Toronto Life articles from June 1999

Toronto Life archives from June 1999

Friendly giant (Toronto Raptor Vince Carter).
June 1, 1999... Three reasons to embrace Vince Carter as Toronto's sports hero for the next decade: 1. He never speaks of himself in the third person. 2. He wears no ugly tattoos. No lovely tattoos, either. 3. He's as polite as Anthony Hopkins in...

(Architect's opinions on a new Pizza Pizza place in a Toronto neighbourhood).
June 1, 1999... A slice I used to work on the east side of downtown Toronto and often admired a Toronto-Dominion bank at Church and Wellington streets. It was exactly the kind of building I love. It was a modest and elegant proposition, but to my mind full...

This issue (transformation of the Yonge and Dundas intersection).
June 1, 1999... FOUR YEARS AGO, Bob Sniderman, the owner of the Senator steakhouse, invited me to lunch. The restaurant is located on Victoria Street, opposite the Pantages Theatre and not far from the squalor of Yonge and Dundas. Which, as it turned out, is...

Small packages (illustrated short stories for adults).
June 1, 1999... So I'm walking down Queen Street, and out of the shadows in the window of an antique shop pops a jolly wooden boy. He's got bright beady eyes and a doughnut mouth and on the front of his red T-shirt there's a sign that exclaims: CHILDREN MUST...

Harmonize this: the harmonization debate was really about the ongoing struggle for power between tax-rich downtown and the have-not suburbs.
June 1, 1999... A "CACOPHONY"--that was city councillor Pam McConnell's description of the squabbling over service levels and user fees, better known as the "harmonization" debate, that culminated in late April with an oversold operating budget "compromise."...

See no evil: the trial of Stephen Williams turns on whether he watched the infamous (Paul) Bernardo videotapes. Its outcome will determine whether journalists can protect their sources.
June 1, 1999... STEPHEN WILLIAMS, who this year stands at the centre of a major freedom-of-the-press case, is nobody's idea of a model defendant. Invisible Darkness, his 1996 book about the crimes of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, contains a photograph from...

Our father: in 1960 George Luscombe mounted a play called Hey, Rube! in a 60-seat basement theatre in Parkdale. It ran for only five weeks, but it changed everything.
June 1, 1999... THE BUILDING still stands at 47 Fraser Avenue. The basement windows are boarded up now, though broken glass still lies on the ground. The sign says Quality Plating Co. Ltd.; there's a bicycle chained on the sidewalk and glimpses of workers...

Money pit: when it opened ten years ago, the SkyDome cost $570 million. In April it sold for $109 million. Where did $461 million go?
June 1, 1999... THE VAST KITCHEN at the SkyDome is a stainless-steel factory with a glass-walled control booth in the centre. It can cater a sit-down meal for 5,000. Today, however, it's the scene of a small-scale haute cuisine lunch. David Cranston, the...

Holy Roman church (Cathedral of the Transfiguration (Byzantine Rite) in Markham).
June 1, 1999... POSSIBLY THE STRANGEST thing about the Cathedral of the Transfiguration (Byzantine Rite)--besides the chain-link gate that gives it the permanent air of a movie set--is its scale. Rising twenty-three storeys above a farm field east of the 404...

Positive: an HIV diagnosis used to be viewed as a death sentence. Today, the growing number of long-term survivors calls into question some basic assumptions about the disease.
June 1, 1999... This is an article about hope. But it is also an article about AIDS. I do not mean to diminish the lives or deaths of those who have died of AIDS, and I do not mean to suggest that the battle against this grim disease is over. On the other...

It's off to court we go (prisoner transport driver).
June 1, 1999... HE REPORTS TO COURT SERVICES, off Strachan south of King, early. "Parade" is at 5:45 a.m., a supervisor checking that Denis Malbon's uniform is properly appointed and his truncheon is in place. Paddy wagon drivers are also required to wear...

Monumental man: everything about Jack Diamond, the architect designing the city's new opera house, is on a grand scale, including his ego.
June 1, 1999... He is telling me how wonderful he is. Abel Joseph Diamond, known to everyone as Jack, also known as "the architect to whom Toronto is most in debt," a.k.a. "that bastard," "that jerk," "a brilliant thinker and caring individual," most...

Along came Jones: furniture design got a boost when an out-of-work young architect named Andrew Jones began turning out his brilliantly low-budget creations.
June 1, 1999... A SMALL ROUND table--plywood top, three looping steel legs--that clamps together in the manner of a homely wood-and-wire clothespin. For a vase, a smooth copper cone resting comfortably on a tiny block of sycamore, the elegant form suggesting...

New horizons: around the world with Krystyne Romer Griffin.
June 1, 1999... Fashion is Krystyne Romer Griffin's element (she has been a vital presence in the city at Holt Renfrew, Hazelton Lanes, Giorgio Armani, Hermes and Yves Saint-Laurent) but so is the air (she has travelled the globe with her husband, who pilots...

Ready, on your mark, get set, glow.
June 1, 1999... Wax eloquent Okay, so you've seen square candles, candles in shells and frosted glass--even jewelled and flower-strewn ones--but have you ever seen anything like this lineup? Hand-formed by a Finnish couple in Pennsylvania, they have a...

East on Highway 7: legend has it that the food in Richmond Hill's Chinese restaurants surpasses the cuisine of Spadina, but only for those in the know (i.e., non-westerners). True. And false.
June 1, 1999... SUPERMALLS and Hong Kong millionaires, secret menus and supercilious service...In the past ten years, urban legends have grown up around the Chinese restaurants on Highway 7, tinted by downtown Caucasian paranoia. They say the food up there...

Nosing about (various wines reviewed).
June 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 ();...

Drink list of the month (review of Messis).
June 1, 1999... Messis (97 Harbord St., 920-2186) The place Open 65-seat room with yellow-chartreuse walls, yellow Irish linen and tablecloths (brown paper tops the tablecloths, bistro-style) and a pale, faded violet/grey/green carpet. All is soon to be...

Smmer tarts (Toronto bakeries).
June 1, 1999... We're still missing the splendidly fussy tarts of Amjarv (Yonge Street, south of Bloor), gone now for over a decade--but a blessed memory for those of us who can recall when Hogtown had to rely mainly on a couple of bakery chains or takeout...

Earl (Sully) Sullivan: November 16, 1914 - March 28, 1999.
June 1, 1999... PEOPLE TOSS AROUND adjectives like "one-of-a-kind" when describing distinctive characters. In the case of Sully Sullivan, the superlatives fit. Some people couldn't get past the dark shades, high pompadour and cheesy signature (he added...