Junction Triangle

Joanne Bigham from Open Door Designs (the puppet store on Dupont at Franklin) sent the following:

Subject: Shitzu Found

This dog ran into my store today after being hit by a car according to a good samaritan who stopped. She/he seems to be okay. No collar.

UPDATE FROM JOANNE: "Peter Freeman from Animal Services, (South Region 140 Princes' Blvd) control just picked him/her up...I was concerned as he/she was hit by a car...they are going to check him out. He/she can be retrieved by calling 416-338-7297."

UPDATE: The owner has been found and the dog has been returned home safely.

In conjunction with the Perth Public School staff and parent council, the Perth Park Festival Committee, is hosting a COMMUNITY FESTIVAL.

This fun day will consist of food, games and a bouncy castle! Join in on the fun at the Perth school yard at 3:30 p.m.

Adult Volunteers are needed to assist with this event. Please contact Carla at carla.heavenly@gmail.com

Symington Ave. Playground: Map from the City Parks & Rec. dept., 2008.

Some neighbourhood residents are proposing to create an off-leash dog park in the neighbourhood. They are thinking of using the north-west section of the Symington Ave. Playground (between Perth and Symington, north of Dupont and just south of the CP tracks). You can find out more about this proposal and get involved here.

Here is the latest in the series of "Then and Now" photos. Do you have any old photos of this neighbourhood? Please feel free to get in touch if you're willing to share them!

This photo from 1916, taken on the Wallace Ave. Bridge, is one of my favourites from the City of Toronto Archives. It's pretty simple, and doesn't actually show all that much of our neighbourhood, but it has this great quality of instantly-recognizable timelessness plus a view back on a different era. It's not the kind of photo that one might expect to take. Wooden planks and anonymous legs/feet? But I guess someone in the City of Toronto's Department of Public Works felt the need to document this piece of local infrastructure, so the photo was born.

So, back in January this year, I brought my camera, tripod, and willing companion up to the bridge to try to re-create it. Maybe someone else can do the same in another 94 years from now. I hope the bridge is still around then.

The modern version of this photo was also featured on a postcard sent out to all neighbourhood homes earlier this year as part of the Fuzzy Boundaries neighbourhood naming initiative.

THEN:
May 11 1916: City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 200 Series 372, Subseries 84, Item 213

The following announcement comes from the Junction Triangle Boys and Girls Club. You can download a PDF version of the announcement here.

MEDIA ALERT

GAP Inc Joins the Dovercourt Boys & Girls Club in Renovating our new site for the Junction Triangle Boys & Girls Club

Junction Triangle Boys & Girls Club Renovations at 45 Ernest Ave

Toronto- June 3rd 2010: The Dovercourt Boys & Girls Club is proud to announce that Gap Inc will be joining the Club in renovating our new Junction Triangle Boys & Girls Club on June 3rd, 2010 from 9am-4pm.

Over 40 employees from Gap Inc will be coming to the new Club at 45 Ernest and assisting us in renovating the new space that will be the new permanent home for the Junction Triangle Boys & Girls Club at 45 Ernest Ave, Toronto, ON. Gap is one of the Club’s biggest supporters and we are extremely proud that they have come on-board as a partner in completing this project.

The new location at 45 Ernest Avenue is a 7,000 sq foot building, which is currently being renovated. The new location will open up an additional 120 spaces for community youth to attend a safe and positive after school and day camp program. The Club has been appealing to corporations and individuals to donate building materials and labour to complete the renovations as a community “Barn Raiser” and is proud to announce Gap as a new partner.

We invite the media to join us on June 3rd between 9am-4pm to see the Gap team in action as they spend all day working tirelessly in making the Junction community a better place to live.

The next DIGIN meeting takes place on Tuesday June 8 2010, 7:00PM in the Ambrico Room of the Wallace-Emerson Community Centre, 1260 Dufferin St. (at Dupont).

DIGIN meetings are a great place to meet other residents and find out more about what is happening in the general Bloor-Lansdowne area. There are often representatives from Councillor Giambrone's office to provide updates about local issues and other news.

