On daily strolls through Parkdale with my dog, gentrification’s tremors are all around me – nowhere more noticeable than in the accelerating speed of life on the sidewalk.
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For Josie Candito, who runs a beloved automotive shop at Howard Park and Dundas, the road to success is about caring for more than just cars.
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Nine WEP writers wax about their best-ever set of wheels and why they loved them. With stories from Nobu Adilman, Michael Winter, Bianca Spence, Perry King, Larry Koch, Aurora Browne, Kevin Barry, Allana Harkin, and Liara Weiler.
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It was 1995. A sheep was born in a petri dish. A bright comet was streaking through the sky. And, in pre-internet Toronto, something even more remarkable was happening: The High Park Little League team was headed to the World Series. Poet David James Brock remembers what the world felt like in that moment.
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There was a time when Queen Street was the northern limits of Toronto. It’s about to become the last line of defence for live music.
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A feel-good, nostalgic genre of Japanese dance tunes called City Pop has become the kitchen soundtrack for a community of Toronto chefs – one that sets the tone for a kinder, brighter kitchen culture.
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Over the past five years, little more than a quarter of Toronto’s rehearsal spaces have survived, chipped away by an inflated real estate market and then the death knell of shutdowns. Now, a group of artists is banding together to defend what little space remains for making music.
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Travelling between hip-hop, pop, electronic music and neo-soul – and her homes in Cape Town, Toronto and B.C. – Zaki Ibrahim is hard to label. And that’s kind of the point.
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Everything they do, every step they take, is for each other. That’s the de facto motto at FreedomSchool Toronto, a grassroots community organization that aims to inform, equip and engage local Black children regarding Black pride, Black histories of resistance and community organizing.
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Legends like Isaac Hayes, Bob Marley, BB King and more came to the Harriet Tubman Centre at St. Clair and Oakwood in the ’70s – a thriving hub for Black Torontonians. Its founder, Ken Jeffers, recalls its impact and finds in its undoing a familiar story.
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Toronto’s schools are steeped in colonial attitudes, and Black students are paying the price. But educators and advocacy groups are working to change the ways schools work to better serve racialized students.
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Three urban farming projects are working toward making Toronto a food-sovereign city – and showing how almost every bit of space can be made to flourish.
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For decades, lawyers and advocates have fought for the rights of Black people in the Canadian justice system. Here are some of the rising stars of the next generation.
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We asked WEP readers what menu item you still crave from a Toronto restaurant that closed its doors, recently or long ago. You gave us all the toothsome details – how it became your special, what else is wrapped in the memory of it, and why nothing can take its place.
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Sober, trans, queer and, as of this year, vegan, Niko Stratis says she often feels like a bingo card of people you don’t want to invite to a party. What it’s like to navigate the holiday season when everything is the same—but you.
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Shellie Zhang has a thing for MSG. It’s the subject of her book, called Fusion Cuisine, Now with Added MSG! It features a collection of historic “Canadian” recipes from the 1930s to the ’70s that call for the additive, years before it was used to negatively stereotype Asians, and especially Chinese people, through their food.
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Thirty years ago, El Convento Rico threw its doors open to College Street and became the West End’s liveliest and most welcoming nightclub. To mark the anniversary, we spoke to patrons, performers, employees, a few detractors and its formidable matriarch, Maritza Yumbla, about the power of belonging, the importance of bedazzling and the meaning of drag.
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Parkdale is an eviction hot spot. The number of notices that get served in the southwest neighbourhood are double the city average. And nowhere is the tension between affordable living and “financialized” landlords clearer than on West Lodge Avenue.
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On a late September afternoon with a hint of fall in it, Bodhi, the miniature pinscher, narrows his eyes and surveys his terrain from the Dovercourt Park bleachers on the lap of his owner, Chris.
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Crime reporting is one of the oldest forms of journalism. It tells us who should be feared and who should be punished for tearing the social fabric. But its often sensational approach has consequences: It demonizes Black people with exaggerated portrayals of their criminality, and invites the rest of society to do the same.
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