While Torontoist usually shows how the city has been used by movie producers, home-grown small-screen productions have also made ample use of our city's streets since CBLT came on the air in 1952. Back in 1971, comedians Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster used downtown as a backdrop for an exciting new sport, city golf. Over the course of 18 holes, cameramen preserved pieces of the city that development has changed significantly in the ensuing......

Remember when the town crier would stand on Yonge Street and shout his hear-say and hear-ye, passing out copies of the daily news for a penny a pop? Yeah, us neither. The fast-spreading news of today is a far cry from days of old (take us for example), and we'll bet you didn't see what was coming next. But tomorrow at the corner of Queen and John, you just might. Walk past Pages and......

Photo by Caesar Sebastian. Justice brings their gigantic glowing cross and their hot electro-house beats to the city on Monday. While the Sound Academy (ex-The Docks) is usually an awkward place to see music, it's well suited for this show. There will be plenty of space for people to "D.A.N.C.E." and the duo has a sound large enough to match the venue. They'll be joined by fellow Parisian Busy P and Fancy at the......

With Rogers' plan to move Citytv, OMNI Television, and the Fan 590 to the southeast corner of Dundas Square, those familiar with the current streetfront studios on Queen Street have wondered if the former Olympic Spirit building will be opened up in a similar way. Though merely an preliminary concept rendering, Rogers and Quadrangle Architects seem to have grand designs for the space, currently dubbed Rogers Television City, as evident in this image supplementing......

Detail of photo by the Frankfurt School from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.. This week is Freedom to Read Week, a national event that encourages Canadians to value their right to choose what they read, and to recognize the individuals who fight to protect that right. Celebrations against censorship are happening across the country—locally PEN Canada is presenting an evening of readings and performances to promote a new anthology, Writers Under Siege: Voices of Freedom......

Last week’s fire on Queen West didn’t only destroy some of the neighbourhood’s best stores; it also put the dozens of people who lived in apartments above the shops out of a home. Some of these folks didn’t have insurance and lost most of their possessions. Many of the artists who lived in the buildings lost their work, and thus their source of income. It’s great to see a neighbourhood—and Toronto as a whole—come......

A variety of opportunities for residents to help out the victims of the Queen West fire have been popping up all over the city. Right now, the best way you can participate is to walk into any Scotiabank location and make a cash donation to the newly-established Queen Street Fire Fund––effective today, the fund set up by the City of Toronto will assist all of the residents affected by the fire––but as Ward 20......

One day Pamela Anderson stood in the centre turn lane of a highway, clad only in a Canadian flag...picturing it? Welcome to the lead photo for the "Best of Canada" edition of SNAP!. Now in its seventh year, SNAP! combines a juried competition for established and emerging photographers with a gala fundraiser on March 2 at the National Ballet School. Organizers predict that the works offered in live and silent auctions will raise $140,000......

Today's blaze was not only devastating to the residents of Queen Street West who now find themselves homeless, but also to the business owners who served the community. Duke's Cycle—second home to many of the city's bicycle couriers—has been run by the same family in the same location since 1914. The owners of National Sound, which operated in the area for forty years and at that location since 1988, don't have fire insurance. Clothing......

Exclusive images from the massive fire on Queen Street. More shots after the jump.......

Photo by aardvark from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Transit vehicles are being diverted and streets have been closed near Queen and Bathurst as firefighters battle a six-alarm blaze this morning. The fire broke out about 5 a.m. and spread through eight low-rise buildings on the south side of Queen, consisting of fourteen addresses between Bathurst and Portland. The destroyed block contained commercial properties Suspect Video, Duke's Cycle, National Sound, Preloved, the Jupiter head shop,......

Forget death and taxes: the one real constant in life is breathy local news coverage of almost any kind of weather. Watching TV news reporters acting bewildered by temperature fluctuations or any amount of precipitation, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the giant dome that has maintained the city's perfect 21° year-round weather for hundreds of years had just broken down, letting sandstorms, radiation, and monsters invade the city from the post-apocalyptic wasteland that......

Sarah Lazarovic––curator of the garage-based Montrose Portrait Gallery of Canada––is painting a portrait of a Torontonian (be they Mirvishes or Meashas) every day. Each Monday, we'll feature one of those portraits here. Chef Rodney Bowers' two cozy restaurants bookend Queen Street. While The Rosebud is dark and tiny, all awesome art and panelled walls, The Citizen is bright and airy and serves a schnitzel the size of Algonquin Park. But if taking your sweetheart out......

Any sweetheart worth his or her weight in Godiva's will tell you that all they really want for Valentine's Day is something from the heart, made by hand. Lovely and true. But did said sweetie specify whose heart? Whose hands? Unromantic as it seems, we believe it's perfectly acceptable to outsource your labours of love. Why spend hours wrestling with hot glue and lace when someone else can do it for you—and better? This......

On Friday night at 10:30, the Toronto Public Space Committee's Art Attack will "descend on the streets to re-imagine bus shelters as sensational structures of snow," converting the two ad-adorned boxes at Queen and Jones into something a little more whimsical. Transit shelters, like garbage bins, are giant heaps of private property littered throughout the sidewalks and roads of our city. And, most of the time, they serve a purpose. But every now and......

