Grand & Toy, once the go-to place for office supplies in Toronto, will shut down its remaining stores over the next few months in response to weak retail sales. The brand will, however, remain in place for online sales, which comprise the vast majority of its revenue today. Founded back in 1882 with its first stores at Bay and Adelaide in 1926, the demise of the bricks and mortar locations doesn't come as much of a surprise given the rise of box-style office supply stores.
Despite being swallowed up by the U.S.-owned OfficeMax chain years ago, Grand & Toy's smaller format stores just couldn't hold pace with its bigger counterparts. According to a report in the Star, only three per cent of Grand & Toy's sales came from walk-ins. I guess that's why spotting a customer in one of these stores was rarer than a UFO-sighting. Still, it's not without a little wistful nostalgia that one bids goodbye to what was once a Toronto fixture.
The world of Google Street View is an impossible mash-up of different days, weeks, and months. It's tempting to imagine the unprecedented world tour as a giant explorable photograph, but really it's a collage world - a place that could never (and did never) exist. Click down a side street and the weather and sometimes the season changes. Buildings that are standing when viewed from one angle are gone from another.
The best cocktails in Toronto are far more diverse than, say, five years ago. It took a while, but cocktail culture eventually exploded in this city, giving rise to a host of speakeasy-inspired bars and making it virtually mandatory for all new establishments to have a cocktail list of some sort. The best places tend to respect the classics, offering slight tweaks on drinks like the Manhattan, Negroni and Sazerac, to name only a few. Look closely enough, however, and you'll also find novel concoctions that show off the creativity and skill of our city's talented bartenders. 
Weekend events in Toronto is our guide to events happening this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Here's what's happening in Toronto this April 25-27, 2014.
Located in the heart of the Club District, this fifth floor grill house is where to go when nothing but dining outdoors on a patio surrounded by skyscrapers will do. The menu boasts sumptuous fine foods like foie gras, crab cakes, house-made gnocchi, and grilled cuts of premium meat.
When it was first proposed in the 1960s, St. James Town was the biggest urban renewal project ever conceived in Toronto. By clearing a vast swath of crumbling Victorian properties in one of the city's poorest neighbourhoods, urban planners aimed to engineer the densest concentration of people in the country. The only people standing in the way were the owners of a handful of holdout homes who refused to budge.
In the 1950s, many of the Victorian homes of north Cabbagetown were seriously grim. Many of the rental properties were owned by unscrupulous landlords and lacked even the most basic utilities.
Landlords were often to blame for the gross unsanitary conditions. Joseph Shori, the owner of some 24 properties in the area, said he rented one his St. James Town homes for $89 a month to a total of 23 tenants. He blamed people who were behind on rent for leaving the buildings in a not "ideal condition." (He would later threaten to cut off the heat, light and power to his properties when his tenants complained to the city's Board of Control.)
Clearing the area proved problematic. The Toronto Housing Authority and Ontario Housing Corp. leased homes south of St. James Town for the families displaced by construction but found squatters moved into the vacated homes as quickly as they could be emptied. Some people refused to move altogether.
Similar oddities occurred on the other side of the housing development. The second phase of St. James Town, which didn't win final city council approval until September 1971, left buildings marooned along Sherbourne and around the corner onto the south side of Howard, where high-rises were proposed but never built. 583 Sherbourne, a fast food joint, is one of the more conspicuous relics because it is surrounded on three sides by a park.
North of Howard, a street named for the architect who gifted the city High Park, there are more Victorian buildings, many of them practically falling down due to neglect. The St. James Town developer had planned to build two more towers here when it started acquiring land in the early 60s. The properties it managed to buy were knocked down in advance of the incoming concrete, but the ones it couldn't get, including No. 76, stayed.
Deals on cheap nachos in Toronto bars and pubs are on offer every night of the week - so long as you know where to look. Piled high with tortillas, cheese and an abundance of toppings, this 
The 
A well organized psychic fair is not just a jumble of cloaked figures leaning over indistinguishable crystal balls (though those were for sale) - all manner of magic capitalists sat behind the booths: mystical diagram painters, 
I was given a presenter's badge - apparently media requests are rare - which led to my eventual realization that the psychics and tablers weren't ignoring me because I didn't look like a card - they thought I was magically endowed. Plus, "media" sounds like "medium" to spirit-weathered ears, which yielded me the kind of respect I rarely receive as a lowly digital editor. It also helped ease the pressure to spend big money on communing with the great beyond.
