WHAT: Taylor Creek Park North Bank Tree Planting WHEN: May 10, 10 am — 12 pm WHERE: Meet at the Haldon Ave. parking lot Join Friends of the Don East (FODE) as they add new species of trees and shrubs in an effort to create a wilder more diverse forest along the north bank of Taylor Creek. Meet fellow tree planters at the Haldon Ave Parking lot, below Stan Wadlow Park. Click here for more information. - - - - - - - - - - - - - WHAT: Community Environment Days WHEN: May 10, 10 am - 2 pm WHERE: SATEC at W.A. Porter Collegiate (40 Fairfax Cres.) and the Albion Centre (1530 Albion Rd.) How many times have you heard that one person's trash is another person's treasure? It's a familiar saying, and for good reason: it's true! Bring your unwanted and unused “stuff” to your local Community Environment Day, hosted by your city councillor, and transform your trash into treasure. Click here for more information and a schedule.  

This weekend's Heritage Toronto walks (free + no reservation required): Saturday, May 10 — 11:00 AM Toronto's Railway Heritage On May 16, 1853, the first passenger train steamed out of Toronto from a wooden depot located close to the eastern entrance of the present Union Station. Over the course of the next century, the railways were to have a profound impact on the city. This walk explores the railways' influence on downtown Toronto, with an emphasis on the Railway Lands and the old CPR ...

No, it's not a shoe rack, although it can probably serve as one. This is the Walking Bike, an art project by UK designer Max Knight. The artist literally reinvented the wheel when he took a standard bike wheel, typically comprised of a rim, tire and spokes, and replaced it with eight shoes on metal rods. These new “wheels” were then incorporated into the existing chain and gear mechanism thereby allowing the bicycle to be fully functioning. There is no denying that the Walking Bike is a quirky ...

Each Monday, Spacing brings you some of the popular posts from our sister blog, Spacing Montréal. We'll keep an eye open for topics and discussions that are pertinent to current public space issues in Toronto. Vespa's guerilla marketing has infiltrated Montréal. Chris DeWolf's piece, Antlerheads in Montréal, explores the validity of this particular marketing venture as legitimate art. As the weather warms, and gardening season approaches, Campus Crops, a student group at McGill University, are working to improve access ...

The second annual Jane's Walk will be held on May 3 and 4. In anticipation of the event, Spacing will be highlighting some of the unique walks. Spacing is a founding partner in Jane's Walk. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - In homage to Queen Street, Jane's Walk has organized a series of walks that explore this dynamic and diverse corridor from end to end. The aim of these walks is to visit the landmarks, meet the people, and delve into the histories that have shaped the path for Queen Street. PARKDALE In Parkdale with Two Politicians, participants will get the chance to see first hand a resilient and thriving community. In the early 20th century Parkdale, which roughly runs along Queen and King Sts from Dufferin St. to Roncesvalles Ave., was an affluent neighbourhood that prospered from its proximity to Lake Ontario and Sunnyside Beach. However, the building of the Gardiner expressway drove changed the character of the area, driving residents away and deteriorating the local economy. Today, Parkdale is home to new immigrants and artists. Tour leaders Peggy Nash and Cheri DiNovo will explore the unique challenges affecting this community, including: the deterioration of residences, tensions between tenants and landlords, and the attempt to bridge the dysfunctional relationship with government. QUEEN WEST TRIANGLE The Queen West Triangle is made up of several industrial buildings located just south of Queen St. between Dovercourt Rd. and Duffering St. During the mid- to late-90s, the area became home to an influx of artists, and quickly became for its bohemian appeal. Recent plans to build condominiums in the neighbourhood have threatened the unique lifestyle and vibrancy of the Triangle. In the Queen West Triangle walk, community activist and resident Brad Donner will lead a fun and educational tour that aims to reconcile the neighbourhood's rapid development and gentrification with it's artistic and grassroots movements.  

