Toronto Life articles from January 2000

Toronto Life archives from January 2000

(Butch) Carter administration.
January 1, 2000... Not every NBA coach would invoke the frontier novels of Louis L'Amour to characterize his own career path. Probably only Butch Carter. "It's like L'Amour's series about the Sackett family," Carter says. "Three brothers setting out from...

This issue (Toronto Life has a new design).
January 1, 2000... AS YOU TURN THE PAGES OF THIS ISSUE, YOU MAY FEEL AS you would entering a familiar room in which all the furniture had been slightly rearranged. You'd know where you were, but you'd also notice--although at first you wouldn't know why--that...

Miss Wyoming.
January 1, 2000... GLAM SLAM If you're over 25 but under 40, you probably have a complicated relationship with Douglas Coupland. The author, of course, wrote the 1991 milestone With the hugely entertaining Critics will snipe that Coupland is trying to...

Game girl: these are precarious times for the city's 19 bingo halls - and for the charities that take a piece of the profits.
January 1, 2000... YORK'S FRANCES NUNZIATA, WHO will deliver a task force report on the charity bingo industry early in the new year, likes to claim she's the only person on city council who knows anything about this somnolent game of smoke and numbers. As with...

Funny money: the principle behind Toronto Dollars ... is laughable. It's also politically, economically and morally defective.
January 1, 2000... Money is not everything, but it is better than having one's health. After all, one cannot go into a butcher shop and tell the butcher, "Look at my great suntan, and besides I never catch colds," and expect him to hand over any merchandise. ...

Toronto that was: in the year 1000, Toronto is a fecund forest ... the early Hurons ... call it home.
January 1, 2000... IT IS THE YEAR 1000, BUT NO ONE HERE KNOWS THAT. CHRIST WAS born a millennium ago, but no mention of his name has reached the eastern woodlands of Canada. That will not happen for another six centuries; Christianity has only just reached the...

Toronto that might have been: six projects that would have changed the character of the city.
January 1, 2000... "GOD MADE THE COUNTRY, AND MAN MADE THE TOWN," THE POET William Cowper wrote in 1785. In the case of Toronto, the man was Alexander Aitkin, surveyor to John Graves Simcoe, lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada. Toronto didn't have Montreal's...

Toronto that is ... Toronto unfolds slowly, only as far as you care to discover.
January 1, 2000... I SAW TORONTO FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 1979 OR 1980. IT HAD snowed copiously earlier that week, and after a few days of mud and salt the city had taken on the colour of a flasher's mac. I had come to work with my editor on a book manuscript, and...

Toronto that will be ... predictions.
January 1, 2000... HERE'S A LITTLE QUIZ. WHAT PERCENTAGE OF TORONTONIANS will be 65 or over in the census year 2021? a) 58 per cent, b) 40 per cent, c) 29 per cent, d) 16 per cent. Given the flow of newspaper articles and TV shows about population aging and...

Home is where the high-rise is: Yonge and St. Clair was once the reserve of upmarket WASP families. Then the developers moved in.
January 1, 2000... DETRACTORS SAY THAT YONGE AND ST. CLAIR is not a neighbourhood at all but an intersection. Le coin de cinq banques. And several churches. You pay and pray. The corner has never achieved the glamour of Bloor, the cozy, homespun feel of Yonge and...

Uniform chic: George W. Bartello III.
January 1, 2000... If, in the past 20 years, you've spent any time around Avenue Road and Davenport, you've seen George W. Bartello III--owner of the eponymous design shop--tootling around in his velvet polo caps, pocket puffs and patent-leather boots. To Gene...

Ever cool: be there - at Goldfish, say, or the Shallow Groove - or be square. Rating the restaurants where the hip hang out.
January 1, 2000... LAST MONTH, I MADE A CASUAL REMARK that really set the cat amongst the squabs. I suggested that the Fifth is the coolest restaurant in Toronto. This innocent observation has drawn more fire than a streaker at the Battle of the Somme. Outrage....

Tasting notes.
January 1, 2000... These notes list producer/shipper, agent (and telephone), CSPC number (V indicates a Vintages bottle), price per 750 mL and region. Consignment bottles are generally brought in by the case from the agent. Rating is on a five-star system that...

