Small Press Book Fair runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today at the Trinity St. Paul Centre, 427 Bloor Street West (just west of Spadina on the south side). Now in its twentieth year, the fair presents about 70 micro to medium-sized publishers and magazines. An archive of some of the fair's past and present exhibitors links to many of Toronto's small presses.

The best things in life are free: long walks on the beach, make-outs in the dark and, for one day a year, comic books. Comics nerds around the globe will unite in spirit this Saturday to celebrate Free Comic Book Day, which means a trip to your local comic book store will result in a handful of free stuff and a general sense of well-being.