CITY HALL
• Privacy Commissioner comes to Moscoe’s aid [ Globe and Mail ]
• City OKs turning graffiti into art [ Toronto Sun ]
TTC
• 17-year-old charged in subway shooting [ Globe and Mail ]
• 2nd arrest in woman’s shooting on subway [ Toronto Star ]
• 2nd arrest in Spadina subway shooting [ CBC.ca ]
TOURISM
• Do tourists miss ‘Toronto the Good’? [ National Post ]
• New gems touted as tourist draws [ National Post ]
WATERFRONT
• Port authority vote ‘unlawful’ [ Globe and Mail ]
• Poor planning undermines waterfront [ Toronto Star ]
MISCELLANEOUS
• The city’s homeless will soon be moving on up with the help of the New Edwin Hotel. It’s about time [ Toronto Sun ]
• Watered down pesticide ban? [ Toronto Sun ]
• Re-discovering Toronto’s lost bridge [ National Post ]
11 comments
Ann Cavoukian saves the day again!
“Do tourists miss ‘Toronto the Good’?,” seriously?!
The tourists I’ve talked to are, more than anything, annoyed they can’t drink past 2 AM – especially the ones from New York and Montreal.
Toronto’s only hope for attracting pre-SARS tourism levels is rebuilding its image as a vice trap, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Remember the Summer of Pot?
That’s right, let’s create a city like Las Vegas. Wouldn’t we all like to be residents of a city that tourists can describe as “A nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.”
Perhaps we should hope for more than to be the vanguard on the race to the bottom.
Vice trap? C’mon! That will attract a few hundred, maybe a few thousand tourists. But tourists that come for vices tend to only buy meals and spend the rest on semi-black market stuff like drugs, and the rest on booze. kevin is talking about the crowd that will stay in hostels and on couches, not in high end hotels. A city of vice should only be part of an overall approach to tourism, if at all. In thereal world, promoting the fantastic night life of hte gay village and community is a much better focus than a city as a vice trap. Vancouver let that go and look what happened. And when the winds of change come, those folks who came for the vices are pushed out and put a huge strain on a city’s resources. I suspect the tourists Kevin talks to are young and do not make the same kind of financial influx into the economy as a family tourists.
Unless Toronto wants to become Amsterdam — and I don’t think we want to go that far — Toronto has to do a variety of things like create pedestrian malls (Yonge St and Gay Village, for example), rinks along the waterfront for winter tourists, improve Yonge Street’s shopping experience, invest in parks and landscape architecture, build some spectacular buildings, improve downtown streetcar lines, and really invest in the main streets of our vaunted neighbourhoods. We have the culture, arts, food, and nightlife, we just don’t have the caché yet of a world city.
Is Kevin here for comic relief?
I think I’ve heard that Amsterdam has culture, arts, and food, as well as their much-vaunted nightlife.
“promoting the fantastic night life of hte gay village”
I wish such a thing actually existed in Toronto!
The Post mentioned that Pantalone would be unveiling a plaque today for the buried Crawford Street Bridge… I live across the street and I didn’t see anything happen, and I couldn’t find a plaque – does anyone know what gives?
I actually remember that bridge.I was very very young but it’s amazing sometimes the memories that can be dug up.Actually some of the fill was “garbage” and that fill recently caused a bit of trouble.When they first filled the ravine the “railings of the bridge remained for a few years.The lamp posts were unique and in an “acorn cast glass” style.They glowed in a dim yellowish light at night.The creek itself caused much grief to the engineers who “dared ” build on top of the creek.At queen and bellwoods an apartment building was built that quicky crumbled at the spot over the creek.The city took over the building and rebuilt the fault.
We used to play touch football and baseball right beside “the bridge” on the east side.One time David Petterson joined, now that became an interesting game.Another time when the Liberals actually ran a “party” candidate named Harold Perrenboom (sorry for the spelling)he used a hot air ballon to promote his campaign.Offering free rides to “see” the riding.
When Joe Pantalone came along he used the area to promote his new way of winning votes,planting trees and the area became off limits to the youth of the area.I remember those trees when they were saplings. Joe reveres them as a reminder.He would never cut them down……we heard that before.
But to put the bridge back I think would be a mistake.Oh well let Joe put up one of his infamous plaques,maybe he will be generous and give back the princes’ gates to us.Milan doesn’t use it and besides I never see anybody sipping expresso by the piazza princes’ gates (dedicated to Milan).I wonder if he will dedicate the bridge as the piazza crawford bridge????Well come by and see Joe around 4PM Wednesday.
Vice trap? Vice trap?!? I’m sure residents downtown will love that idea. Dealing with even more drunk/stoned visitors late at night is sure to make the locals very happy.
Amsterdam is a great city and the vice part can be avoided with ease.