Keeping with the recent municipal election theme at DIGIN meetings, this month's agenda will focus on another one of the candidates. I will update the posted agenda if I hear of any changes:

AGENDA
DIG IN Monthly meeting
Tuesday June 8, 2010
Meeting starts promptly at 7pm

Items for Discussion

1. A conversation with Ward 18 candidate Ana Bailão
2. Looking for person to help update DIG IN website
3. Trillium grant update
4. Jack Fava - suggestions for Sept. mayoral candidate debate

Any further items to be added?

Adjourn 8:30pm
DIG IN will adjourn for the summer and resume meeting on Sept. 8, 2010.

After the DIGIN meetings, many people often re-convene at a local restaurant or pub for a post-meeting social.

The annual Bells on Bloor bike parade takes place on Saturday May 29th, departing from High Park at noon. I estimate it will come through our neighbourhood sometime between 12:30 and 1:00pm. Anyone with a bike can participate, or if you prefer to watch, bring some bells or musical instruments down to Bloor St. More details at www.bellsonbloor.ca.

Bells on Bloor 2010 Poster

Here are my notes from the May 19 2009 Ward 18 All Candidates Meeting, held at Casa da Madeira on Dupont St. in the Junction Triangle. These notes are just an attempt to capture what the candidates said, and how they responded to questions. I'm keeping personal opinion out of it for now, although I might follow up with some of that in the comments. Apologies if it's long-winded, but I tried to scribble down as much as I could. I obviously missed many things that were said too.

Thankfully, the professional reporters were there too. For a much better writeup of this meeting, check out the article in The Villager: Ward 18 candidates introduce their campaigns. Local blog The Bloordale Press also has a writeup, including some video from the candidates' opening remarks.

I'd love to hear other peoples' opinions and reactions to this meeting. And of course, if I made any mistakes in these notes, please feel free to correct me. I also encourage the candidates to post any followup comments here too.

All eight registered Ward 18 candidates were present: Ana Bailão, Kevin Beaulieu, Frank de Jong, Nha le, Kirk Russell, Jack Triolo, Hema Vyas, and Ken Wood.

There's a new book being released tomorrow: Stroll, by Shawn Micallef. You may recognize Shawn's name, as he is an editor for Spacing magazine, a columnist for Eye Weekly, curator of the Murmur public art project (we have some installations nearby in The Junction), and much more. It seems like Shawn is always walking around the city, observing things, and writing about them. So it's quite fitting that his new book is a collection of various walks around Toronto.

Today, Torontoist features an interview with Shawn Micallef about Stroll. Our neighbourhood and the recent Fuzzy Boundaries naming project are mentioned:

Is Toronto particularly susceptible to that over-familiarization with the places that we spend our time because of the way that neighbourhoods here have such strong identities? They’re often quite small, too. It seems that every kilometre on Bloor, for example, the street signs tell you that you’re in a different village.

We do tend towards a kind of neighbourhood parochialism. Which is good. It’s good to have all of the services that you need nearby and to not need to commute across the city or in from the suburbs to get the things that you need.

In Toronto, we have these archetypal, wonderful neighbourhoods like the Annex, Little Italy, Kensington Market: these spaces of exceptional urbanism. Sometimes, though, the most interesting places are the neighbourhoods without a name, the in-between places. A neighbourhood in Toronto recently decided to give themselves the name Junction Triangle. It’s like they’re saying, "We’re not in-between anymore. Now we’re here." There’s still an in-between somewhere, but it got a little smaller.

On Friday, 14 May, on the RailPath, between (approximately) 3:30 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., I saw a medium-brown coloured
mastiff type dog. The dog had on a black harness; but no leash, no muzzle and NO OWNER was in sight.

This is not the first time I have seen this type of dog wandering alone in the area of Perth and Ruskin at approximately the same time of day. I am guessing that the dog somehow escapes from their backyard.

I was also told that this dog has occasionally been seen wandering, on weekday mornings, before 8:00 a.m., on Perth Avenue, alone.