CABBAGETOWN NEIGHBOURHOOD
REVIEW
FEATURED ARTIST
Steve Frost
With over 30 years experience as a professional photographer, Steve Frost remains a committed, enthusiastic fan of the medium. Steve considers photography to be about 80% preproduction and 20% serendipity, but in reality that 20% comes from a willingness to say ”What if….”
Vintage Car Show Georgetown, Ontario
Martha Preston does beautiful, delicate watercolours. Check them out here. While you’re looking at them, imagine having a set of them in your home. Images by four talented Cabbagetown artists are on display at our new site - click here to visit the site. Des contacted us, “This is great! I’m looking forward to more.” Email your comments - your views are welcome.
LOCAL NEWS
A new mental health emergency service
The Mayor and Toronto Police Service have announced a new mental health emergency service. This group will replace police officers who previously responded to these calls - often because there was no one else to intervene. The teams will include peer workers, harm reduction workers, community health nurses and crisis counsellors. It will start on Thursday March 31 and operate daily except Saturdays and then expand to a seven-day program. The Downtown East project will be headed by the Gerstein Crisis Centre. The 911 phone service will access these teams. (Photo: CBC News)
After the City of Toronto purchased the building from the Kielburger family to convert it into a women’s respite centre, work on the building stopped. The City’s plans had been approved by the City’s Committee of Adjustment. That approval, in turn, was challenged by an appeal to the Toronto Local Appeal Body (TLAB) by Howard Bortenstein in March 2020. In an eleven-page decision, Howard’s challenge was refused and the City’s plans were approved. Barring any further appeals, the City is now free to start its work to convert the building into the respite centre. The TLAB case file is 20 126130 S45 13 TLAB.
An impressive group of local residents, executives from Stafford Homes and The Beer Store, City staff and Councillor Wong-Tam met on March 29 to talk about changes to the building’s design and to the Beer Store (227 Gerrard E). The revised design is shown in the illustration. Rick Matthews reports that Stafford Homes agreed to use masonry instead of pre-cast concrete and to lower the red masonry to reduce the scale of the building’s base. Heritage staff asked for exterior changes to fit the design of nearby heritage buildings. The Beer Store will be 600 square feet smaller and window coverings will be reduced. The Beer Store is evaluating the idea of separating the bottle return area and the retail space. Following this meeting, the plans will go back to the City of Toronto for final review and approvals. Thanks go to Councillor Wong-Tam for pulling the meeting together and for voicing residents’ concerns.
Construction on the new subway was officially launched earlier this week in a ceremony at Ontario Place. It will be a massive infrastructure construction project. Metrolinx also revealed its designs for its subway stations. Details about the proposals for Corktown (King and Berkeley) and Moss Park (Moss Park) are online. It claims that these designs have been prepared with community issues in mind. Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam disagrees. She says that the designs were never shown to her or to the community prior to Metrolinx announcement. She complains “that the Province continues to disrespect City and community efforts for true collaboration.”
The Library (171 Front) will be moving to the site where the tent at the St Lawrence Market (125 The Esplanade) is currently located. It will be a completely new, 30,000 square foot facility and will open in six years. Previously, it was intended for the First Parliament site at Parliament and Front but the Metrolinx subway station will be built there and if the library stayed there, it would not be completed for at least ten years.
Duncan Fremlin and his pals in Whiskey Jack are back with a live performance after a long COVID interruption - this time for their 45th season. They’re performing on Sunday April 10 at 4 pm in the Redwood Theatre (1300 Gerrard E). It’s a show for everyone in the family. Tickets are on sale online, $25 each.
Best wishes to Steve and Phyllis at Del-Ray Cleaners (586 Parliament). They’ll be retiring from the business on April 7. They’ve been a big part of our community since 1986, cleaning, repairing and restoring our clothes for over 36 years. They’re closing Del Ray and will rent the space to a new business. They aren’t leaving. We’ll see Steve back with his Tai Chi classes and his real estate sales at Royal LePage. Phyllis is working with the Toronto school board and loves being around the kids. Thanks to both of you and best wishes for lots of fun in your new endeavours.
