By Rebecca Payne

This June, the Annex Residents’ Association and the Heritage Toronto will dedicate two plaques to commemorate the grassroots community action that helped halt the construction of the planned Spadina Expressway. One is proposed for the northeast corner of Spadina Road and Bloor Street West, and the other for the Kendall Street subway entrance.

The expressway would have cut through the heart of many of the city’s neighbourhoods (including Cedarvale, Forest Hill, and the Annex), and many homes would have been razed to accommodate it—not to mention the increase in noise, traffic, and pollution it would have caused.

“If we are building a transportation system to serve the automobile, the Spadina Expressway would be a good place to start. But if we are building a transportation system to serve people, the Spadina Expressway is a good place to stop,” said then-premier Bill Davis.

Notable luminaries of the time became involved in the fight, including: historian, philosopher, and literary critic Lewis Mumford, communication theorist and academic icon Marshall McLuhan and the much-lauded writer and urban theorist Jane Jacobs.

In the Annex, the Stop Spadina, Save Our City Coordinating Committee (SSSOCCC) was formed in 1969.

The group organized petitions and public lectures, eventually banning together with other opposition groups in the city under the moniker The Spadina Review Corporation (SRC). In 1971 the project was over budget and had only been completed to Lawrence Avenue. Metro Council opted to apply to the Ontario Municipal Board for approval to secure funds.

At subsequent hearings, the SRC went head-to-head with Metro Council; Metro’s case was based on studies showing that the project was needed to handle the predicted increase in traffic and the SRC’s case raised the concerns of citizens. The SRC lost the vote, but then appealed to the provincial cabinet, which reneged its support—and stopped the Spadina Expressway.

The plaques will honour notable leaders of the community who were involved, and suggestions for the text will be solicited from those who played a role in this important period in our city’s history.

By Beth Macdonell

In the early 1990s, residents and merchants of Kensington Market successfully organized to increase garbage pickup days from two to three days a week.

Now, it will be seen if the newly formed Kensington Business Improvement Area (BIA), will be able to make a similar move by reversing a decision by Toronto Solid Waste to cut garbage pickup in the market from two days to one.

“I get an earful about it every time I walk through the market,” said Councillor Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina). “It was a decision that staff made and we have been playing catch up ever since.”

Vaughan said he was notified about the scaled-back garbage collection shortly before the Nov. 1 decision in an email.

Rob Orpin, director of collection operations, said the decision to harmonize commercial collection was made citywide. He said it was reviewed by Public Works and approved by city council.

Under the new pick up schedule, businesses can sign up for a premium organic collection five or six days a week that will cost businesses $1,200 or $1,600 a year respectively. “It works out to $4 a day. It’s a cheap way of diverting waste from landfill,” said Orpin.

“The whole premise and city explanation is three fold: It’s a cop out, a tax grab and phony as Swiss cheese with no holes,” said Ozzie Pavao, one of the founding members of the Kensington BIA and owner of Casa Acoreana. “The economy is so bad … and you want to pull another $1,200 out of us. I can’t believe it.”

Other businesses that handle food said the reduction makes no sense. “I don’t understand,” said Alfonso Segovia, one of the owners of Segovia Meat Market (218 Augusta Ave.). “For some reason, the city doesn’t pay attention to us.”

Segovia’s family has been doing business in the market since 1978. He said he’s perplexed how health issues alone didn’t motivate the city to keep the two pickup days. The more garbage, the more “bacteria there is, rodents—these are big problems. I can’t leave anything outside.”

To cope, Segovia stores his garbage indoors in sealed bins until garbage day.

“I could never wait a week for garbage pickup”, said Kim Choo, owner of the New Seaway Fish Market (195 Baldwin St.). He said he has so much garbage, he can’t store it in bins. Instead, he and a group of other businesses pay for private garbage pickup. “I could afford to hire another worker, if the city picked up my garbage,” said Choo.

The problem goes all the way back to when Kensington grew into a market, said David Perlman, a resident in the market for the past 25 years and the former publisher of the Kensington Drum, a community newspaper in print from 1986 to 1996 which followed the battle to increase garbage collection in the paper’s monthly column “Garbage Crunch.”

Kensington Market started as a residential neighbourhood and eventually “people just decided, this is where I’m going to have my store and this is where I am going to shop,” said Perlman. He said the lanes and the narrow streets were never intended to be a business area, which is one of the reasons garbage collection issues linger today. It took years for the city even to recognize Kensington as a mixed-use area, which made getting appropriate garbage collection difficult.

