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LORINC: Which transit projects should be built first?
If you’re ever in the market for a choice example of bureaucratic obfuscation, look no further than the following section in the slightly amended version of city council’s newly unified transit...
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The half-built relics of nixed Toronto skyscrapers
In 1914, John Eaton, the third son of retail magnate Timothy Eaton, began preparing plans for a massive expansion of his family’s empire. Aged 38, John had spent almost his entire working life in...
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Book Review: Scaling Infrastructure
Author: MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016) The MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism (CAU) holds a biennial conference under the theme of infrastructure and this book,...
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Urban Confrontations: An Interview with Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins
Interview by: Ilana Altman Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins have been making large-format sculpture, mixed media, installation and electronic art since 2000. Jennifer Marman is a graduate of the...
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The Troubles? An unconventional account of the NDP convention
written by Douglas Bell In a convention centre built into the north wall of the North Saskatchewan River Valley, New Democrats from every nook and cranny of the Canadian edifice last weekend discussed,...
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LORINC: Cops investigating cops
The Ontario coroner’s decision last week to call an inquest into the shooting death of Andrew Loku, a 45-year-old man killed last summer by Toronto police during a confrontation at the supportive...
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Toronto’s Depression-era beauty queen baseball star
Women have been playing baseball for as long as anyone can remember. And for much of that time, they’ve been playing despite the men who’ve tried to keep them off the field. In baseball’s early days,...
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Book Review—Casting Architecture: Ventilation Blocks
Author: Florian Schatz (ORO Editions, 2014) Every once and a while a book reaches me that seems to be simple and short, but often times these books prove to be so much more, as was the case with...
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Grow Op: Urbanism, Landscape & Contemporary Art
It’s spring in the city, and what better way to get in the mood for the new season in Toronto than checking out an exhibit that combines cities, landscape and art? The annual Grow Op exhibition is at...
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The curious origin of the original low-floor streetcar
Toronto is in the (unexpectedly slow) process of getting new low-floor streetcars. The goal of these new cars is accessibility — they can be used by people in wheelchairs, unlike earlier streetcar...
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The signal distance factor — safe crossing “deserts”
Pedestrians are often accused of putting themselves in danger by crossing wide, fast streets at locations where there is no traffic signal. But in many parts of Toronto, traffic signals are 1 km or...
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Book Review – Vancouver Vanishes: Narratives of Demolition and Revival
“Since 2005, nearly 9,000 demo permits for residential buildings have been issued in Vancouver. An average of three houses a day are torn down, many of them original homes built for the middle and...
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LORINC: What Toronto can learn from street fighter Janette Sadik-Khan
Toronto has only one short and unflattering walk-on part in Janette Sadik Khan’s fascinating account of her experiences as the crusading transportation commissioner for former New York City mayor...
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Contact at 20: An Interview with Bonnie Rubenstein
Interview by: Ilana Altman & Melanie Fasche Bonnie Rubenstein has been a director at the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival since 2002 and is responsible for the festival’s artistic...
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BOOK REVIEW: Thomas Fuller: Architect for a Nation
Thomas Fuller: Architect for a Nation by Dorothy Mindenhall Lakehill Books, 2015. 158 pages, 92 illustrations, $45.00 Thomas Fuller (1823-1898) rose to prominence as one (of four) architects of...
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When Haileybury burned, Toronto sent streetcars
The town of Haileybury sits on the shore of Lake Timiskaming, a serpentine body of water on the northern reaches of the Ottawa River that marks the border between Ontario and Quebec. From the town’s...
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INFOGRAPHIC: The business of bikes and parking
EDITOR’S NOTE: There has been some debate about whether bike lanes on Bloor would hurt or harm businesses. Spacing is republishing this infographic from our Fall 2014 issue to help inform the...
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The “great monster of death” arrives in Toronto
Lenton Williams worked in the printing department at Eaton’s department store. On the evening of June 14, 1905, the 60-year-old was jogging south along Clinton Street to catch a streetcar at College...
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LORINC: Bombardier’s Mexico problem
According to the latest pronouncements from company executives, the epic shemozzle that is the TTC’s Bombardier streetcar contract — for 204 low-floor vehicles, at a cost of $993 million — will,...
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Book Review – How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City
Walking was the primary way that people got around cities from the time cities first emerged until the 20th century. But, argues Joan DeJean in her book How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the...
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