Look to the skyline and see the cranes towering and swinging back and forth as if speaking to each other as they pass. They arrive in pairs or small groups, some are solitary. Who summoned them? Is there a plan? When they disappear from the skyline, what will they leave behind? Will we remember what was there before?

Cranes in Japanese lore are long-legged, long-necked, mystical creatures who live for a thousand years. Legend promises to anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes, one for each year, a wish granted by a crane.

What does Toronto, with its thousand swinging cranes, wish for? Our city is changing. It is transforming before our eyes. The cranes remind us of this every day. We want to talk about it – about the big city issues and the little neighbourhood things – the things that make a city, that give it longevity and immortality.

Photos by Schuster Gindin

Saving Toronto’s Midtown
by Miria Ioannou
The Midtown in Focus plan, unanimously passed by Toronto City Council in 2018, has been languishing, ignored, on Minister Steve Clark’s desk for six months. The Yonge and Eglinton neighbourhood is bursting at the seams and if the plan is not approved by June 6 the community will be beyond a breaking point.

Toronto: Almost a Great City
by Vincenzo Pietropaolo
A recent historical perspective by a former city planner and documentary photographer.

At the Bottom of the Crane
by Schuster Gindin
Photo essay of construction workers below grade at Yonge St. north of Dundas.

 

The House that was Eaten Alive
by Elizabeth Cinello, Debbie Nyman and Larry Swartz
The Demise of a Local Landmark.

 

Whose City?
by Schuster Gindin
Can planner Jennifer Keesmaat make a difference?

 

Birds Want In
by Elizabeth Cinello
A nesting project in the St. Clair West area.

 

The View from Here
by Miria Ioannou
Living in a highrise condo.

 

Overheard
by Debbie Nyman
Snippets of the conversations going on about the city.

 

Cranes, cranes, cranes
A photo essay from all around the city.  Cranes wherever you look.

 

Links
Websites and articles relevant and related to this issue.