COURTESY KPMB ARCHITECTS An artist’s rendering of the proposed redevelopment of Bloor Street United Church. The heritage aspects of the church will be restored, and a 38-storey mixed-use tower added to the church grounds.
By Geremy Bordonaro
Cheri DiNovo leaves politics for ministry at Trinity-St. Paul’s
GEREMY BORDONARO/GLEANER NEWS After 11 years in provincial politics, Cheri DiNovo is returning to the Annex and her ministerial roots. She performed the first legalized same-sex marriage in North America when she was a minister at Emmanuel Howard Park United Church.
MATT JAMES/GLEANER NEWS FILE PHOTO
City Manager Peter Wallace tried again, in vain, to alert members of city council to the threat posed by hedging the city’s budget against the apparent unrelenting strength of Toronto’s real estate market. The city has enjoyed explosive growth in revenue from the land transfer tax over the last ten years, and projections for next year suggest that Toronto will get $808 million, four times what it got when the tax was first introduced.
The Public Works and Infrastructure Committee (PWIC) of city council has been asked to help reduce the number of “doorings” — when a car door is opened into the path of an oncoming cyclist — in Toronto. Although this falls under the provincial jurisdiction of the Highway Traffic Act, one advocate believes the city needs to act.
BRIAN BURCHELL/GLEANER NEWS Second World War veterans Shirley and George Brickenden place poppies at Revera Retirement Residence on November 9 in honour of Remembrance Day. The Brickendens, who live at Revera, were joined by Hazel McCallion, Revera’s chief elder officer and Mississauga’s former mayor. Revera residents across Canada made over 17,000 poppies for displays all over the country.
By Geremy Bordonaro
The University of Toronto Schools (UTS) has launched Building the Future, a $60-million fundraising campaign aimed at restoring its current building and developing a new building that will include a performance centre.
Upgrading the facilities is part of the terms of its agreement with the University of Toronto (U of T).
By Geremy Bordonaro
It’s been a long time coming but the Bloor Street bike lanes are now a permanent fixture of the community.
COURTESY BLOOR ANNEX BIA
The right-of-way on the western flank of the grocery store at Bloor and Robert streets will be redeveloped into a park, thanks to the Bloor Annex BIA.
The Bloor Annex Business Improvement Area (BIA) met this month to discuss the upcoming, and much anticipated, Bloor Street revitalization plan due in 2019.
NEILAND BRISSENDEN/GLEANER NEWS Honest Ed’s is slowly crumbling, as excavators have begun to pull down the west building from the rear to make way for a mixed use development at Bathurst and Bloor streets. Ed Mirvish built this part of his store over existing houses, which is why the floors were crooked. The developers are preserving 27 buildings on Markham and Bathurst streets, and will incorporate them in the development.
Planning has officially begun on the Kensington Market Heritage Conservation District, after city staff and Taylor Hazell Architects spent more than a year studying how best to preserve the area’s unique character. It comes shortly after the National Film Board of Canada released a Heritage Minute about the history of the market’s cultural diversity.
The officer convicted in the death of a troubled teenager on a Toronto Transit Commission streetcar in July 2013 has been re-arrested for breach of his bail conditions.
COURTESY JESSICA LEE/TORONTO DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD School Watch Officer Andrea Harris (front row, third from left) was part of a group of officers from 14 Division who celebrated the Day of Pink at Harbord Collegiate Institute in April 2016. The Day of Pink is a worldwide event aimed at raising awareness to stop discrimination, gender-based bullying, homophobia, and transphobia.