The magic room was a community effort, maintained by many residents volunteering their time to keep it well organised and running smoothly. I often saw my neighbour, Wendy Showyin, when I stopped by.
"That is not democracy. That is a power grab," Chow told a crowd of people. "To the provincial government, you do not get to erase this park without a fight. And to the people standing here and to every Torontonian, we need your voice - talk to your neighbours, make some noise. This park belongs to you and we are going to keep it that way."
"Over the last year, our committee set out to learn about asset management and the state of one of our most important assets, which is our streets and our roads. We learned that our streets are riddled with potholes, and many of the streets are failing. The condition has worsened over the last five years. We learned that if we do not act now to address the degradation of our streets, it will continue to worsen."
The real problem is infrastructure, not vehicle safety. Roadways are open systems with infinite variables—weather, pedestrians, distracted drivers, and aging infrastructure. Communication between vehicles is minimal, and infrastructure is largely silent—and in that gap lies the potential for deadly collisions.
Alejandra Ferrera emphasizes that the security-driven design, while functional at the time, has led to a fragmented urban experience where streets serve only as transit voids, lacking social engagement.
"We're here on behalf of the people who put us here, and who need to know that their government is accountable to them, and that we, their representatives, will ask questions and investigate discrepancies on their behalf," said District 2 Councilor Sameer Kanal.
The bill allows the province to assume the City of Toronto's spot in a tripartite agreement that governs the land, an agreement that is currently between the city, the federal government and the Toronto Port Authority.
The podium-tower is a hybrid structure consisting of a high-coverage, low-rise podium supporting one or more slender vertical towers, maximizing urban density while maintaining a 'human-scaled' street wall.
"We're all over the place here - this meeting should be suspended. We should get our ducks in a row and come back here and do this properly. I mean it's like a circus - you're saying one thing, and then you're going back. You're kind of changing your answers."
Good urbanism should transcend politics. Socialists and capitalists can walk the same neighborhood and agree it's a pleasant place to live. They can each appreciate the tree canopy, the corner café with people spilling onto the sidewalk, the mix of ages on bikes and on foot, the architectural details of older buildings, and so on.
Campaigner Aysha Hawcutt stated that residents were 'not anti-homes', but believed the Adlington plan was 'the wrong proposal in the wrong place'. She expressed pride in the community's resilience against the development threats.
My family had Slide Show Night when I was growing up. Not every Saturday, but a whole bunch of Saturdays. Either my sister or I would be in charge of setting up the projector, the screen, and loading the carousel. During the show, there'd be a few landscapes or skylines taken during vacations, but almost all the shots were up close. Like most dads, mine wasn't a professional photographer, but he did a good job of capturing memory triggers: faces, gestures, and decorations.
Life doesn't pause for grief or fear. You might be going through something devastating but you're still packing lunches, still driving your kids to baseball practice, still showing up to work. One minute I find myself prepping for a whole home presentation and the next minute I'm checking the news, hoping and praying that no one has been killed on the streets today.
