This year’s December cover is a photo courtesy of cycling advocate Jun Nogami. Jun Nogami has been a bicycle advocate since moving back to Toronto in 2004. He documents the activities of ARC (Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists) when they install ghost bikes in the GTA. His photo shows a ghost bike at Dufferin Grove, […]

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City moves to narrow car lanes on Spadina Road By Temi Dada Following an active campaign led by Sandra Shaul and other members of the Annex Residents’ Association (ARA), the City of Toronto is moving to give pedestrians a little more space (and safety) on Spadina Road. “I’m not a downtown elitist who hates cars. […]

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Bloor Street citizens have their say By Geremy Bordonaro The December 22 shutdown of Pacifico Life had us wondering: what do people think of having a marijuana dispensary in their neighbourhood? So, we hit Bloor Street on January 12, not too far from where Pacifico Life had been, to find out. We asked people what […]

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City designates Bloor Street a cultural corridor By Annemarie Brissenden, Brian Burchell, and Liivi Sandy Toronto City Council designated the 1.5-kilometre stretch along Bloor Street from Bay to Bathurst streets as a cultural corridor last month, just as the province forgave a significant portion of a loan it had granted to one of the arts organizations […]

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By Annemarie Brissenden The city has responded to a developer’s application to build what many have termed a “vertical rooming house” at 316 Bloor St. W. with a development of its own: the Bloor Corridor/Annex Block Study. “Two applications led us to believe that there is a certain amount of development pressure in the Annex,” […]

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Rogers family donates $5 million to Hot Docs By Annemarie Brissenden Ninety years after John Grierson — who would go on to become the first commissioner of the National Film Board of Canada — coined the term documentary, Toronto’s burgeoning narrative feature industry has secured a permanent home. Late last month, Hot Docs received a […]

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Community meeting scheduled for June 13 By Annemarie Brissenden A new on-site park with dog run, increased heritage conservation, and a refined built form that includes reduced streetwall heights and densities marks the major features of Westbank Projects Corp.’s revised zoning application, which the company submitted to City Planning last month. Westbank has embarked on […]

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Re “Bike lane plan up for debate” (January 2016): As someone who has actively chased better Bloor Street biking for over a decade, I should be very happy that bike safety changes may finally occur, but I’m not fully pleased. By only doing a part of Bloor Street in the already well-served Annex area (where […]

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By Julia Hennessey For the first time ever, the Toronto Fringe Festival has officially opened its programming to include visual artists, and according to Gideon Arthurs, barring hate crimes, anything goes. “People don’t feel like [art is] accessible so they don’t understand it and they don’t interact with the visual arts,” said Arthurs, the festival’s […]

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By Cara Waterfall Festival on Bloor started as a bet between local business owners and has become a summer staple for Annex residents. Credit: Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre. Festival on Bloor (FoB) originally began with a disagreement between Andrew Kilgour and former James Joyce Irish Pub (386 Bloor St. W.) owner Robert Costello. “I […]

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By Zacchary K While the often inebriated and occasionally violent behavior of  Brunswick House (481 Bloor St. W.) patrons upsets nearby residents, the bar goers say they are no strangers themselves to getting the cold shoulder from “lame-ass” locals. From police enforcement blitzes, neighbours telling them to “shut up already,” and female-residents-crossing-the-street-and-not-answering-their-questions-but-whatever,-it’s-not-like-they-were-that-hot-anyway, Brunny regulars say they feel […]

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Cinema has worn many hats over the century, online doc shows By Matt James The Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor St. W.), like a lot of centarians, has shrunk with age. Back in 1941 when it was known as the Midtown, it could seat 1,125 people. You could catch a flick for 35 cents, and if […]

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