Tag: christopher hume

The fiberglass pink mile

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If you live in Toronto and have recently been near the corner of Yonge & Bloor — arguably the core intersection of the city — you would have seen the empty lot, razed many months ago in preparation for the 80-story condo that generated lineups hundreds-deep for early sales. Looking across that nice flat lot, it would have also been very easy to remind yourself how sad the corner is. A squat, dull little men’s (old men’s) clothing store and two nondescript office towers, one which is fronted by an ugly-ass concrete bunker. The city is trying to help things by expanding and greening up the sidewalks along Bloor, but even such help can’t mask the missed opportunity of Yonge & Bloor.

There were hopes that the right condo design would help the corner, but construction ground to a halt last year as the economy hiccuped and banks grew nervous about their borrowers. Last month the Kazakh-backed developer, who had defaulted on loan payments, sold the property. Onward and upward, right?

Probably. But Toronto’s army of public space advocates has been wondering aloud why we shouldn’t make that corner into a square. Politicians have weighed in, including the mayor who thinks “[i]t would be a remarkable place for a square.” Spacing Magazine, Toronto’s unofficial public space and urban affairs manual, has looked on the newly-pedestrianized Times Square in New York, and seen in it similarities to the last major downtown public square built in Toronto: Yonge & Dundas Square. YDS has completely transformed the corner of Yonge & Dundas which, when I moved to this city, was nothing more than a spigot draining the Eaton Centre. The corner is now a vital part of the city — for example, the film festival is staging a number of free movies and events at YDS this year.

Spacing doesn’t explicitly come out for a Yonge & Bloor square in that article, but do mention other possibilities like Front Street near St. Lawrence Market or Queen West. Personally, I love the Front Street idea. It already feels like a pedestrian mall, and on Saturdays it’s practically impossible to drive down Front anyway, for all the pedestrians zipping back and forth to the north market. But none of those would have the impact of a square at Yonge & Bloor.

Yesterday The Star’s Christopher Hume wrote another article about the site, saying the Toronto Public Space Committee is now on board. Hume does point out that it’s unlikely condo development would stop on the site, but perhaps there’s room for a building and a square. I think that’s the best possible/probable outcome. Dense residential, retail space and a public square wrapped in something architecturally compelling would serve as a proper gateway to Bloor between Yonge & Avenue, the so-called Mink Mile.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of faith that this is what will happen. Yonge/Bloor Home Depot, anyone?

"[A] Herculean task"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Once again, Star columnist Christopher Hume has gone and gotten my hopes up about Toronto’s waterfront. Today’s column, Breathing life into Don River, is about redeveloping the foot of the river where it meets Lake Ontario, and contains the lovely little representation seen above. Sigh.

Hume ends the article by saying it’ll take twenty-five years to finish this particular section of waterfront and start moving people into the residential portions. Given the lack of progress I’ve seen since I moved here twelve years ago, I fear he’s being overly optimistic.

Final thoughts on Nuit Blanche

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment
  • David Topping at Torontoist has an excellent list of recommendations for how to improve next year’s event, including my favourite “Somehow Ban Trashed, Annoying People from Participating.” Also, you can tell by the article’s permalink that the original title was “The Nights Who Say Nuit” but I’m guessing the editor pulled that for excessive levels of nerd. 🙂
  • Another of Topping’s suggestions — Ban Non-Pedestrian Traffic — was echoed by Toronto Star columnist Christopher Hume. Pretty hard to argue with that, having seen a few people almost hit by cars and Queen Street ground to a halt anyway. Even leaving Richmond, Adelaide & Front open for cross-town traffic while closing off Wellington, Queen & King would help.
  • My Flickr traffic has gone through the roof in the last 24 hours, partly from native Flickr searches, and partly because Spacing Wire used one of my pictures.
  • Finally, while we could hear the rehearsals all week leading up to Nuit Blanche in the nearby park, and could also hear the early performances Saturday evening before we went out, we missed seeing Quixotic ourselves in St. James Park. It looked impressive too: how this performance at 5AM didn’t wake us up I’ll never know.

"This is my first torture."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

The weekend of awesomeness continued today. We both slept in a little before going for breakfast at Fran’s and picking up groceries on the way home. We dropped the bags and walked over to the Scotiabank theatre to see Rendition (imdb | rotten tomatoes). It was ok…a little heavy-handed and too scattered to really flesh out most of the characters, but worth watching. Weird part was the couple in front of us. They alternated between fooling around and taking phone calls. It was distracting and, frankly, confusing. And the dude had Sideshow Bob hair. Anyhoo.

After the movie we decided to stop at Smokeless Joe’s for a couple of beer (Great Lakes Pumpkin Spice Ale for Nellie, Hacker-Pschorr Dunkel Weiss for me) and a late lunch. We got there at 3:40 and the place was empty. I mean, literally empty…even the staff was nowhere to be seen. Finally a guy showed up; turns out they don’t open until 4, but he let us stay. When we left 90 minutes later only one other customer had come in, so it was like we had the bar to ourselves all afternoon. Fun.

.:.

Late last night we finally watched The Last King Of Scotland (imdb | rotten tomatoes), and I’ll say the same thing every other critic and person I know has said: pretty good movie, but Forest Whitaker was amazing. Pretty decent performances all around, and a good job recreating the Uganda of the time, and Kerry Washington is my girlfriend du jour, but really, it’s Whitaker who steals the show. As usual. Looking at the man’s imdb profile it’s almost hard to believe he hadn’t won many awards until this film. He should have won an Emmy just for his role on The Shield two seasons ago.

.:.

Christopher Hume, the Toronto Star’s architecture critic, wrote up our building yesterday. He gave it an A, which is nice to hear.

Sitting on the northwest corner of Church and Adelaide Sts., this is one of the most elegant condo towers in Toronto. It isn’t fancy and the materials – glass and steel – aren’t expensive; what makes this building attractive is the elegance and simplicity of its form. At 45 storeys , it’s one of those rare structures designed to take advantage of height, indeed, height is what makes it so appealing.

Up close, there’s just enough detailing to maintain a sense of engagement. Glass Juliet balconies, perforated banding, operable windows and other touches enliven surfaces that could otherwise be sterile and boring. Just as important, the utilitarian functions have been hidden away from the main facades on Church, Adelaide and Lombard. Keeping in mind that the original proposed site was the park surrounding St. James’ Cathedral (which would have been disastrous), the final location across the road and slightly north is perfect; a rare happy ending.

The design and integration to the neighbourhood were almost as important to us as the unit itself. We’re glad it turned out so well.

.:.

  • Original weight: 233
  • Weight last week: 222
  • Weight this week: 221.5

I did get to the gym three times this week and did lots of walkin’ around the city this weekend; I believe what kept me to a scant half pound dropped was the steady influx of Hallowe’en candy to the office

[tags]rendition, smokeless joe’s, last king of scotland, forest whitaker, girlfriend du jour, spire condominium, christopher hume, toronto star, fatblogging[/tags]