Two Canadian firms are mounting an invasion of Manhattan’s competitive commercial brokerage business. Toronto-based investment bank Brookfield Financial dangled seven-figure signing bonuses in front Eastern Consolidated’s Eric Anton and Ronald Solarz to lure the high-profile brokers into joining the team. Meanwhile, Avison Young, an independently owned brokerage also headquartered in Toronto, is working out of a temporary office at the Intercontinental Hotel on Park Avenue and already has Gregory Kraut, a former CBRE Group broker, on board. Word is Avison would like to hire some more big names—and may even be willing to cough up company equity to get them. New York’s real estate biz is known to be rather clubby, but it would seem Brookfield and Avison (and at least one other Canadian firm) have learned that the way into a city’s heart is through its wallet. Read the entire story [Wall Street Journal] »
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SPOTTED: Scott Speedman at the Alliance Films/Ben Sherman Lounge
Our TIFF eyes and ears are telling us that Scott Speedman, whom you may remember best from his days as the hunky Ben Covington on Felicity, was at the Intercontinental’s Alliance Films/Ben Sherman Lounge earlier today. Speedman was born in London, England but grew up in Toronto and recently shot The Moth Diaries in Sault Ste. Marie, so it’s no wonder he was overheard discussing his favourite haunts in the Sault.
Find this story on our Star Spotting Map, where we plot the locations of celebrities spotted around Toronto. Send us your tips: tips@torontolife.com
TIFF after hours: the 44 (and counting) film fest venues with the coveted 4 a.m. last call
(Image: walknboston)
Every year celebs from all over the world flood into the city for TIFF, but for many, it’s the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario that’s the real star throughout the month of September. Just in time to combat post-summer blues, the AGCO grants certain venues the rights to the elusive 4 a.m. last call. While last year’s list clocked in at 44 venues This year’s list of venues with extended hours finally caught up with last year’s, bringing the current number to 44—some of them not open to the public (we’re looking at you, Windsor Arms) and others open for one night only. Check out the list of late-night watering holes after the jump and stay tuned for updates on extended hours, as more are expected to roll in before the festival.
How the G20—with its burning cars, broken storefronts, violent beatings and mass arrests—ruined Bill Blair’s popularity
Family business: Blair planned on becoming a lawyer, but followed his dad into the TPS.
On June 26, 2010, Bill Blair was in the middle of the most complicated week of his career. The G20 summit had transformed the peaceful city that Blair had spent most of his life protecting into something closer to a police state. Protesters filled the streets. Steel fences sliced through the downtown core, guarded by black-masked riot police. Busloads of officers had arrived from across the country—cops who didn’t know Toronto’s streets and were technically not even accountable to Blair. Decisions about G20 security were being made by the Integrated Security Unit, a coalition of police and armed forces. The RCMP was responsible for controlling the area within the summit fence. The Toronto Police Service, assisted by officers from 21 provincial police detachments, was left with the rest of the city. The division of responsibilities was so unclear that as the summit began, even the head of the police board was confused about exactly where the ISU’s job ended and the TPS’s began. Blair was worried. International summits like the G20 rarely ended well. The chief had studied recent summits in preparation for the event, and what he found wasn’t encouraging. In Genoa in 2001, police had shot a protester to death. In 2009, rioters looted stores in Pittsburgh. Blair hoped to learn from history’s mistakes, but with tens of thousands of protesters meeting thousands of police officers, there were plenty of opportunities to make new ones.
