Spacing Toronto

MAYOR’S RACE: Will the next mayor slay Toronto The Good?

The city's stultifying provincialism needs to catch up to 21st century urbanism

By John Lorinc

In the middle of a mayoral by-election that includes an idiotic sub-plot about park drinking, Ontario officials yesterday served up this gem: under an agreement with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, 7-Eleven convenience stores will be allowed to sell beer and wine, with the proviso that patrons consume said beverages in new seating areas in their stores (emphasis added). Imagine: you and your date retreat to the local strip mall to nestle between the ATM and the wall... Read more

Headlines

Tuesday’s headlines

• When the Gardiner falls, so will T.O. [ National Post ] • The Gardiner must die! [ National Post ] • Save the Gardiner! [ National Post ...
By Monika Warzecha
Spacing

Montréal Monday: recent transport news, walking Mile End’s laneways, and a ghost sign is revealed in NDG

Each Monday, Spacing brings you some of the popular posts from our sister blog, Spacing Montréal. We’ll keep an eye open for topics and...
By Matthew Hague
Traffic

Road Trip: Boston’s Big Dig

A post on the big dig for Spacing could not have come at a more opportune time with the recent announcement of a concrete plan to tear down part of the...
By Sean Marshall
Headlines

Monday’s headlines

• Guerrilla gardening [ Toronto Star ] • Commercial activity or captivity? [ Globe and Mail ] • Can Smitherman soften partisan edge? ...
By Monika Warzecha
Green Space

Ruins along the Scarborough Bluffs

Sunday turned nice and computers were turned off and left at home for a trip to (what feels like) the most remote part of Toronto: the beach along the...
By Shawn Micallef
Bikes

Cutting short the Annette Street bike lane

â€œPerhaps for the first time in North America since the invention of the automobile, road space for motor vehicles is being reallocated to bicycles,â€�...
By Dale Duncan

Headlines

Sunday’s headlines

• Gardiner bike-in ‘not planned’ [ Toronto Sun ] • Why the wieners run City Hall [ Toronto Sun ] • Mayor McCallion honoured ...
By Monika Warzecha
Urban Design

Road Trip: Upstate New York

On Victoria Day weekend, myself, accompanied with a few friends headed off on a road trip to Boston, passing through several Upstate New York cities on...
By Sean Marshall
Spacing

Heritage Toronto walking tours this weekend: West Junction & Yorkville Hippies

We apologize for the tardiness of this post — we hope walk-devotees also check Heritage Toronto’s wonderful new site for walk listings as...
By Shawn Micallef
Bikes

Lorne Shields Historical Bicycle Photography

Cinecycle Toronto presents a rare opportunity to see one of the world’s finest collections of early cycling history. Esteemed collector Lorne...
By Tammy Thorne
History

Final day of CONTACT

It’s your last chance to check out this year’s CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival as most of the exhibits wrap up today. The theme this year...
By Lindsay Gibb
Headlines

Saturday’s headlines

GARDINER • A lesser dream, but a possible one [ Toronto Star ] • Feckless ambition: When half a dream will do [ Toronto Star ] • It’s...
By Monika Warzecha

Politics

MAYOR’S RACE: Will the next mayor slay Toronto The Good?

In the middle of a mayoral by-election that includes an idiotic sub-plot about park drinking, Ontario officials yesterday served up this gem: under an...
By John Lorinc
History

WATCH: Amazing archival videos of Toronto Pride 1988-1995

Between 1988 and 1995 (save for 1991 when he did not have a camera) Toronto editor and filmmaker James Leahy documented Toronto Pride, both the street...
By Shawn Micallef
History

The Toronto Circus Riot of 1855 — the day the clowns picked the wrong Toronto brothel

EDITOR: This is the second post of a new collaboration with the Toronto Dreams project by Adam Bunch (see the first here). The project is a series of...
By Adam Bunch
Elections

MAYOR’S RACE: Toronto’s not very green election

With 102 candidates on a ballot that may look more like a scroll than anything else, you’d think someone would be talking about carbon, and what the...
By John Lorinc
Photos

Farewell to Malabar, Toronto’s former costume emporium

Malabar Limited, the famed costume emporium, closed in March 2022. Although it had been a fixture of downtown Toronto’s cultural landscape for 99 years...
By Peter MacCallum
Elections

ELECTION: Voter turnout in 2022

Ever since John Tory was elected mayor of Toronto in 2014, voter turnout in municipal elections has been in decline. In 2010, the year Rob Ford was...
By Sean Marshall

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