Innehållsförteckning för May 2024 från Toronto Life

It seems like every day another Toronto art institution dies a lonely death. Inflation, soaring rents and a chronic lack of funding have emptied out once-thriving gallery districts like West Queen West and replaced them with condos, retail chains and a superfluity of weed shops. Even though more artists call this city home than any other in the country, affordable exhibition space is virtually nonexistent. Luckily, creatives know how to get creative. She Said Gallery is operating out of a laundromat on the Roncesvalles strip, giving artists a super-cheap place to show their work. Most art snobs could never imagine themselves taking in a still life mounted above a tumble dryer, tallboy in hand. They don’t know what they’re missing. “I’m the hardest-working queen on the planet” —Priyanka, p. 22…

$1,500 Average amount residents of the Toronto Islands—who own their homes but not the land beneath them—pay in property taxes, roughly $6,000 less than the average mainlander. $70,000 Retail value of 4,500 kilograms of pistachios stolen from a trucking yard just outside of Waterloo. It’s the second nut-related crime in the area—a tractor-trailer of walnuts was purloined last November. $100,000 Maximum fine for coffee shop owners who refuse to accept a customer’s reusable cup. A city audit on waste found that Torontonians use 39 million disposable cups per year. $2,000,000 Amount allegedly owed to former Toronto Wolfpack players, according to a lawsuit brought by the Rugby League Players Association. The UK organization is suing David Argyle, former owner of the now-defunct team, for unpaid wages. $130,000,000 Cost to revitalize the…

Waverley Where: College and Spadina Developer: Fitzrovia Designer: DesignAgency Number of units: 166 The Hotel Waverly was a notorious Toronto flophouse where outlaws and criminals laid low in the 1960s and ’70s. The new 16-storey residential building on the site, completed in 2021, borrowed the name (with a slightly altered spelling) but not the history. Anwar Mekhayech, lead designer and a founding partner at Toronto’s DesignAgency, says his vision for the space was more global than local. “I wanted to appeal to lots of cultures, not recreate old Toronto lore,” he says. He took inspiration from the best of contemporary hotel design. In the past decade, DesignAgency has worked with such iconic brands as the Drake, Fairmont, Andaz and Hyatt. Mekhayech wondered if a boutique rental building was really so…

OUI AÏA ouiaia.com What: Multi-course, family-style meals for up to 12 guests, held monthly Where: A private residence in downtown Toronto How much: $120 per person AYAH HANAFIEH’S supper club was inspired by her family. Hanafieh was born and raised in Jordan, but her family is from Palestine, where she says love is communicated through food. “My mother and grandmother taught me to appreciate flavour,” she says. Cooking, for Hanafieh, is an extension of her identity. She honed her skills working in various Toronto kitchens, but the long hours, combined with the physical and emotional strain, made her realize that the industry wasn’t for her. The idea for a private supper club first occurred to her last spring, and after testing out tasting menus with family and friends, she launched…

International Lampoon Conestoga College’s pamphlet for foreign students is a master class in seduction. The Viewbook, as it’s called, is lush with eye-popping numbers and images of cheerful transplants from China, India, Tanzania and beyond. The Waterloo region is presented as a wonderland of higher education, one that teems, as we learn on page two, with “bustling nightlife, affordable housing and public transit.” Were I a prospective student in, say, Delhi, Changsha or Manila, I’d be on the first plane out. What I would discover upon setting foot on campus, however, would be soulcrushing. Kitchener, like Toronto and the rest of the GTA, is in the midst of a housing crisis that forces new arrivals, who are often on tight budgets, to live in squalor. One Conestoga student from India…

You look great. Tell me about the ’fit. I’m going for superhero chic. It’s for We’re Here, my new HBO series. You’ve also got a new single, an upcoming album and a Netflix movie slated for the end of 2024. Are you the hardest-working queen in Canada? I’m the hardest-working queen on the planet! I don’t wait for things to happen. People love the idea of a supermodel being discovered in a grocery store—but that shit ain’t happening to little brown boys from Whitby! I remember driving downtown with my parents and seeing the MuchMusic building. It was like seeing God. I needed to be there even though, at the time, I had no ambitions to be a pop star or to dress as a woman. Your fans mostly know…

WHEN WILLIAM waters was a newborn, his mother placed him in a basket and abandoned him on the front steps of an orphanage. It was 1932, the nadir of the Great Depression, and few families in Orangeville—then a rural town of 2,600—were in a position to adopt. So little Bill went home with the only woman who offered to take him: a 51-year-old seamstress named Edith Waters. Single and childless, she doted on her son and, as he grew older, encouraged his entrepreneurial spirit. As a boy, Waters worked three paper routes and built a chicken coop in his backyard. After high school, he ran a local taxi company and found entry-level work in the aerospace industry, earning enough to enrol at the University of Toronto. He then pursued a…