The housekeepers revolt: behind the labour dispute at the Royal York Hotel
In an era of decline for organized labour, an aggressive hospitality workers’ union is determined to turn menial labour into middle-class employment. To do so, they need to galvanize the recent immigrants who overwhelmingly staff the service industry. First stop, the Royal York
Battleground: the hotel union has co-opted celebrity guests, such as Martin Sheen, to draw attention to its cause (Photographs: Strikers by Cristal Cruz-Haicken; Street by Jerryb8/dreamstime.com/Getstock. Illustration by James Dawe)
On a warm morning last September, the managers of the Fairmont Royal York Hotel had a PR problem. The Toronto International Film Festival had just begun, and celebrities were trickling into the city. The 1,365-room downtown hotel was booked solid, and the lush Library Bar stocked with the ingredients for $14 TIFF Tinis, but outside on the sidewalk, hundreds of unionized Royal York workers were on strike, angrily accusing the hotel of exploiting them. They pounded on overturned buckets and exchanged call-and-response chants: “What do we want?” “Contract!” “When do we want it?” “Now!” And they marched back and forth across the grand Front Street entrance singing “We want a contract” to the tune of K’naan’s “Wavin’ Flag,” and hoisting red and black banners emblazoned with the logo of UNITE HERE, the aggressive international union that represents 8,000 hospitality workers across the GTA.
Outside the main doors, Martin Sheen stepped onto the pavement and was immediately mobbed by the crowd. He gave a thumbs-up to the strikers and began shaking hands and slapping backs, looking every bit the left-wing political hero he once played on television. The strikers eagerly linked arms with him and marched before the cameras and TV crews that were scrambling to get the best angle. Someone thrust a megaphone into Sheen’s hands, and he gamely improvised a few slogans. “When it gets tough in labour disputes like these, people say that it’s a lost cause,” he said, his voice rising passionately. “Well, I’m here to remind you that lost causes are the only causes worth fighting for!” The logic seemed a little shaky, but the crowd roared its approval anyway. “Stick to it like a stamp!” he shouted with a final wave, before he and his son Emilio Estevez were whisked off in a white Escalade. Read the rest of this entry »
30 Rock comes to Toronto: what they got right, what they got wrong
We can pretend Alec Baldwin’s at the Convention Centre too
Last night’s jaunt to Toronto by 30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and Avery Jessop (Elizabeth Banks) continued the long-standing tradition of American sitcoms making jokes about Canada, ranging from the obvious to the factually incorrect to the just plain weird. In the episode, a pregnant Avery goes into labour while the couple is visiting Toronto, raising the spectre that the child will be born Canadian.
We like to laugh at ourselves, so here are our favourite jokes at Canada’s expense. We like to laugh at Americans, too, though, so we’re throwing in a list of all the things 30 Rock got wrong.
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The Best of Winterlicious 2011: Toronto Life’s 62 favourite restaurants
(Image: Renée Suen, from the torontolife.com Flickr pool)
January is upon us, and for many hungry Torontonians, that means one thing: Winterlicious. The menus are less predictable than previous years—crème brûlée’s out, lentils du Puy are in—so even the ’Licious haters might have a reason to take advantage of the festival this year. We’ve already named the 12 menus that we think are the best bets, but that doesn’t begin to cover it. Here, find Toronto Life’s 62 favourite Winterlicious restaurants, complete with menus, reviews and reservation numbers.
Winterlicious runs from January 28 to February 10. Reservations are accepted from January 13 onward (January 11 for American Express users).
The King’s Speech takes TIFF’s top honour (and becomes Oscar bait)
TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey prepared to hand out the People's Choice awards (Image: Karon Liu)
And that’s a wrap.
The official closing ceremony for the 35th Toronto International Film Festival took place at the Intercontinental on Front Street yesterday. The King’s Speech took the Cadillac People’s Choice Award, joining previous winners (read: Oscar bait) Precious, American Beauty and Slumdog Millionaire. The People’s Choice Award for best documentary went to Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie, and the People’s Choice Award for the best midnight madness film went to Stake Land, with Fubar II getting the runner-up prize.
Full list of winners here.
Looking back at TIFF 2010: actor Emily Hampshire on how the festival has gone for her
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With TIFF wrapping up, Good Neighbours actress Emily Hampshire is ready to let her hair down. When we talked with her on Thursday, she still hasn’t washed her loosely bundled brunette hair since her film premiered on Tuesday. “You can tell, right?” she laughs over coffee at the Bloor Street Diner. “That is clearly hair that has been done and been slept in.” It’s a testament to Hampshire’s whirlwind week that she’s still pulling bobby pins out of her hair Thursday morning. With a candour and bubbly it-girl energy reminiscent of Sienna Miller, the 29-year-old actress reflects on a week in which she finally felt like a movie star.
