City
Morning Brew: Strike Refunds Coming, Strippers without Licenses, Toronto Life Square's Fate, Sherbourne Park Ground-beaking
Photo: "Overcast..." by AshtonPal, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
Some good news for parents affected by the unionized city workers' strike: city hall is going to be issuing refunds to residents who paid for summer programs that were canceled. Whether or not we'll all be getting a partial refund on our annual garbage collection dues is yet to be seen (and I see it as unlikely).
Some bad news for the 100 or so strippers (so far) who are affected by the unionized city workers' strike: those that have had their annual city-issued dancing licenses expire during the strike (i.e. have been unable to renew them) could face fines for operating without one.
Toronto Life Square (the ugly entertainment- and retail-focused building across from Yonge-Dundas Square) is broke and has gone into receivership. But Toronto Star urban development critic and expert Christopher Hume thinks it'll be easy to find a buyer and bring it back afloat. Should I be embarrassed to admit that I've never set foot inside the monstrosity since it opened?
The provincial Liberal party quietly dropped the independently-run probe into spending and non-tendered contracting of eHealth, claiming that it would be redundant since the Auditor General is already conducting an investigation. Looks more like an effort to delay the truth from being revealed, doesn't it?
Today marks the ground-breaking ceremony and the begin of construction of Toronto's "Sherbourne Park", a waterfront park that will run along Sherbourne between Lakeshore Boulevard and the lake. It should be completed and open for frolicking by next summer.
And the Globe and Mail is falling behind on timing it would seem. It's 8:30am, and both the Ontario and Toronto sections of the online edition are showing almost exclusively old (i.e. yesterday's) news. Since the redesign, I've been finding it harder to find and include stories to link to in the Morning Brew. Hopefully the G&M is working on improving this situation, because it's a great newspaper!
Discussion
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Don't! The interior is far worse than the exterior.
I don't necessarily understand it's design or how to get in, but it feels like it should be a downtown thing.
RE: refunds: better than nothing I suppose. They *are* using a deal of the money to pay the workers/management that are keeping things running.
I don't really care what a building looks like as long as I like the stores inside.
But it is amazing for a day of meal + movie with my Daughter. Restaurants always rammed full. but the movie theatre is never packed, and i never worry about getting tickets to the movie i want to see.
But it SURE IS UGLY!
As is Yonge Dundas square, but, i can, again, appreciate it because of the awesome fountains my kid loves to run around in.
Don't worry about not understanding how to get in, getting out is the problem! The interior design goes way beyond that deliberate mall disorientation style and takes it to the rats nest level of disconnected escalators to nowhere.
I totally hear you on that. I used to always skip to the 'opinions' section for my breakfast commentary, but now it's such a jumble that I've pretty much given up on the site altogether.
Food courts are designed to be an accessory to a shopping experience. It gives people a place to grab a quick bite in between shopping for books or trying on clothes. Nobody really -likes- food court food. They only eat it because it's where they are. Who is sitting at home thinking: 'Hey, I'm hungry, lets go to the food court'"?
Sure, there are other non-food stores in the building, but the two big anchors, Adidas and Future Shop both have external entrances and don't even have internal entrances that are near the food outlets. And really, if you're even shopping at both of those stores, do you -really- need a food break between buying a new CD and pair of running shoes.
The only really good thing about that food court is as an alternative to the crowded Eaton Centre ones, but how many people are going to think of doing that?
IMO the ROM doesn't look too bad, especially if it's lighted right.
Shame on you!
If you took your head out of your ass for two minutes you'd know that strippers in Toronto have a reputation for being from eastern europe - particularly after the mid-nineties when the Brass Rail tried to find 'husbands of convenience' for 20 of them so they could get visas to work here. It was all over the news. Anyone who's sat and listened to a dancer prattle on and on has heard the poor old mama story at least once. The rest of them, who don't have starving families back home, are working their way through law school.
On the same note, I've been to a strip club in Quebec last year... And more then half of the dancers were Middle Eastern...Of course, they are all earning their law degrees that way.
That being said, the only design worse than the Future Shop is the Best Buy down the street. Neither of them have any senese of effective traffic flow, but Future Shop doesn't squish the lineup into a corner.
Otherwise, the Toronto Life Square is ugly but acceptable. Even with the giant billboards.
But honestly? All I think of when I'm in Times Square is "Do they know how much electricity they are wasting?"
We don't need that here. We can set a better example.
As for the Toronto Life building itself- well, I'm just glad to find out that I'm not the only person who feels completely lost in there. I hate trying to find my way out.