Toronto Life articles from January 1999

Toronto Life archives from January 1999

This issue (Toronto Life to publish more guides to the city).
January 1, 1999... "WHERE TO GET STUFF CHEAP" first appeared in Toronto Life in 1975. Nothing we've published since, including the infamous Reichmann profile and the controversial "Divorce From Hell," has made so strong an impression. Year in, year out, the...

Bully pulpit: in four years, Father Thomas Rosica turned a disorganized, renegade congregation into a vibrant religious community. He made more than a few enemies along the way.
January 1, 1999... ON A SUNNY afternoon in June, the routine cacophony of students and cars streaming through the intersection of St. George Street and Hoskin Avenue is amplified by a team of construction workers jackhammering at the foundation of a stately...

Scarborough toughs: what happens when a bunch of cantankerous city councillors attempt to outmanoeuvre each other by doing an end run around local democracy? Everyone loses.
January 1, 1999... THE BIG NEWS from Scarborough last fall involved a private meeting during which councillor Mike Tzekas (Wexford) threw a hissy fit, calling one local colleague a "fat slut" and then threatening to flatten his wardmate, Norm Kelly, over an...

Post -- Conrad Black after the launch of the National Post: pages from the diary of Conrad Moffat Black as imagined by Michael Posner.
January 1, 1999... QUOTE OF THE DAY "If a bloody slaughter is a horrible sight, then it is a ground for paying more respect to War, but not for making the sword we wear blunter and blunter by degrees of feelings for humanity, until some one steps in with one...

Postpartum impressions: the delivery was problematic, and the baby is still on life support. But the birth of the National Post is cause for celebration.
January 1, 1999... IN MANY WAYS, the National Post that Conrad Black delivered to Toronto at the end of October was a surprise. It turned out to be richer, denser and more commodious than many had expected, and from the start it seemed already to have its own...

South Riverdale, semidetached, two storeys w/ charming front yard & spacious tool shed, steps to Gerrard Square, police patrol to combat minor break-in problem, friendly if somewhat eccentric neighbours.
January 1, 1999... The party wall of our semidetached house was shared by a fatalistic Irish couple, Patrick and Ann O'Sullivan (1), who had retired from their separate, equally lung-threatening jobs. Near the end, each had an oxygen machine and a tangle of thin...

High fences: I went to Project Turnaround - Ontario's "boot camp" for young offenders - half expecting to find monsters and prison guards. Instead, I found children and caregivers.
January 1, 1999... FROM OUTSIDE THE FENCE, it looks quite ordinary. A small country school, perhaps, with its spidery single-storey white vinyl-sided building, flags flying over a pleasant front garden. Quite ordinary, except for the fence: three times my height,...

Deconstructing the Arms: fond as we were of the old Windsor Arms, there's no explaining Heritage Toronto's zeal for resurrecting it. Or why the developer tacked on a condo tower the colour of leftover salmon.
January 1, 1999... OF I HAD A LOONIE FOR every time I interviewed an architect at the Courtyard Cafe, I'd be snacking on Sevruga instead of peanut butter. I wasn't the only journalist who chose the beautiful eatery in the Windsor Arms Hotel as the setting for a...

Split personality: anything goes on TV vixen Sook-Yin Lee.
January 1, 1999... When you have as many personae as Lee--story contributor for Citytv's Ooh La La, MuchMusic VJ, musician and composer--it's hard to limit yourself to a single look. Better to think of clothes as costumes that suit the day's enterprise. As a kid,...

Auld and new acquaintances: here's to the passing year's best talent, from the venerable Greg Couillard at Sarkis to the young troika at Stork on the Roof.
January 1, 1999... GLOSSY AND SWEET as a bar of butter, rich as Rosedale, smooth as sin, the mousse of pink chicken livers needed no garnish or condiment--just thin, crunchy slices of toast. The fish was a small red mullet, crisp-skinned, piping hot from the...

Nosing about.
January 1, 1999... What's new THESE TASTING NOTES list producer/shipper, agent (and telephone), CSPC number (V indicates a Vintages bottle), price/750 mL and region. Rating is on a five-star system that stresses quality for price: basic (*); acceptable (**);...

Bagels (Toronto bagel shops reviewed).
January 1, 1999... "You take a hole," goes the old Yiddish recipe for bagels, "and you put some dough around it." No one follows that deceptively simple recipe better than Moishe Gryfe of the eponymous Gryfe's (3421 Bathurst St., 783-1552). He produces not...

Yonge and Dundas: RIP: January 1999 (Toronto to change character of area).
January 1, 1999... POLITICIANS THINK it's a disgrace--a cesspool of dollar stores, porn shops, panhandlers and wayward teens. So does your mother, who used to warn you not to come here. But her chiding only added allure to this tawdry, tacky, seedy centre of the...

Dr. Feelgood swapping miniskirts for petticoats and catfights for bear hugs, Kevin Sullivan's become our answer to Aaron Spelling - a prolific TV producer with a formula that just won't fail.
January 1, 1999... The slight but steely figure of Kevin Sullivan is touring New Bedford today, and the walkietalkies are buzzing: "Kevin's in the building." Zzzpt. "Kevin's on set." Zzzpt. "Kevin's moving outside." Zzzpt. Proceeding down Main Street at the...

Telling tales: seeing is deceiving (Nesbitt Burns chief economist Sherry Cooper satarized in November issue of Report on Business).
January 1, 1999... Colour us embarrassed! When we picked up the November issue of Report on Business Magazine and spotted a Playboy-style Q&A with Nesbitt Burns chief economist Sherry Cooper, we assumed that she'd supplied the handwritten answers herself. After...

Tack this to your fridge (ammendments underway for student welfare system).
January 1, 1999... We thought this bit of bunkum died back when we graduated from high school, but we're told it's bubbling up again, at schools as diverse as North Toronto, Jarvis Collegiate and Ursula Franklin Academy. Apparently, kids who are unhappy with...

Keeping it in the family (Richler family entrenched at the National Post).
January 1, 1999... Congratulations to the clan Richler, who are in the midst of establishing a mini-dynasty at the National Post. Papa Mordecai--who pens a weekly column--has now been joined by middle son Noah, who's been handed the editorial reins of the books...

We say good-bye, you say hello (journalist Julius Melnitzer leaves Toronto Life for Globe and Mail).
January 1, 1999... Meanwhile, over at the Globe, we were interested to spot Julius Melnitzer plying his trade as a book reviewer, critiquing Stevie Cameron's controversial new volume Blue Trust. (He calls the tale "Well organized, breezy, readable and...

Reality check: youth hostile ... a brief history of our wayward youth.
January 1, 1999... 1891 Police move to regulate the 500 or so newsboys--you know, the little chaps in tweed caps and knickers yelling "Extra! Extra!"--who work the city's street corners. Authorities cite a need "on the one hand...to protect and encourage boys in...

When there's a song in your heart (private karaoke rooms flourish).
January 1, 1999... An awning at Bloor and Clinton beckons you: "XO Karaoke Box." It's not a typo. What you find up the stairs looks at first like a massage parlour, with rows of private rooms awaiting-fourteen in all among two floors of narrow hallways. This is...

When pigs fly (Toronto police receive funding to field-test two helicopters).
January 1, 1999... Ever since the first police cruiser trundled down Yonge Street in 1912, Toronto cops have been searching for newer, faster, better ways to collar the crooks. After two failed bids-in 1988 and 1990-to win funding for an airborne unit, the police...