Bilton Laneway Revisited
We first encountered and wrote about this tiny strip of public space three years ago and we’ve been following its transformation ever since. It is a casual and informal spot conceived and initiated by Suzanne Long, a tenant whose apartment overlooks the laneway. It is now well on its way to becoming a true community garden.
– Schuster Gindin
Build it and they will come
The renovated building on St. Clair West is bringing new life to a tired corner. A co-working space, a café and the offices of an award-winning architecture firm will be creating a fresh community hub.
– Miria Ioannou
Community bench invites neighbours
What do you do when a tree on your property has to come down? Use the wood to create a resting and chatting place for passers-by.
– Robert Bergman
Common Gro
und: revitalizing Oakwood Collegiate’s landscape
A historic Toronto high school is being revitalized with the help of a local community group. Here is the plan for a new recreational and green space for students and neighbours. You’re invited to help and celebrate!
– Schuster Gindin
Trinity Bellwoods: Reshaping an Urban Landscape
Trinity-Bellwoods Park is a hub of urban activity in downtown Toronto. It was not always so. It used to be a 50-acre field with a small river famous for its salmon fishing. Our resident historian Robert Fisher traces the history of the park from its bucolic days to its bohemian times to its current artists’ oasis.
– Robert Fisher
Ronces
valles: The Food Tour
Bria Weaver is nothing if not passionate about her Roncesvalles food tour venture: Food Nook Tours. We caught up with her a few weeks ago for a private food tasting tour of five local purveyors in her west end Toronto neighbourhood.
-Miria Ioannou
.
Art in the Lunchbox
Artists abound along St. Clair W and local café Stella’s Lunchbox is fast becoming a new art hub
– Schuster Gindin
Dog Parks and Walking Trails with Nelly
The great thing about ha
ving a dog is you get outdoors no matter the weather. With Nelly as inspiration and me as guide, Nelly and I explored the dog parks and walking trails in our neighbourhood this winter.
– Mary Li
Architecture for Learning: A Fond Tour of the University of Toronto
Explore with author Robert Fisher, who has taught in almost every building on the U of T campus.
Local Inspiration
Rebeccah Love is a Toronto filmmaker eager to continue writing stories that take place locally and to use her neighbourhood as a backdrop for her films. Watch her first film here.
Nelly and Me
Puppy love is just an idea, until you fall in love with a puppy that doesn’t belong to you.
– Mary Li
Toronto’s Chinatowns: Shop, Eat, Read, Heal, Watch
They bring life and colour to downtown Toronto and into the near and distant suburbs. A personal take on a decades-long fascination and involvement with these remarkable, evolving parts of our city.
– Robert Fisher
The Silence of the Music Garden in Winter
Photos of the snow-covered garden structured to evoke Bach’s Suite #1 for Unaccompanied Cello. A venue for outdoor concerts all summer, now frozen and still.
– Schuster Gindin
Little Free Library
There’s a Little Free Library on a front lawn on Rushton Road, south of St. Clair. You don’t have to sign up for anything or pay late fees and it’s open 24/7…
– Elizabeth Cinello
Flooding creates Lake Winona
During the flood on July 8, 2013, Garrison Creek flowed once more down Winona Drive.
St. Clair Streetcar is 100!
One hundred years ago, as the Wychwood Barns Community Association (WBCA) points out, St. Clair Avenue was Toronto’s northern city limit; a dirt road with few commercial or residential buildings. The first streetcar heralded the beginning of the neighbourhood’s development and the creation of our thriving and diverse community.
– Schuster Gindin
Crystal Domes and Silver Towers: Toronto’s New Cities Within Cities
In Italo Calvino’s slender book, Invisible Cities, Marco Polo describes fantastic cities he has seen on the Silk Route. The first Invisible Cities-moment I had was years ago cresting Leslie Ave. near Highway 7 and seeing a city of golden and blue office towers housing the headquarters of the burgeoning high-tech industry in Markham. This city seemed to have mushroomed when I turned my back for a moment…
– Robert Fisher
A Wedding Walks By
In a house down the street here in midtown Toronto, local and out-of-town relatives arrive and reconnect as they fill their plates with cold cuts and fresh fruit around the buffet table. Upstairs the bride is being fussed over by her attendants. Her dress, designed and hand-sewn by her mother, is oh-so-carefully drawn over her head and orchids are pinned in her hair. Everyone here knows what to expect…
Continue reading…
– Schuster Gindin
Visiting Toronto
First-time visitors to Toronto usually have some pre-conceived notions about the city. If they’re from the U.S. they might assume that Toronto is just like any large U.S. city or that we all speak French or that it’s cold in the summer. Lately we have been hosting American friends whose previous experience of Toronto was either limited or non-existent and who had some misconceptions.
Continue reading…
– Miria Ioannou
Along St. Clair
The moon is lost and likewise are the stars,
The houses sit with candled window panes
and passing up the road, our moth-lit cars
while late night goers struggle up their lanes.
– John B. Lee
– Schuster Gindin
Why We Live Where We Live
Toronto, as we know, is a city of neighbourhoods. We love the places and qualities of an area which are known only to the people who live there. We have found it interesting to examine our own neighbourhood and discover unexpected elements. Have a look around where you live and let us know what you find.
LIVING TORONTO 