Yearly Archives: 2024
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The urban photography of Arthur Goss, part 4: Toronto Water Works, 1910-1939
Unlike his Parks Series, which highlights the inclusiveness of the City’s recreational facilities, Goss’s Toronto Water Works Series documents what was at...
By Peter MacCallum -
Remembering the Harriet Tubman Youth Centre On St. Clair West
From November 1, 1972 to September 30, 1975, a Black cultural hub known as the Harriet Tubman Youth Centre operated in a building located at 15 Robina...
By Cheryl Thompson -
The bold, the fleeting, the beautiful
This isn’t your typical house slated for demolition. The lawn isn’t wildly overgrown, and the structure isn’t dilapidated. Instead, 91 Barton Ave. is...
By Trent Weston -
They Brought Back the Don
In the coming weeks, Waterfront Toronto crews will remove the final plug in the new Lower Don, thereby allowing the river to finally flow naturally...
By John Lorinc -
PODCAST: Spacing Radio 079, Is Toronto strangled by rules?
Toronto is often accused of being over-regulated. It’s a fair criticism. For example, photographer and urbanist commentator Dan Seljak tells us how...
By Spacing Radio -
LORINC: Eyes in the Sky
On the evening of July 1, after the sky darkened and the fireworks over Ashbridge’s Bay began, some participants noticed eight police drones...
By John Lorinc -
OP-ED: Avenue Road – a bad way to make good roads
If there is a good way to make city streets safe, Avenue Road is a bad example. By the time a proposed interim safety plan for Avenue Road reached City...
By Albert Koehl -
LORINC: The Gordian Knot that is Toronto Island
In a city that loves to make, but not execute, plans and then overthink, but not solve, problems, there’s surely no better illustration of this...
By John Lorinc -
OP-ED: What the Province’s takeover of the Gardiner and DVP really means
Much-needed repair work to the western portion of the Gardiner Expressway began this spring, sparking a lot of consternation about the disruptions to...
By David Simor -
LORINC: The case for adaptive re-use of Ontario Science Centre
Given all the powerful arguments articulated by commentators like Elsa Lam, in Canadian Architect, or Alex Bozikovic, in The Globe and Mail, there’s...
By John Lorinc -
The urban photography of Arthur Goss, Part 3: Parks and Recreation, 1913-1940
Following the appointment of Charles E. Chambers as Parks Commissioner in 1912, Toronto’s park system entered a period of continuous expansion, creating...
By Peter MacCallum -
LORINC: The public space miracle of the moveable chair (redux)
In 1979, when the renowned American sociologist William (Holly) Whyte published The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces — which is, let’s face it, a...
By John Lorinc