It wasn't long ago that Torontoist was rapping about Five Blank Pages' CD release; Last Blush, their first full-length, was just unleashed onto the white-belt world last October, but this weekend marks a significant change in the band's line-up. Since growing from Noyan Hilmi's solo project to a full-fledged band, the group has consisted of Hilmi, sister Chelen Hilmi, and wife Pinar Ozyetis. The band added bassist Rajiv Thavanathan later on, and has been......

According to their online mission statement, the Fuck Death Foundation is "an organization dedicated to the elimination of death through the generation and distribution of funds to strategically selected causes and initiatives worldwide." Co-founders and directors Dugald Stewart and Simon Murphy also plan to target "the most ruthlessly indiscriminate killer of all—oldness." Yes, they're serious...we think. Watch their interview on The Hour, or call the toll-free infoline at 1-877-DIE-DON'T, and decide for yourself. Unfortunately, Fuck......

What could be better on a cold winter day than a hotdog and fries, straight from one of the chip wagons lining Queen Street at Nathan Phillips Square? There are plenty of chilled condiments to choose from and some of the trucks offer free gravy. So take a break from those ice skates and load up on some carbs—this snack will keep you going for hours. Illustration by Kevin McBride.......

That’s right! Ontario Power Generation, that ever-so-lovable corporation owned by the Government of Ontario (responsible, according to their Wikipedia page, for 70% of Ontario’s electricity) are being forced to change their name by Prince, after he noticed that “Ontario Power Generation” (founded in 1999) is suspiciously close to the name of his backing band, the New Power Generation Or! We’re lying, and it’s in fact Ontario Power Generation, the local band (unrelated to Prince or......

As the subject for a serious music book, Céline Dion––amazing or not––seems like an odd choice. In the latest book in the 33⅓ series, however––a series which typically looks at albums like the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds or Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures or the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St.––Carl Wilson, probably Toronto's pre-eminent music critic, takes it upon himself to "[strive] to understand Céline's global popularity," in the process "fac[ing] the question of what......

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. Slip into Boutique LeTrou (940 Queen Street West) on any given afternoon and odds are, you'll be hello darling'ed......

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset. A big-time hero for 2007 is the expansion of Queen West's Made You Look jewelry studio and gallery. in......

While Newmindspace have organized subway parties in Toronto, SkyTrain parties in Vancouver, and métro parties in Montréal, sometimes nothing beats an old-fashioned streetcar party for a beat-bumping, track-turning, three hour party tour of the city. The TTC will rent a streetcar (PCC, CLRV or ALRV) for a minimum of three hours for a pretty steep fee to just about anybody. The customer can request a custom route, like Newmindspace has, that takes advantage of......

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Last time we checked on 178 Bathurst Street, it was just beginning to relive its Bassmint-era techno days with Derrick May at Crosstown, now closed. Since then, things underneath the Queen Street West and Bathurst Street Pizza Pizza have come full circle. Until 1999, Christian "DJ Unabomber" Poulson operated Bassmint, a famous party spot and afterhours that still conjures memories of sleepless nights for......

December is party season, but what if you don't feel like dancing? There's more to holiday dressing than disco-ball metallics and electro-shock hues. Indeed, in today's ever-flashier scene, you're most likely to stand out in a standby—the little black dress. Luckily for you nineties types, local label Common Cloth is a step ahead on the road back to minimalism. For their current fall/winter collection, scissor sisters Melanie Talbot and Kristina Bozzo cut refined, modern......

Most of the bronze plaques bolted to the city's historically designated sites and monuments commemorate some virtually forgotten piece of minor Toronto history—but take a stroll along Queen Street West and some familiar round medallions might particularly pique your interest. The strange plaques were part of the grand Gestures installation by the 640 480 Video Collective, which aimed to memorialize inconsequential events captured on video at ten spots around the city. Each marker was......

The holiday shopping season has descended upon the city, along with an early blast of winter. This combination may lead shoppers to unconsciously purchase items to cure their winter blues, even if the calendar shows that fall has a few more weeks to go. Today's ad offers a prescription from Simpsons and Esprit to keep free-spirited souls in an ecstatic mood come February. A trip down to the historic Queen Street department store promised......

The ever-excellent Spacing is celebrating the launch of their latest issue––an "eco-friendly" one, pictured above––next Monday, December 3rd. The launch will take place at the newly-green Berkeley Church (316 Queen Street East), which has been redesigned to have a green roof and (holy crap!) a 25-person-capacity treehouse that may or may not be usable come Monday. Doors open at 8 p.m. and admission is free, with copies of the magazine on sale at the......

This weekend, resist the urge to do the same old bar hop and try a more sophisticated means of indulging your party ADD: the art show hop. Okay, so we just invented that term, but the city does have three rad art happenings going on almost simultaneously this Friday, November 30. And we say, why choose? To start your adventure, knock back a whiskey for warmth and head down to the Harbourfront, where the......

Each week, Torontoist shows off the most interesting, creative, and cool submissions to our Torontoist Flickr Pool. We're especially partial to photos that show our city in a new light, highlight a recent event, and remind us why we live here. Join the Flickr pool and show us what you've got. York StreetBY HENRY ROXAS Autumn LeavesBY MICGORMIT little-courtyardBY HESITATION head in the cloudsBY SYNCROS ChristineBY TORONTOGAL PHOTOS DialogueBY .STEFFIE C. Urban Shadow BoxerBY EYELINE-IMAGERY......