Artists to take over Chester station newsstand

Toronto is set to join the likes of New York, LA, London and Tokyo by adopting an “Open Streets” program this coming summer, pending city council approval. The idea is simple; briefly close a section of road to motorised traffic and open it up to everybody else. It is a concept that hails from the Columbian capital of Bogota where “Ciclovia” (literally translating to bike lane) now encompasses around 120 Kilometres of the city’s streets every Sunday and public holiday.

The proposed route aspires to connect communities along Bloor Street from High Park to Greenwood Avenue, as well as a section of Yonge street south of Bloor. Roads that run north-south through Bloor Street will still be open to vehicle traffic with signalled intersections operating as per usual. Initially, the program is set to run for three consecutive sundays (July 27th, Aug 3rd, Aug 17th tentatively) this summer but ultimately the goal is to see this innitiative become a regular event.

Open Streets TO will also include various interactive activity hubs generated by community groups, local businesses, institutions and organizations.

The aim is to encourage fitness and civic engagement while promoting better air quality through alternative modes of susainable transport.  So leave the car in the driveway, grab a bicycle, and explore your surrounding neighbourhood. For those interested in  learning more, contact event organizers at www.openstreetsto.org. Keep an eye out for updates on this exciting project.

Last June, a couple of friends and I started to collect and map all of the songs we could find about the city of Toronto.  We now have a rich and rapidly growing archive of over 100 songs for your listening pleasure at www.listentotrack.ca.

We were inspired by the abundance of fantastic local music in Toronto, as well as the connection you feel when the familiar shows up somewhere unexpected. Our project, Track Toronto, exists to bring these two things together.

There’s something magical about learning that Leonard Cohen’s Closing Time was written about the Matador Club at 466 Dovercourt, or that there’s a song about the subway ride you take everyday, like I Will Never See the Sun by Great Lake Swimmers, or that even a humble spot like the Parkdale Dollarmart has a place in a beautiful song by Oh Bijou. The city is littered with gems like these, and we want to bring them out into the open for everyone to enjoy.  Our goal is to allow people to discover these songs as they wander the city.  While the online version of our project is up and running – our next step is to install [murmur] inspired signs around the city to alert passers-by that there is more here to explore, and enable them to listen to songs in the very places that inspired them.

In the meantime you can come see us present the collection so far at  The Pages Festival on March 15th.  We’ll be part of the Urban Narratives event alongside Shawn Micallef, Gerry Flahive and Amy Lavender Harris.

Until then, you can browse our collection of site specific songs at www.listentotrack.ca, and keep up to date with new songs as we discover them on twitter @tracktoronto.

Song suggestions are always welcome! Send them to [email protected].

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Given that there are over 2.5 million people living within Toronto’s borders, any attempt to try and get an accurate picture of exactly what goes on day to day in our city seems complicated, if not impossible.   There are too many moments, in too many lives to compile, and how we hope to understand anything when it all comes together is a mystery anyway. In the final analysis too much information slips between the gaps, and our ideas get fuzzy with too many facts.

Online, in the newspapers, on the bus and at the coffee shop, every day we face a vast unceasing babble from streets, from radios, TVs and social networks, as well as the people around us, yet somehow we are expected to understand how it it all fits together again to explain the places where we live.  Facts, figures, arguments and words are not always adequate for this challenge. Perhaps there is a better way to glean something from all the noise? What if we don’t need to know what someone is thinking, to get an idea of what is going through their mind?

“…On Thursday, March 6, at exactly 5:47 p.m., Tweet or Instagram your snapshots of life in the city use hashtag #TOminute to be included in a featured photo gallery on thegridto.com … please include a description of what’s happening in the pic, and thank you in advance for participating… “

Enter photography.  What better way to pass on a sense of place or identity, than a simple picture?  No words, nor need for explanations.  In pictures, we are left to draw conclusions ourselves.  Some trigger memories and take us back in time, others spark our curiosity and help us look at things from a  different angle.  Photographs capture and suspend moments in our lives, so we can have time to look at them again in new ways, as we share them with others.

All a photographer needs to do is point a camera, and click a button, right?  It’s that simple.  So, what if everyone in the city, at the same time, in the same minute, on the same day, snaps a picture of anything they find important enough to share. What would the result look like? The least we can hope for is an oddly intriguing assortment of eclectic people, places, and things.  Yet with any luck, something more akin to a regional collective unconscious may emerge.

Yup, there’s nothing like a good old fashioned photography project to get everyone in the mood for sharing and learning about where they live.   I guess that’s why our friends down at the GRID this week are doing just that, asking to see Toronto from a “street-level” perspective.

For more information visit:
http://www.thegridto.com/city/local-news/show-us-your-tominute/