WHAT: Taylor Creek Park Tree Planting WHEN: May 4, 10 am — 12 pm WHERE: Meet at the Haldon Ave. Parking lot Join Friends of the Don East (FODE) as they reforest a gentle slope above Taylor Creek. Meet fellow tree planters at Haldon Ave. parking lot, below Stan Wadlow Park. Click here for more information. - - - - - - - - - - - - - WHAT: Jane's Walk WHEN: May 3 and 4, different times throughout the weekend WHERE: Many locations across Toronto including Lawrence Heights, Victoria Village, Parkdale, and more The Centre for City Ecology celebrates the legacy of Jane Jacobs, the foremost urban thinker of our times, with a series of more than 50 free neighbourhood walking tours across Toronto on the weekend of May 3 and 4. The walks will be led by well-known and unsung neighbourhood leaders - from former Mayors and community gardeners, to journalists and street food connoisseurs - who speak knowledgeably about the people, places and history that make each community unique. Visit www.janeswalk.net for schedules, locations and more information.  

The second annual Jane's Walk will be held on May 3 and 4. In anticipation of the event, Spacing will be highlighting some of the unique walks. Spacing is a founding partner in Jane's Walk. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Toronto suburbs have redeeming qualities that often overlooked and are rarely experienced on foot. They are full of largely ungentrified neighbourhoods where ethnic diversity flourishes. Some are windows into the farming communities that preceded the growth of our city. Others hearken back to the manufacturing and industrial past that allowed Toronto to flourish. While others still hearken back to the influx of immigrants that drastically changed the city's skyline in the 50s and 60s. However, despite the nostalgia and the aura of multiculturalism that these neighbourhoods invoke, many of our inner suburbs are in need of major repair. Poverty, violence, and unemployment, largely due to underfunding and poor social services, plague many of these communities. Focus on the inner suburbs (one of the themes of this year's Jane's Walk) will not only re-introduce participants to Malvern, Jane and Finch, Mount Dennis and other inner suburbs, it will also serve to clarify the often negative “second-hand reports and conventional wisdom” that most Toronto media likes to portray. As many of these communities are in a transition phase, these walks will serve as an opportunity to discuss, debate and dream about the many possibilities for sustainable development and social equity present in these neighbourhoods.  

We are constantly bombarded by ads. On buses, garbage bins, TTC shelters and in the sky line they are hard to escape. But after a while of living in the city, one becomes immune to their carefully constructed lure. For better or worse, ads are a part of the urban fabric that you can learn to ignore. However, once in a while an ad comes along that captures our attention. It's intriguing and beguiling. It's edgy and cool…but, it's an ad. This is true of the life-sized hipsters with scooter heads that have been pasted at street-level on the sides of buildings across town. Canadian photographer and graffiti artist Fauxreel is responsible for the scooter-men, dubbed Antlerheads. Fauxreel's work, especially his pasting, is known for being off-beat and innovative. He plays with perspective, pop culture and politics. The Antlerheads are so appealing that both the Globe and Mail and blogTO have praised their effective marketing. The added mystique of the Antlerheads is that they are not labelled. There is no immediate brand recognition, or website to quell the inquisitive of their curiosity. But a stroll down a certain scooter shop on Queen St. East or College St. will reveal who is responsible for the ads. The Antlerheads are part of an aggressive Vespa ad campaign to promote their newest scooter. These pasted hipsters are or will also be appearing in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal. They will soon be accompanied by a television commercial and roving Vespas that will project images onto walls in the club district. Despite the creativity of the campaign, this form of guerrilla marketing is illegal. Even if the advertising company responsible for these ads got permission from property owners to paste the Antlerheads on the exterior walls of their buildings, as third party advertising, they require a permit from city hall. And, according to Rami Tabello of illegalsigns.ca, chances are, they didn't. “It's easy to tell that they are illegal. They are located in places not permitted in the signs by-law and didn't receive city council permission,” says Tabello.

Each Monday, Spacing will bring you some of the popular posts from our sister blog, Spacing Montréal. We'll keep an eye open for topics and discussions that are pertinent to current public space issues in Toronto. • Plans to close a portion of St. Paul St between Place Jacques-Cartier and St. Laurent Blvd to cars this summer have been shelved. In Saint Paul: So much for pedestrianization, Christopher DeWolf examines the politics that may have ...

When I first moved to North York, specifically the Keele and Wilson area, three years ago, it took me a while to get used to my new surroundings. One day, on the squished bus ride along Wilson, my eye caught something vivid and bright as we headed towards the subway station. And, although it took me a few trips to fully capture what that medley of blues, reds, and greens made up, over the years I have come to appreciate the spontaneous burst of colour that flanks the wall of an unassuming underpass. Entitled “Arctic Wings,” the ...