What’s striking today is that in contrast to the days when Perlman covered garbage collection in the Drum, there are a lot more restaurants and bars open late, changing the garbage pick up needs in the market.

But the ability of the BIA to drive change and come up with a solution is debatable.

“There are so many stores and hardly anyone goes to the meetings,” said Segovia, referring to meetings among storeowners over garbage issues in the past.

Perlman, who is also a founding member of the Kensington Market Action Committee, is worried the BIA may create a wedge between storeowners and residents in the market. “This BIA loses the notion that we are all ‘people of the market.’”

Back in the early 1990s, “it was a common front,” he said. For example, residents don’t want the noise of garbage trucks going through the neighbourhood, he said.

Still, Perlman says Vaughan has really supported the BIA and admires the work of the councillor. “This is an issue for people to sink their teeth into. It will be interesting to see what comes of it.”

Pavao is more confident that the BIA will make a difference.

“We (the BIA) can voice our opinion. We can try and make them change their mind. We have to stand up to these so-called representatives of the taxpayer,” he said.

“We need a made-in-Kensington solution,” said Vaughan. “It can’t operate along suburban guidelines.”

Choo suggested the city open a 24-hour drop-off centre where merchants could bring excess garbage for an extra fee. At least, this way he said, it would give businesses another option to keep their establishments and the streets cleaner.

In the meantime, Orpin thinks stores should give the new system a chance and time.

By Claude Saravia

Matt James/Gleaner News

Chad Mutchler was watching from a friend’s roof that cold Feb. 20 when a fire ripped through the Queen West neighbourhood just before dawn.

It took 150 firefighters in 30 trucks to extinguish the six- alarm inferno that destroyed a section of Queen Street West, between Bathurst Street and Portland Avenue in 2008.

He never imagined that two years later, nothing would have been done with the site.

Mutchler is the manager of Shanti Baba, a store that directly faces the vacant lot.

Today, he shrugs and says he has no idea if, or when, any of the previous stores will come back.

“The neighbourhood has gone downhill since the fire,” Mutchler said. “Business has been affected. A lot of the stores that were there, especially Duke’s Cycle, brought a lot of business. It seemed like the neighbourhood itself was going a little downhill before, and then once the fire hit, it just finished it off.”

The strip was once a heritage site with some of the buildings destroyed built as early as the 1860s. It housed 25 people and 14 businesses—some which had been in the area for generations. Now it is a boarded up lot, which residents and business owners say has turned the heart of Queen Street West into an eyesore. While everyone hopes for change, many remain skeptical that it will happen any time soon.

“Basically the only thing the neighbourhood can do is go back up, because it sucks right now,” said Mutchler. “They have to get something built across the street to bring more people back here, because the neighbourhood is just falling apart.”

Mutchler said not only has business been down, but also the lot now attracts a lot of questionable people and activities.

“They need to do something,” he said. “Crackheads, prostitutes, drunks—you name it—have camped out in there, especially last summer. It was just disgusting back there. There was a pile of rubble that was at least ten feet tall, and all during last summer, there were weeds growing out of it, and it stunk. People were dumping garbage back there, long before the garbage strike, and they still do now.”

Graffiti and posters line the boarded-up lot, and piles of garbage and rubble are still visible.

Councillor Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) is aware of local business concerns, believing progress will be made soon. He also said the city is aware of the site’s current problems.

“We are concerned about some of the anti-social behavior that’s been on display in that area.

“I live in the area and walk by the spot virtually every day that I come to work. For a while the barricades were being broken down, there has been a bit of vandalism with sort of tagging, as well as illegal dumping,” he said.

“The only way to solve that problem is to get the buildings built, and we expect a couple of the major buildings to come online very shortly, and once that starts to happen, we think activities will return to normal.”

Matt James/Gleaner News

Neither Mutchler nor Vaughan believe the city will be able to put condos up, as many residents and business owners suspected. Both are hopeful the old businesses will return.

Luis Ceriz, owner of Suspect Video, said his business has no plans to come back to the former site. There were originally two locations for Suspect Video, with one being at the Queen Street location, the other being at its current location on Markham Street in the Annex.

“I have no idea what plans they have for the reconstructing of the neighbourhood, but we are just going to keep our current location for now,” he said.

Ceriz said one of the main reasons for not returning was that his old manager opened his own video store near the site, Eyesore Cinema, which increases the competition he would face if he came back.

“I wouldn’t open now mostly for that reason. When I had both places my attention was always divided between the two. I didn’t realize how much I missed being so hands-on,” he said.