Corner House, 501 Davenport Rd., 923-2604.
January 1, 2000... The place Two-storey Victorian house, revamped by Herbert and Michelle Barnsteiner when they bought the legendary restaurant last May. Cozy, charming, very French, its colour scheme (terra cotta, mustard) spells warmth. Customers have their...

Allan Lamport: April 4, 1903 - November 18, 1999.
January 1, 2000... EVERYBODY SAID HE MODERNIZED THE CITY, BUT ALLAN LAMPORT was in essence a pre-modern character, a man of rock-hard aplomb who never admitted to a moment's self-doubt. He was also a loud-mouthed populist, and people were always surprised to...

(Butch) Carter administration.
January 1, 2000... Not every NBA coach would invoke the frontier-novels of Louis L'Amour to characterize his own career path. Probably only Butch Carter. "It's like L'Amour's series about the Sackett family," Carter says. "Three brothers setting out from...

Reality check: swing shift (billboard has become a Toronto landmark).
January 1, 2000... Occasionally, in the world of marketing, an advertisement far surpasses the aspirations of its creator. And though brand triumphs like McDonald's golden arches are rare even in big business, they almost never originate with small-scale...

Miss Wyoming.
January 1, 2000... GLAM SLAM If you're over 25 but under 40, you probably have a complicated relationship with Douglas Coupland. The author, of course, wrote the 1991 milestone Generation X, a novel that boxed and labelled post-boomers with a reductive moniker...

Game girl: these are precarious times for the city's 19 bingo halls ... Frances Nunziata to the rescue?
January 1, 2000... YORK'S FRANCES NUNZIATA, WHO will deliver a task force report on the charity bingo industry early in the new year, likes to claim she's the only person on city council who knows anything about this somnolent game of smoke and numbers. As with...

Funny money: the principle behind Toronto Dollars ... is laughable.
January 1, 2000... Money is not everything, but it is better than having one's health. After all, one cannot go into a butcher shop and tell the butcher, "Look at my great suntan, and besides I never catch colds," and expect him to hand over any...

Toronto that was.
January 1, 2000... IT IS THE YEAR 1000, BUT NO ONE HERE KNOWS THAT. CHRIST WAS born a millennium ago, but no mention of his name has reached the eastern woodlands of Canada. That will not happen for another six centuries; Christianity has only just reached the...

Toronto that might have been: six projects that would have changed the character of the city.
January 1, 2000... "GOD MADE THE COUNTRY, AND MAN MADE THE TOWN," THE POET William Cowper wrote in 1785. In the case of Toronto, the man was Alexander Aitkin, surveyor to John Graves Simcoe, lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada. Toronto didn't have Montreal's...

Toronto that is.
January 1, 2000... I SAW TORONTO FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 1979 OR 1980. IT HAD snowed copiously earlier that week, and after a few days of mud and salt the city had taken on the colour of a flasher's mac. I had come to work with my editor on a book manuscript, and...

Toronto that will be.
January 1, 2000... HERE'S A LITTLE QUIZ. WHAT PERCENTAGE OF TORONTONIANS will be 65 or over in the census year 20217 a) 58 per cent, b) 40 per cent, c) 29 per cent, d) 16 per cent. Given the flow of newspaper articles and TV shows about population aging and...

Home is where the high-rise is: Yonge and St. Clair (has become) ... condoville.
January 1, 2000... DETRACTORS SAY THAT YONGE AND ST. CLAIR is not a neighbourhood at all but an intersection. Le coin de cinq banques. And several churches. You pay and pray. The corner has never achieved the glamour of Bloor, the cozy, homespun feel of Yonge and...

Ever cool: ... rating the restaurants where the hip hang out.
January 1, 2000... LAST MONTH, I MADE A CASUAL REMARK that really set the cat amongst the squabs. I suggested that the Fifth is the coolest restaurant in Toronto. This innocent observation has drawn more fire than a streaker at the Battle of the Somme. Outrage....

Allan Lamport: April 4, 1903-November 18, 1999.
January 1, 2000... EVERYBODY SAID HE MODERNIZED THE CITY, BUT-ALLAN LAMPORT was in essence a pre-modern character, a man of rock-hard aplomb who never admitted to a moment's self-doubt. He was also a loud-mouthed populist, and people were always surprised to...