May 2008 Archive

Yellow Pages: Ballast for my big blue bin

Posted on May 30, 2008 by

I walked out my door yesterday and found two Yellow Pages behemoths on my doorstep. Thankfully, someone came and stole one while I wasn’t looking. Perhaps one of my neighbours actually makes use of the Yellow Pages. I sure don’t. Who, in this day and age, makes their fingers do the walking through pounds of inky newsprint when you can find everything you need while afloat in the cloudlike ether of the Internet? I promptly put the Pages where it belongs—but not before discovering some truly stupid information inside, plus one very curious omission, which I’ll tell you about after the jump.

They’re demolishing Harvey’s. Where are the heritage preservationists when you need them?

Posted on May 29, 2008 by

For a time, when I was doing some work at Maclean’s from their offices at One Mount Pleasant Road (or OMP as it’s known to those inside), I would head out for a Harvey’s lunch at Bloor and Yonge. I did so partly for nostalgia: it brought me back to my earliest days as an office drone in the early ’90s, when I toiled away in downtown Montreal writing pension plan summaries under the draconian supervision of actuaries, ate regularly at Harvey’s and gained about 30 pounds. The kids in the YouTube video know my passion and may soon know my once-thickened midsection if they keep it up. It was also an act of national pride: I prefer to get my artery-clogging fast food fix from a Canadian institution. Then there’s the plain fact that nothing beats a Harvey’s burger loaded up with pickles and tomatoes. So today I shed a patriotic, Morgan Spurlockesque tear for my favourite burger: this afternoon, an excavator is slated to begin razing the Bloor-Yonge Harvey’s.

“Ethnic Food”—Putting the à la carte before the horse

Posted on May 29, 2008 by

ethnic food / ‘eØnIk fu:d / n. 1. A general term used to signify prepared foods from around the world, typically from cultures other than one’s own. 2. The wide array of cultural foods available for purchase and consumption in restaurants throughout Toronto. 3. The wide array of cultural foods whose sale is forbidden on Toronto city streets, as it is uncharted bureaucratic territory fraught with potential pitfalls and liabilities, requiring extensive consultation with stakeholders and exhaustive regulation. 4. Banned substances. 5. Banned substances with their own logo.

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Categories: General, Toronto Lexicon, City Hall, Public Space
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Jane Jacobs is dead. Pass it on

Posted on May 28, 2008 by

A few months ago, I squared off with Richard Florida when I ridiculed his syrupy fawning over Toronto in the pages of the Globe and Mail. Florida’s riposte went like so: “I have been wondering for some time now why people like Preville are so negative and insecure about what Jane Jacobs said is North America’s greatest city… People like Preville are all too ready to rip into this town at the drop of a hat.” Ever since that exchange, I have been wondering precisely the opposite: Why is it that people not like Preville are so insecure about Toronto that they need to be constantly reassured about its tremendous qualities?