“The optimist in me says that construction will begin as soon as summer,” said Vaughan when asked when the neighbourhood could expect to see improvements. “I think that all of the property owners are aiming for something to happen as quick as possible. Two of them are pretty confident that they have proposals coming forward that they think they can get processed in terms of excavation, and foundation work can be started as soon as summer.”

Still not everyone is convinced any progress has been made or will be made anytime soon.

Mutchler said he had hoped Vaughan would have done more.

“He said he was going to help the neighbourhood but no action has been done, so that just proves that he couldn’t or wouldn’t,” he said. ”He promises a lot of good things but nothing ever comes of it, and I know a lot of people around here feel the same way.”

“I know at the beginning he tried to be very helpful,” said Mark Newman, manager of Dukes Cycle’s. “But how much help has there been recently, I couldn’t comment on that.”

Randall Duke, owner of Duke’s Cycles lost both his home and business in the fire. The store is currently located on Richmond Street West, but Newman says the store plans to make a return to Queen West by the summer.

“We were open within six weeks after the fire and we have been there since then,” said Newman. “The current situation is that we are planning to start construction at the old location in March, so we are going to move back.

“There are still some fine details to work out with the city, but we sort of have gotten a general approval to go ahead with construction.”

Although he is excited about the prospect of returning, Newman said he was absolutely disappointed in how long the process took, and he blames the insurance companies mostly for the length of time it has taken.

Vaughan agreed, saying a lot of the delays were not necessarily the cause of the city, but rather delays in finding a cause for the fire, as well as insurance companies not doing their part.

He also said the city has been doing whatever possible to help recreate the essence of the neighbourhood’s charm. He cited Abraham’s Antiques and Pizzaiolo as two businesses that were able to rebuild and have had successful returns to the neighbourhood. Preloved also relocated in the area, across from Trinity-Bellwoods Park.

“We had a lot of trouble with insurance companies not fully honouring their policies and the property owners were given a very difficult time trying to get progress,” said Vaughan.

There are six different property owners who lost their buildings in the fire. Each owner had their own specific insurance policies and coverage levels.

Nearly ten months after the fire, the Ontario fire marshal declared that the cause of the fire would never be known, but it was believed to have started above National Sound.

“The investigation took a long time to make a determination as to what caused the fire,” said Vaughan. “When no determination was issued by the fire marshal, well the insurance companies had been waiting for some sort of declaration. It put things into another realm of ‘Okay, now we have to figure out what that means.’ And the insurance companies sort of dragged their feet and made things somewhat difficult for the property owners.”

Wayne Romaine from the office of the Fire Marshal was reported as saying that the fire’s estimated cost was $10 million.

Vaughan is hopeful things will start improving soon.

“Every time I walk by there and don’t see a Duke’s Cycle, it just doesn’t feel like my neighbourhood, and it won’t ever feel like my neighbourhood until Duke’s is back on Queen Street.

“These stores were as vital a part of Queen Street as the Cameron House or any other institution on that street. They are part of the neighbourhood, and we miss them, and we want them back.”

Filthy dirty homemade fun

It’s probably a fair bet that St. Valentine, whosoever that borderline-apocryphal personality might be, probably didn’t think of his life’s work as culminating in an excuse for greeting card makers and confectioners to have a one-day sales bonanza. And yet, here we are.

But probably even further still from his mind would be wooden bespoke dildos.

And yet, Feb. 13 at The Gladstone, these things and more will be on display at the Erotic Arts and Crafts Fair. Basically, if it’s somehow sex-related, and made by someone on a small and/or local scale, it will be at this fair. And since all the Valentine’s Day consumerism is really just a thinly-veiled effort to get into someone’s pants (unless, of course, one is drinking alone on that day—a highly recommended alternative to awful heart-shaped candies), the least a roped-in Valentiner could do is get something a little less corporate.

And since the day is celebrated for something already a little bit off from what its namesake probably would’ve liked, celebrants are encouraged to give a syncretistic shrug and buy some wearable balloon art.

The end of an era

It sure isn’t 2003 anymore; in fact, there are those who would say it never even was 2003.

Long gone are the days of Gordon Downie and other CanCon luminaries showing up on a Sunday night to Sneaky Dee’s to check out the hubbub and buzz surrounding a local new music series. Long since launched are the careers of Torontonian superbands with a billion members, sleepy folksters, acoustic chanteuses turned sequenced dance mistresses, and more violinists and glockenspielists than can be counted in the limited space provided here.

