Chief Bill Blair to attend 14 Division community town hall meeting at Bloor Collegiate

This Thursday at 7pm there will be a town hall meeting hosted by 14 Division and the Community Police Liaison Committee. The meeting will take place in the auditorium at Bloor Collegiate, 1141 Bloor St. West, west of Dufferin St. Chief Bill Blair will be the guest speaker. Please send any community concerns to 14division@torontopolice.on.ca prior to the meeting.

Halloween Party at McGregor Park

There is a little Halloween party taking place a McGregor park this coming Saturday (Oct 27th). Things start at 2:00 and end at 4:00. There will be live Tibetan music, food, story-teller Jane Wells, and candy apples. If you have children I imagine it'll be well worth checking out. McGregor park is about halfway between Bloor and College on Lansdowne.

Clean Green Street Art

Now this is an interesting take on graffiti:

A number of street artists around the world have taken to expressing themselves through an innovative practice known as Reverse Graffiti. Taking a cue from the “Wash Me” messages scrawled on the back of delivery trucks, they seek out soot covered surfaces and inscribe them with images, tags, and even advertising slogans using scrub brushes, scrapers and pressure hoses. [read more ...]

More discussion on reverse graffiti can be found at MetaFilter, which is where I found this article.

Global Village Treats

I was at Global Village Treats late Monday night ordering some chicken kebabs. I had been meaning to stop in for a while once I realized they were selling Persian food. At 10:00 at night the place isn't too busy. The store was being manned by one of the owners, a small Filipino lady. She runs the store with her husband, an Iranian fellow. They also have hired a cook that is apparently from somewhere in South America. Hence, the store sells Iranian, Filipino, and South American food. Apparently, depending on the day, they have different things available. (I also wanted to grab some of the South American food they had on the menu, but they were all sold out.)

I was chatting with the owner for a good while -- it takes some time to cook up chicken. She's a very friendly and outgoing lady. The store has been open a few weeks now. They get a lot of their lunch business from the kids in the neighbourhood. (The store is closer to Dufferin, there are several high schools near by.) Late at night Iranian taxi-cab drivers apparently stop off to grab a quick dinner before heading off again. We mostly discussed how stressful it is to operate a restaurant. (We also spent some time chatting about our Iranian significant others.) It was a nice little chat.

There are a few tables to sit on, but for the most part it's a take-out place. The interior has been painted by the two owners: there are some nice murals over most of the walls. It's nice clean and bright inside. I enjoyed the food: the chicken kebabs were quite good. The only thing I felt they were missing was some sumac. I'm not sure if they have that available when you eat in. Next time I'm there I'll need to try the other food, so expect a follow up review.

Global Village Treats is at 1226 Bloor St. West (between Brock & Margueretta); their number is 416-827-1417. They look to be open pretty late.

The YIMBY Festival

After last year’s success, the YIMBY festival is returning to the Gladstone Hotel October 27. For those who may be out of the loop, YIMBY stands for Yes In My Backyard, and is a term that has been used by neighbourhood groups who are frustrated with being painted as naysayers when it comes to neighbourhood change. Though the media doesn’t always show it (tension and battles seem to make better stories people working together for positive change), many community organizations are full of good ideas for how to improve their ‘hood and are willing to work with others, even those with different ideas, to make things happen. -- YIMBY Returns, Spacing Magazine.

DigIn is one of the groups taking part in the festival. If you are in the area be sure to stop by. The event is a great way to learn about interesting things happening in the city.

Toronto Bicycle Registry

The Toronto police have set up an online service which allows you to register your bicycles with them. When it comes to bicycle theft Toronto's record is pretty poor. (Our own councilor has had two of his bikes stolen.) The registry looks to be easy to use, and is certainly a step-up from the old system.

Don't Forget to Vote!

Tomorrow is the provincial election. The Toronto Star has a pretty good coverage of the election, as does the left-leaning Spacing, and the right-leaning Toronto Sun. If a more democractic source of news is your sort of thing, Wikipedia has a lot of information up on the 2007 Ontario election. The Elections Ontario web site is probably your best bet for information on where and how to vote. Whatever you do, don't forget to vote!

Nuit Blanche Photographs

The Bloor Night light event artists in our area put on for Nuit Blanche was a great success. It was standing room only at the House of Lancaster when I popped in, and I was told this was the case for much of the night. Bloor St. was bustling. It was certainly a nice change of pace to see people from all walks of life wandering the streets late on a Saturday night. If you want to relive the night, or missed it, you're in luck: local resident Victor Gedris snapped a ton of photographs, as did I.

Dig In meeting 7pm Tuesday October 9 at the Wallace-Emerson Community Centre

The next Dig In meeting will take place on Tuesday October 9 at 7pm in the Ambrico Room of the Wallace-Emerson Community Centre located at 1260 Dufferin Street (Dufferin Street south of Dupont.

This is the proposed agenda. It is still tentative.

Update on 640 Lansdowne : Former TTC Barns : Current TCE Contamination Cleanup
Wallace Street Contanimation?
184 Wallace : Protecting the Vulnerable
Heritage Designation : Old Theatre : 1286 Bloor Street West
The BIG Coalition : 2008 Festival : We have STAFF!
YIMBYfest @ The Gladstone : Saturday 27 October (11am to 5pm)
Community Bulletin Board
HUGE thank you : Dyan Marie : Bloor N

14 Division to host community townhall on Thursday October 25

14 Division will be hosting a community townhall to discuss neighbourhood crime and other issues. From the press release:

14 Division and the Community Police Liaison Committee invite you to a Town Hall Meeting

Thursday, October 25, 2007
7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Bloor Collegiate Institute
Auditorium
1141 Bloor St West, West of Dufferin St.

Please send your community concerns to: 14division@torontopolice.on.ca prior to the meeting

Guest speaker: Chief of Police William Blair

Hosted by the 14 Division Community Police Liaison Committee

Big on Bloor meeting

On Wednesday October 3 the Big on Bloor steering committee met at the Bob Abate community centre to discuss the festival planned for 2008. Sue Kaiser from the City of Toronto was there to discuss some aspects of the grant for the safety coordinator. Minutes from the meeting will be posted on the BIG website as soon as they are available. Previous minutes can be found here.

Thank you Dyan Marie. Bloor NIGHTLIGHT was a huge success

Thank you Dyan Marie for all the hard work you put into making Bloor NIGHTLIGHT the huge success that it was. None of this would have happened without you. Thank you too to Spiros Koumoudouro for allowing use of the House of Lancaster as well as to the Bloordale BIA for its support. Thank you also to Dig In chair Ann Homan for doing the necessary grunt work of securing the permits and for curating the Andi Morris exhibit. Thank you to Bruce Ward and his team of cyclists for promoting the event with their parade of bikes. Thank you to all the artists and volunteers who made last Saturday's event so enjoyable. Kudos to all.