Local neighbours and customers at Shopper’s Drug Mart (467 Parliament) got together on Doug’s last day at work. He’s been here for over thirty years and is now looking forward to his days on the golf course. It was a nice way to wish him well in his retirement. That's Doug in the upper right corner.
Once again, F’Amelia (12 Amelia) hosted the annual Winchester School fundraiser. Over fifty people gathered there on Monday March 28 for an evening of good food, good wine and good gossip. It’s great to have it going again after the COVID shutdowns.
Market organizers are now hiring a market manager for the 2022 summer season. The job notice is a good description of the work involved and the manager’s qualifications. Click here to read it and to find the links for an application.
Here’s the brain trust at the Cabbagetown BIA. Bill is the Board chair, Virginia is the executive director and Emma is the events coordinator.
By Sally Gibson. When the ice melted and hockey was over for the year, young minds turned to another favourite activity: roller skating. Roller skates in the post-World War II period were very different from today’s sleek roller blades with their in-line wheels and high-top boots. Cabbagetown kids clamped roller skates to the bottom of their shoes using a special key to open and close the clamps. That was it. Kids whizzed or stumbled along local sidewalks becoming a hazard to all pedestrians. Their favourite place to skate was the Mutual Street Arena (78 Mutual Street) between Dundas and Shuter. It was a big, hulking building erected around 1912. It had a distinguished history as the home of Toronto’s first professional hockey team, the Arenas, which soon became the St. Patricks which evolved into the Toronto Maple Leafs who moved to Maple Leaf Gardens in 1931. By the 1940s and ‘50s the Arena was a bit run-down but “the smooth floor of the arena was ‘roller-skating heaven’” compared to bumpy and treacherous sidewalks, according to Toronto local historian Doug Taylor. (Photo: Mutual Street Arena 1940s Toronto Historical Association)
COMING EVENTS
CafeTO
Restaurants and pubs are reminded that the application deadline for CafeTO happens this weekend on April 2. Contact the Cabbagetown BIA if you want to participate. (416) 921-0857. The City of Toronto has detailed info on its website.
Marilyn from Diggity Dog Grooming (239 Gerrard E) will hold her monthly nail clinic at Pet Valu (240 Carlton) on Saturday April 2 from 9 am to 4 pm. Please use the store’s front entrance. Make an appointment - call or text her at (416) 920-6814. $12.
The Cabbagetown BIA is holding its big MapleLicious celebration on Sunday April 3 from 3 pm at Carlton and Parliament. There’ll be live music with the Franks & Beans band, gourmet maple taffy on snow, a crepe station with maple syrup, Tim Horton’s coffee and donuts and the colourful, popular photo wall. Free.
Sunday’s final event for Maplelicious promises to be a fun day. The organizers are looking for volunteers to help out. If you’re interested, contact the Cabbagetown BIA to sign up. Call (416) 921-0857 or email Emma.
The annual Spring clean-up happens this year from April 22 to 24. Local groups and associations are asked to register with the City of Toronto before April 15 in order to arrange litter pick-ups.
The 2022 Forsythia Festival
Sunday May 1. The parade will begin at 10 am and the Wellesley Park events will run from 11 am to 3 pm. Katie Tozier is this year’s lead organizer. If you’d like to help, send her an email.
The 2022 tour - Sunday June 5. If you’d like to volunteer, please email either Sarah or Helen.
The Cabbagetown Short Film Festival
Two parts this year. The live gala event - Wednesday September 7. The online broadcast - September 8 to 10. Applications for films are being received now and the deadline for submissions is July 15.
Cabbagetown Art & Crafts
In Riverdale Park - September 8, 9 and 10. There are two deadlines for submissions - Thursday March 31 and Tuesday May 31.
IN THE MEDIA
The new emergency service
CBC News covered the story about the launch of the City’s new non-police emergency service. Click here to read it. (Photo: CBC)
This home at 133 Winchester is on the market. The asking price is $5.2 million. Nifty features include a home office with a separate entrance, a dog shower, a nanny suite, a movie theatre, parking for three cars and an elevator! Storeys, the real estate blog, has done a report about the listing. You can also check out the realtor’s listing online here.