Over a decade which saw the rise of the VICE aesthetic, the fashion-shrinkage of pants, and the death of so many previously assumed goods and institutions, the good folks at the Wavelength Music Series established their own place in the city’s consciousness.

Some say that the dwindling attendance numbers at its weekly music series, along with the proliferation of other promoters and venues catering towards a similar audience, are an indication that it has succeeded—and in doing so made itself irrelevant.

Others might say that the shine on bands that can barely play their instruments is off. Regardless, after ten long years, the weekly Wavelength series is calling it a decade.

The organization will still continue to promote one-off events, but the time it spent at Ted’s, Sneak’s, and now, The Garrison making Monday mornings difficult for the hipster in all of us, is at a close.

To mark this occasion, Wavelength presents five days of concerts, from Feb. 10 through 14.

Fun for the respectable folk

Say you actually have to show up for a job on a Monday? Not hung-over, even?

Or that buying amusing bawdy novelty items, no matter how de rigeur their craftsmanship, has long since lost its lustre?

If you are one of those respectable individuals for whom Family Day will actually be used to spend with your family, the Gleaner hasn’t forgotten you. Campbell House Museum has a full afternoon of 19^th century fun and games for the entire family, including baking, dancing, and arts and crafts.

The programs run from 1 through 4 p.m. on Feb. 15.

Cinema has worn many hats over the century, online doc shows

Inside The Bloor Cinema with filmmaker Robin Sharp. In 2005, he and fellow filmmaker Peter Kuplowsky pieced together the history of The Bloor Cinema for your viewing pleasure.

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 you threw in an extra dime, they would let you smoke in there.

These days it seats around 800, smoking is not allowed, and while this revue theatre is still affordable, most trips to the movies will cost you upwards of $15, minus the popcorn.

A good way to learn about this historical building and keep some money in your pocket would be to watch The Bloor, a 20 minute documentary available online about the Annex institution.

When Toronto filmmakers Robin Sharp and Peter Kuplowsky learned the theatre was celebrating its centennial anniversary in 2005, they decided to create an homage to the past of the building. The Bloor was filmed between summer 2005 and winter 2006.

While a film soundtrack boomed from behind the thick doors of the theatre in mid-December, Sharp agreed the bowels of The Bloor were best for a quiet and uninterrupted interview. Walking down a maze of small, narrow and uneven hallways with tight tricky turns, any visible open space was rimmed with aging and forgotten film paraphernalia languishing in the dark.

It was that historic ”waste” that drove Sharp and Kuplowsky to make their film. Both employees of the theatre, they were surrounded by constant reminders of its history; the stunning architectural design, the yellowed photos hanging from the walls. Backstage, old reels and cases lie still untouched, and letters once used on the marquee lay thick with dust that’s literally been there since the 1940s.

We made our way down to the basement and entered a room that smelled predictably damp, settling into old chairs at an old table. Sharp told me what the most complex part of making the film was.

“The trickiest part was to sort of unearth all these old documents,” he said.

They spent countless hours in the library searching for documentation on the cinema.

As a youngster, Sharp grew up in the neighbourhood and became an oft-paying customer at The Bloor long before staring working there as an 18-year-old. Nearly five years later, he still enjoys a weekly shift on Sundays. He feels he’s come to know the building like you would a friend.

The end product Sharp and Kuplowsky put together is a short, catchy film worth watching—especially for those with any appreciation of history and great music.

The soundtrack and voiceovers take the viewer back through some of the most unforgettable decades of music.

“The music was extremely important in setting the film’s tone,” said Sharp. Because of the historical nature of the documentary, it was important that the tracks matched the times.

While the film allows the viewer to travel back in time, there is a slight focus on the building in the 1940s. A decade dubbed as those who lived it, “the golden age” of the theatre.

Personal experiences from dozens of colourful characters such as past and present managers, owners and employees are shared—from a general manager reminiscing of the first time the theatre showed The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1981, to the time when soft-core porn dominated the big screen, to when it was managed by Ed Bruce as The Eden.

“It was before porn on video,” said Sharp. “Everyone would come out to this communal theatre situation—it’s so bizarre.”

What began as a vaudeville theatre would get a number of name changes over the years. And like many of its patrons, The Bloor and it’s predecessors endured change and overcame much adversity. Today it stands as the city’s oldest original-screen movie theatre.

The Bloor is available for free online here. Or simply visit YouTube for Part 1 and Part 2).  For more information call Sharp at the theatre at 416-516-2331.