Synagogue and church share one building By Ahmed-Zaki Hagar Every Saturday morning at Bloor Street United Church (BSUC), a tapestry depicting the Ten Commandments is hung in front of the giant cross. It’s a sign that for the morning, the church has been transformed into a synagogue for the hundreds of Jewish congregants who observe […]

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The danger of equating pop culture with the periodic table This neighbourhood is known for great people and I’m lucky enough to call many of them neighbours. I had the pleasure of joining some friends for dinner recently. After dinner, the gracious host pulled out a game and continued their after-dinner tradition of playing the […]

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Central Tech student raced alongside Jesse Owens Students and staff at Central Technical School joined the descendants of Sam Richardson to officially declare the school’s front laneway Sam Richardson Way and unveil a new street sign on February 15. The celebration was also one of the school’s events that marked Black History Month. We thought […]

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Invest in transit and public works, not roads and parking If all goes according to plan — and with the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) it never does — Torontonians should enjoy time-based transfers starting in August. It’s great news for transit users but critics — who claim it’s an unfair subsidy — are livid. “How […]

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What’s left out is just as important The data is in on the Bloor Street pilot bike lanes, and it seems to support keeping the lanes. (Now that the bike lanes are in, even on a pilot basis, it’s a little surreal to me that anyone actually wants to pull them out.) But speaking of […]

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Apollo 11 an Annex favourite By Linda R. Goldman It may be the best kept secret in the Annex. Every second Wednesday, Apollo 11 (1093 Bathurst St.) serves a house specialty: homemade moussaka, as good as Yaya (Greek for grandmother) might make. Moussaka is a traditional Greek baked dish that features minced beef or lamb […]

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We need to plant more than we harvest As we turn our attention to going back to school, it’s nice to reflect on the ways we can reduce the waste that we generate during the school year. According to one survey, the average school in the United States uses about 2,000 sheets of paper per […]

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Lots of places for ambling with a dog, playing sports, or watching the world go by Where are the best bathrooms, the best spots to laze away a day, or the best place to run a dog? It’s all here in the second instalment of our annual parks review. We’ll run the third and final […]

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Toronto shouldn’t have to pay for roads used by non-Torontonians I love a good history lesson. The Green Party of Ontario is floating a wonderful petition to implement road tolls on the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) and Gardiner Expressway. I haven’t been shy about being a fan for congestion control purposes. It likely won’t be […]

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Some parks still suffer from litter and disrepair Grading our Greenspace returns this month in the first of a three-part series. For this popular feature, we assess many of the parks in and surrounding the Annex considering factors like functionality, safety, cleanliness, seating, and shade. As in past years, our grades are widely varied: after […]

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Time to end the car era By Terri Chu While I grant you that visiting a place for a mere two days can’t possibly do it justice, I was more than happy to leave Madrid after what felt like a very long 48 hours. Despite great cuisine and historic vistas, the city felt destroyed by […]

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Narayever synagogue’s private sponsorship builds community By Clarrie Feinstein It took almost two years, but in March the First Narayever Congregation on Brunswick Avenue was finally able to welcome a Syrian refugee family into their community. When the couple and their five-year-old son arrived in Toronto, they became one of 14,000 privately sponsored families now […]

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