Looking back at TIFF 2010: an Alliance Films VP gives her run down of this year’s fest
Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter in The King's Speech
On Friday morning, Carrie Wolfe, the vice president of publicity and promotion for Alliance Films, was packing up her headquarters at the Intercontinental in Yorkville. After 11 years of building buzz for Oscar noms like Frieda, The Young Victoria and Eastern Promises out of the Bloor Street hotel, Alliance is moving its TIFF office down to King Street for 2011 to be closer to the Bell Lightbox. Though the 13-year film fest veteran was running on her final fumes of adrenaline, she offered to take a minute and share with us the people, performances and publicity coups that made her year at TIFF.
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Q&A with Xavier Dolan: “My film is not homework that a critic should correct”
Xavier Dolan arrives at the gala premiere of Heartbeats at the Varsity Cinemas (Image: Jag Gundu/Getty Images)
Xavier Dolan doesn’t want to lie, but he also doesn’t want to tell the truth. The 21-year-old director with the Eraserhead hair—a breakout talent at TIFF last year with his French-language debut I Killed My Mother (J’ai tué ma mère)—bristles when asked how he knows real-life friends Niels Schneider and Monia Chokri. The Québécois actors form the other two points of a love triangle, alongside Dolan, in his swooning sophomore film Heartbeats (Les amours imaginaires). “Can we just…no?” he asks. “Can I say no?”
In the film, a sexually ambiguous himbo (Schneider) drives a wedge between Dolan’s jaded gay guy Francis and Chokri’s poised Marie. Dolan wrote the script with the actors in mind; however, they’re not joining him in Toronto for the screening. The only explanation for their absence: “They weren’t invited.”
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The swag series: DPA lounge offering celebs trips to Dubai and Tahiti
Jewellery at DPA's lounge (Image: Fraser Abe)
What it is: L.A.’s Dubois, Pelin and Associates has created celeb lounges all over the world, including at the Emmys and Cannes. The company has taken over the Presidential Suite at Front Street’s Intercontinental (where President Obama was rumoured to have stayed during the G20), a spectacular space with panoramic views and a wraparound terrace on the 18th floor.
Who goes: Such Canadian ingénues as Emily Hampshire and Katie Boland have stopped in. The guest list for this week includes Catherine Deneuve, Rachel McAdams, Mickey Rourke and Minnie Driver.
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The swag series: celebs get Joe Fresh make-overs at the Tastemakers Lounge
The Joe Fresh beauty station at Tastemakers (Image: Central Image Agency)
Celebrities—they’re just like us, except they make more money and get more free stuff. An unfair irony, we know. As of today, the TIFF swag season has begun. Loaded with jewellery, clothing, makeup, accessories and games, gifting suites are the places where companies can reap mega-exposure if a celebrity picks up their goodies. This year, there are more lounges than ever, and we’ve been snooping around to report back on what they’re offering and what celebs have been stocking up on. At the end of the fest, we’ll name the best of the bunch. First up, Tastemakers.
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Where to get a TIFF drink: the film festival’s 44 spots with 4 a.m. licences
The arrival of TIFF always demands answers to three crucial questions: which celebs are coming to town, what are the best flicks to see, and where can we get inebriated at ungodly hours of the night? The first two we’ve taken care of here and here, and now we have the nearly complete list of venues with extended hours for TIFF. The news is good: last year, around 25 bars and restaurants were approved for extended hours; this year, about 44 will be serving late. The selection is more varied, and with spots like Gabby’s and Hey Lucy on the list, it’s decidedly more casual. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario tells us that the list could expand as more venues get last-minute approval. Here, the 44 bars officially licensed to stay open until 4 a.m. »
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