The history of Spadina Road between Dupont and Davenport tells a remarkable story of urban development, of social and political history, of poetry and personal tragedy.

This section of road, south of the IROQUOIS Escarpment – the shoreline of a vestigial lake that is now Lake Ontario, was occupied by more than one DAIRY: Acme, Farmer’s and Sealtest. Just west, at the corner of Bathurst and Davenport, currently occupied by public transit service yards, commercial gardeners marked the landscape with FURROWS to grow food for the local community. William Baldwin, who built and lived in Spadina House, was responsible for the SURVEY of Spadina AVENUE, Toronto’s original grand avenue. Sir Henry Pellatt, Baldwin’s neighbour at his eccentric Casa Loma, was president of the Toronto Power Company which provided both the physical and political POWER that contributed to the growth of the city. Documents that record these and many more local histories are housed in the Toronto ARCHIVES, located on the east side of Spadina, south of Davenport.

Every city has stories to tell. Every building of every city has stories to tell. Every street of every city has stories to tell. Every corner of every city has stories to tell.

Iroquois

Many indigenous settlements were located on the sandy, well-drained soils of the former shoreline of what is now called Glacial Lake Iroquois. This was an ancestral Lake Ontario but much larger and deeper; the lake level stood some 45m above the modern lake.

The inland margin of this large lake is recorded by a bluff such as the one below Casa Loma which can be traced around much of Lake Ontario. Why was Glacial Lake Iroquois much higher than Lake Ontario? At the time, about 12,000 years ago, the edge of the last ice sheet lay across the outlet of the lake basin and dammed up Glacial Lake Iroquois. As the ice dam finally withdrew and the last Ice Age came to a close, the lake drained to a new lower level – what is now called Lake Ontario.

Our prosperous modern city is built across much of the floor of the former lake.

Professor Nick Eyles
University of Toronto

Montrealers have often said that Toronto is a city of bankers, devoid of (mont)real playfulness and any truly fun or spirited art and culture.

But that was before ``The Heart of the City'' was created. And it says something wonderful about this city when the main centerpiece at the ``Heart of the City'' (Dundas Square) is a splashpad peppered with 600 ground nozzles that rise and fall in a playfully teasing way, that fills us with youthful energy, whether we choose to frolic in the water, or just sit and read our newspaper near the Fountain of Youth.

It certainly changes the image of the city, from one of mundane banking details, to one that's a fun and playful epicenter of art and culture.

The mathematical beauty of the regular lattice of periodic tiles is a stroke of architectural genius. Every seventh tile is made of a slightly different texture, and interleaves with the 5-tile periodicity of the two rows of ten fountains, spaced 5 tiles apart.

Slabs are approx. 35inches by 35inches (square), period is 5 slabs; stagger between fountains is 2 slabs, then 3 slabs.

I love her she just got back from Poland
Bathurst
two sons and six grandchildren
so you working tomorrow
how about Friday
so are your parents moving back?
I'm only coming back for christmas
Palmerton Tecumseh
are you stupid? are you kidding me?
I'm going to save up a lot of money
I get 8 bucks an hour
ah what are you doing
Claremont
she's a weird kid
don't do that
Strachan
they don't show up till one
Shaw
I passed my piano exam
pump it up
Ossington
ex Swansea grad
fourth grade
Dovercourt
you can get up to grade eight

Saturday March 5th will mark exactly three months since The Pedicure. No ordinary pedicure, this, but a full-fledged podiatric special, with surgical instruments, white towels and grown-up conversation. The nice man who performed the task was no newcomer to the profession nor to my feet, and this was my first sybaritic treat after returning home from the hospital.

Toronto in winter is either a slush pile or a cousin to Antarctica. Either way, one requires strong shoes, preferably boots with heavy-duty ridged soles, and either way, it’s a liability to have a foot infection of such severity that even putting on a sock affords excruciating pain. Yet despite the outside temperature being 37 degrees below zero, a visit to the doctor was in order. I basked only momentarily in the admiration of strangers as I limped barefoot into his waiting room.