KIDS EVENTS
Cycling with kids
Learn from the experiences of other parents and share your own knowledge. Four sessions are planned - the first one is online on Sunday April 3 at 3 pm and the next three are in-person on Sunday April 24, Saturday May 28 and Saturday June 18. For more information and registration, click here. For questions and concerns, send an email.
THEATRE & DANCE NEWS
Acceleration 2022 - Rescheduled
New dates have been set for this performance - May 4 to 7. Eleven third-year students at the School of Toronto Dance (80 Winchester) will perform works by leading choreographers. Tickets are limited - safety procedures against COVID transmission are in effect. Program details and tickets are available here. The School will contact current ticket holders for the March performances.
Christopher House uses costumes, disguise, props and 44 years of choreographic research to explore ways of moving. Citadel (304 Parliament), continuing through April 1 & 2, 8 pm. Tickets $25. More info and tickets are available online.
Native Earth (Daniels Spectrum, 585 Dundas E) presents an online production about three generations of Indigenous women. One woman becomes an activist while her brother goes to war. A grandmother raises her granddaughter with love, in community. And a granddaughter full of turmoil finds her voice. Onstage to Sunday April 3. For tickets and more info, click here.
Canadian Stage (26 Berkeley) welcomes Daniel Brooks in his play about a man recently diagnosed with a terminal disease who is in a silent retreat. On stage to Sunday April 3. Click here for details and tickets.
The Canadian premiere of this story by Dominique Morisseau runs at Soulpepper (50 Tank Home Lane, Distillery) from April 7 to May 8. She tells the story of a mother’s battle to give her son a better future. Ticket sales and more info are online.
Onstage at Alumnae Theatre (70 Berkeley) from April 8 to April 23. In late 19th century America, an enterprising physician takes advantage of the dawn of electricity to employ a new mechanism to ease female “hysteria.” Meanwhile, his devoted but desperately unhappy wife takes charge of her own fulfillment and awakening. Tickets available online - click here.
IN OUR STORES
Get ready for Easter weekend
St Jamestown Steak & Chops (516 Parliament) is taking your orders now for your Easter dinners - turkeys, ham and lamb. The store will be open from 10 am to 4 pm on Good Friday, April 16 and closed on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, April 17 and 18.
Daniel et Daniel (248 Carlton) has planned a feast for your Easter dinner. Start with a baby gem salad. Then have roast pork loin, maple glazed carrots, roast potatoes, artichokes and mushrooms for your main course, Dessert is a coconut cream trifle. $49.50 per person. Available April 15 to 17 - please order before April 12. Click here and scroll down to the Easter Dinner.
There’s a wall full of seed choices at Home Hardware (485 Parliament). And lots of important stuff to go along with them - lots of dirt, watering supplies, gardening tools and Jiffy Greenhouses where you can plant your seeds and let them sprout.
On March 20, Ali officially took over as the new owner at No Frills (449 Parliament) . Congrats and best wishes and thanks to your staff for making your store so pleasant.
Opening this weekend
The hoarding is coming down. John is reopening Jet Fuel (519 Parliament) on Friday April 1. Watch for it - he has a dramatic art display along his walls that harkens back to his cycling roots. Local coffee lovers are looking forward to the return of their favourite morning clubhouse.
Alice’s Place (554 Parliament) has revived its popular karaoke evenings. The first one last weekend was a success. They’ll be regular events every Friday at 9 pm.
Wes makes yummy tacos in lunch-size portions. He’s doing a great job with his restaurant (245 Gerrard E). It’s a clean white space with three high-top tables for indoor seating. He’s applied for his liquor licence and hopes that it’ll go through by mid-April. Wes will open a wine shop from his store once his liquor licence comes through. He’s the GTA rep for Niagara’s Reif Estate Winery and for Compass Beverages. He’s planning wine tasting events and oyster shucking and he’ll use outdoor space in front of his shop. He’s also applying for a CafeTO boulevard so his customers can enjoy their food and drinks outdoors once the good weather arrives.
Cyril is doing a spicy sweet potato and chipotle soup with onion, garlic, tomato paste, and a few spices with a finishing touch of lime zest. Cyril will add some cheddar for extra secure and he can leave it off. One to nine cups, $3/cup. Ten or more, $2.50/cup. His juice is blood orange and pomegranates, $9 for two cups. Place your order with Cyril by email.