#psychiclife as a whole looks fairly sweet - most mediums, fortune tellers, tarot, aura, and palm readers, and past life regressors were charging $45 and up for a half hour and in the neighbourhood of $80-100 for an hour. The electronic aura reader's intriguing booth boasted what looked like an old analog effects pedal with hand-shaped heat sensors hooked up to a laptop. The aura reader assured me it was a 
I found the Stephens, a couple from Michigan who hit up to 30 psychic fairs and events per year, at one of the fair's most colourful booths. Mystical art reader 
Quitting your job turns out to be a big thing in the psychic community (as is outrage over Hollywood's portrayal of their various gifts and powers). During the lectures, nearly every presenter narrated the story of the moment they quit their job, and one advised we do the same, or at least not worry if we get fired when spiritual healing changes our energy fields. Not the best advice in troubled economic times, but who am I to argue with the spirit world?
The fair advertised two stages of lectures, which turned out to be its strangest (read: best) feature. An audience of 80%+ women would sit and listen to "exciting free lectures and demonstrations," which of course were just exhibitors taking opportunities to shill their booth for a half hour. 
Karen McBride's "
There were no obvious gigglers in the audience, and in general it was hard to tell who was a tourist and who was a believer, unless you were eavesdropping mid-reading/cleansing/communion. Everyone who wasn't behind a booth - and most of the psychics themselves - looked pretty normal, and the quirky sign that said "The witch is in" could easy have said "Bless this mess." Jesus was in the building at various times, or so various presenters claimed.
I contrasted my experiences with those of 
Sipping a terrible $2.75 coffee from Pickles Deli while a couple of girls at the next table incredulously dissected their readings - "I know my past, I wanted to know my future!" - I achieved the only spiritual need I have: the state of divine kitsch-bliss. In my enthusiasm for winning a free aura scan or something I may now be on a network-wide psychics' mailing list, but they already knew where I live. Even if none of these psychic scenesters are truly gifted, their aliens pals likely are. 
Seeking Latin American flavours when in the vicinity of York U? Why not head to this two year old Latin America spot. Here you can find empanadas, burritos, flautas, grilled shrimp and plenty of bottled and homemade drinks.
Free events in Toronto this week will be dominated by the arts - photography to be exact. It's the opening week of the 
Today in Toronto The Drake hotel gears up for music festival season with the Field Trip Cocktail Competition. On the panel are indie hair tossers 
This Week in Music rounds up the latest news, releases and concerts coming to Toronto.
Traditional North Indian cuisine including plenty of tandoori dishes and curries are now on offer across the street from the St. Lawrence Market. It's all part of the new Market St. revitalization that is currently ushering in a wave of new dining options.
For the past nine years, 
Though a deep V-neck dress isn't exactly new and exciting, this grey-purple number from 
It wouldn't be |FAT| without a good corset. This sci-fi leather dress by 
The soft tulle and lacework of this orange 
Inspired by the transition between winter and spring (much like the rest of us), Christine Youn of 
A comment on the tendency to bite off more than one can chew, 
Benji Wong of 
The top dance parties in Toronto show promoters have been spending all winter getting ready for spring, and have now unleashed a flood of large-scale events on the city. A quick look at the concert calendar this month alone proves that the line between EDM culture and the mainstream pop world is increasingly meaningless, with mega-stars like Avicii playing Rogers Centre and scoring hits on new country radio. However, as much fun as giant outdoor festivals can be, a luxuriously long set by a great DJ in a club is an experience any experienced partier cherishes.
The best gluten free bakeries in Toronto respect the intolerances of those who suffer celiac disease - and the preferences of those who choose to avoid gluten for other reasons. Gluten is a protein composite found in several grains, including wheat, barley, rye, and triticale. It's the creation of gluten (by mixing water and flour) that provides traditional dough some of its elasticity and flavour - so you can imagine the difficulties of making baked goods, especially ones that taste good, without these usual staples.
Last call in Toronto has always felt kind of early after returning from visits to New York or the week after a festival like 
