Toronto News ~ Toronto Focus
Total 655 Posts
YouTube user Retrontario frequently uploads fantastic retro-Toronto-centric gems. These clips never fail to bring back a ton of memories for me, so I feature them from time to time. I love this footage from Global TV circa 1986. It's simply a drive around downtown Toronto to the smooth sounds of
As I mentioned in my review this afternoon of today's Toronto Santa Claus Parade, I've now gone to six in a row. Prior to that, I missed at least fifteen, the years between my childhood and fatherhood. The parades I've witnessed these past six years include all new floats and
I took the kids to the 2009 Santa Claus Parade today. It was my sixth parade in a row, so I've got it all down to a fine art. I know when to arrive, where to score great seats for the kids and how to keep them warm and entertained
The 105th Annual Santa Claus Parade is next Sunday, so I just made my annual visit to http://www.thesantaclausparade.ca/ to make sure the route and starting time hasn't changed. I haven't missed a Toronto Santa Claus Parade in several years, and I don't plan to miss it next
You've likely heard that Toronto city hall officials are considering a new Toronto Sales Tax. Why shouldn't the most expensive city in Canada gouge us a little more? The new city sales tax, which would be applied to anything bought in Toronto, would be on top of provincial and federal
This is pretty cool. Toronto is promising to build a city that thinks like the web. The first step in this progressive initiative is OpenTO, the City of Toronto's official data set catalogue. At OpenTO you can access City data, get information about City data and the City's OpenTO initiative.
A great site for reading about reported ghosts and hauntings in Toronto (and the rest of Ontario) is Toronto Ghosts & Hauntings Research Society. In their Toronto public buildings section you can read ghost stories about the Mackenzie House, Casa Loma, the Royal Conservatory of Music, Lower Bay Station, the
The City of Toronto has revealed 10 locations where residents will be able to get H1N1 influenza vaccinations. They are: Location Address Metro Hall - Rotunda 55 John Street East York Civic Centre - Lower Level 850 Coxwell Avenue North York Civic Centre - Members Lounge 5100 Yonge Street North
The Toronto Star recently redesigned their website. Here's a screen cap of their current Sports page. I like it. It's clean and simple, and content is king. I like their use of white space and padding. It's definitely an improved site. It's tough going for the newspaper industry. Their web
Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion has a third arm. That must be the case or this picture of her and her son Peter was Photoshopped, and the Toronto Star wouldn't do such a thing. If you click over to that same article now, you'll see the Toronto Star has cropped the
A couple of days ago, Google's Street View for the GTA went live. Horonymous left a comment on that entry with a link to the burning van. This is definitely the best Toronto street view I've seen. If you can link to a better one, drop it in the comments.
Ho-Lee-Chow has locked their doors, taken their website offline and left this message on their answering machine. Due to circumstances beyond our control, one of which is the poor economic climate, another of which is a refusal to compromise on the quality and service you have come to appreciate, Ho-Lee-Chow
Torontonians can now check out their streets, homes and neighbourhoods on Google Street View. Yes folks, all that footage we saw being taken by the Google cars has gone live. I've been to Google Maps this morning just to check this out. It's pretty slick. Below is the northeast corner
It turns out David Miller won't be mayor of Toronto forever. He's not running next year. I'm announcing this morning that I will not be seeking a third term as mayor of Toronto in next year's municipal election. While it's been a difficult decision, I feel secure in my priorities,
It seems our CN Tower will retain its place in the Guinness Book of World Records, with a little edit to the record. It's no longer the world's tallest free-standing structure, it's now the world's tallest tower. The tower lost the title of the world's tallest free-standing structure in 2007
There's been quite the discussion in the comments since I first wrote about Darcy Allan Sheppard's death. I got an email from Donald Wiedman who wanted me to review the surveillance footage from Bloor street that fateful day. Please take a look at the below YouTube video (surveillance camera footage)
I used to bike every kilometre of this city. Toronto's streets were my bike paths and I'd tackle them daily until there was snow on the ground and then start up again after the first thaw. When I biked to get myself from A to Z, it was the bike
Coors Light is running a localized marketing campaign in British Columbia poking fun at Torontonians. The billboard campaign proudly declares the beer is "Colder Than Most People From Toronto." Here's the ad: I get that the rest of Canada is united in their dislike of Toronto. When that guy was
Six years ago, I wrote about the opening of North America's first legal safe-injection site in Vancouver. Here's what I wrote back then. Today marked the official opening of North America's first legal safe-injection site at 139 East Hastings St. in Vancouver, B.C. It will be staffed by 16
24-hours after the best thunder and lightning storm I can remember, I'm ready to write about it. I did tweet it in real-time, but a storm like that is worthy of a proper entry. Two things struck me about last night's storm. Firstly, you couldn't count to three without a
I found a great timelapse video of our city workers' strike on Torontoist. On the second full day of the city workers' strike—June 23—Torontoist photographer Christopher Drost set up a camera rig in a window at the corner of Runnymede and Annette streets. Set to shoot one photo
There's been a breakthrough with regards to our 36-day-old civic workers strike. A weekend of intense bargaining has produced "the basis for a deal" that could bring a swift end the strike by municipal workers in Canada's largest city.At an early morning news conference, CUPE Local 416 president Mark
Courtney doesn't have her own blog, so I'm lending her mine for the next 1000 pixels or so. She has something she wants to share and I think it's important enough that I'm posting her words on her behalf. Here's what Courtney wrote: The Right to Strike or The Right
Firstly, I want Chuck to take note of how I'm now calling this a Toronto civic workers strike, not a garbage strike. It's not just our garbage men and women who are on strike, it's a whole bunch of other city folk as well. Happy now, Chuck? Having said that,
I've spent a lot of time in the Junction. The Junction, for you out-of-towners, is an area north of Bloor West Village by Dundas Street West and Keele. To be honest, when I was growing up, it was the smelly place thanks to the Stockyards, Canada's largest livestock market and