THE BUYERS: Dylan Doyle, 33, marketing and communications manager at Ernst and Young, and Matt Maw, 36, director at Red Music Rising. THE STORY: For six years, Dylan and Matt had been happily renting a two-bedroom apartment in Little Italy for $3,000 a month. They weren’t looking to buy, but when interest rate hikes put an end to bidding wars, they sensed opportunity. The couple wanted at least three bedrooms and two bathrooms, plenty of storage for their books and records, a finished basement for Matt’s video games, and a backyard for reading and relaxing. In October of 2023, they were pre-approved for a $1-million mortgage, and in November, they began searching for their starter home. OPTION 1 DUPONT STREET near Ossington Listed at $839,000 Sold for $835,000 First up was this…

AT THE LIBRARY BAR, the Fairmont Royal York’s legendary main-floor lounge, drinks are inspired by the arts, and the menu is divided into genres: poetry, bestsellers, masterpieces and (the reason we’re here) science fiction—extreme concoctions that are immersive and a bit bonkers. Godzilla inspired the Sacred Beast, made with bourbon, mezcal, smoked lapsang souchong leaves and charred habanero. An explosive garnish mimics the monster’s fiery breath—the strike of a match turns a ball of steel wool and cinnamon into a mini inferno. “It really cements the idea of an atomic reaction,” says James Grant, the bar’s director of mixology. Grant’s radioactive-looking Southern Reach (inspired by author Jeff Vander-Meer’s trilogy about a land taken over by vegetation) arrives on a coaster of moss. It’s made with some typical mix-ins (Tanqueray, chartreuse)…

FOR CARRIE STEWART, the list of reasons why she loves living and working in Sault Ste. Marie is long and centres around one thing—the great outdoors. “There’s literally an outdoor adventure for every season, weather and condition possible,” says the avid cyclist, skier and hiker. “I can wrap up in my office at 5 p.m. and be in the forest surrounded by beauty by 5:30 p.m.” A LEAGUE OF ITS OWN A lifelong resident of Sault Ste. Marie, Stewart is its physician recruitment and retention manager, and she’s quick to laud a decision to relocate to her city. She’s as much an ambassador for her hometown’s exciting professional opportunities for doctors as she is an enthusiastic cheerleader for its breathtaking surroundings and abundance of nature activities. “I love that we…

PEOPLE WHO KNEW Ian Chan didn’t believe he’d get involved in a kidnapping. An international student who’d moved to Canada to study commerce, he spoke slowly and came across as naive and eager to please. But he could also be impulsive and greedy. Once, during a visit to the Pacific Mall in Markham, Chan broke into a closed retail kiosk and made off with an armful of sports memorabilia. A few hours later, overcome with guilt, he broke into the kiosk again, this time to return the stolen goods. Both breaches were caught on camera. The first one resulted in Chan’s arrest; the second allowed his lawyer to negotiate a year-long suspended sentence rather than jail time. Chan was 21 years old when, in early 2020, he received a WeChat…

Created for WITH TOOLS like virtual reality and ChatGPT, society has made powerful leaps toward a future that’s powered by technology and innovation. But far from invasion of the robots, at Canada’s leading health care centre, delivering cutting-edge medical advances requires a human touch too—and a strong partnership between people and technology. “You really need both to innovate,” says Dr. Thomas Forbes, surgeon-in-chief at the Sprott Department of Surgery at University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto. “Technology is playing a crucial role in propelling advancements in surgery and health care at UHN and beyond, to make care more personalized, better, safer and more accurate. These new tools augment human surgeons and push the boundaries of surgical techniques.” Breaking ground across the health care spectrum It’s a powerful partnership that’s enabling…

Every month, TL Insiders enjoy terrific experiences and events across the city. More than 1,000 Torontonians have already signed up, and you can too! Members get front-of-the-line access to cultural events and private dining experiences plus exclusive invitations to Toronto Life’s salon-like discussion series. Membership is only $75 a year—so sign up today and rediscover the city as a member. Don Giovanni at the Canadian Opera Company: TL Insiders were treated to a modern reimagining of Mozart’s darkly comic masterpiece Don Giovanni by director Kasper Holten. The eye-popping production was designed by Es Devlin, the mastermind behind concert sets for artists like Adele and U2. Insiders had access to the members’ lounge of the Four Seasons Centre as well as a complimentary beverage at intermission. Martini master class at Le Tigre: Rosedale’s…