That really is totally ingenious when you look at the mechanics of it. I wonder when they're going to get underway?

So, what are we looking at here? Is that a rig at the bottom that's going to move up the building? Or are they just to to scaffold it all the way up? I was under the impression that a platform was going to be lowered from the top. Has there been a change of plans?

TECHNICAL TERMS (for future reference) --------------------------- HOLE-DIGGER DIRT-PUSHER GUNK-SPINNER GIRDER-DANGLER KITTEN-CRUSHER

Alright, not "worst of the Internet." I take that part back. Just "emblematic of what's wrong with it." Whatever he may or may not have said to a newspaper years ago, he just doesn't have the power to single-handedly change the demographics of a street.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what the hell is this? Never mind your shitty pop-psych twaddle. Would you like to explain how Kyle Rae personally went about gentrifying nearby neighbourhoods? How would a ward councillor go about that? I'm not particularly invested in defending Kyle one...

Want.

Green has its appeal, but it seems almost slavish in its deference to the shape of St. Lawrence. It winds up saying SPACE MARKET OF THE YEAR 3000, which doesn't quite work. Blue looks like Will Alsop designed a slug. Yellow looks like it's going to ignite another debate about whether there's a...

Criminy, Steveve, hearing you talk about Ground Zero just made me realize something. If you're 14 now, then on 9/11, you would have been... a five-year old. For you, there WAS no pre-9/11 world, yet here you are, chatting with us. Sweet tapdancing Moses. It's finally sinking in that I'm old.

That's kind of adorable. Sorry, North Bay.

Central Surplus, which I can't decide whether to bemoan or not, has a sign in the window announcing their lease is expiring, and it's moving sale time. From now on, all urban camo is tol be strictly bourgeois.

Also, the ballroom looks a little low-slung. I would have expected something a little grander, you know? (Or is the lens misleading?) Not, of course, that I'll ever see the inside of this place myself. (And why would I? I'll hardly have reason to leave my penthouse at Aura.)

As it happens, they tried occasionaly going car-free on Yonge for a while in the 70's. (Contrary to popular belief, our generation didn't have the world's first progressive ideas.) I'd have to defer to someone who was actually there at the time, but my understanding is that it was a fiasco.

And indeed you're right: age alone doesn't make a building worth saving. The guidelines you're surmising actually do exist; in fact, I went hunting and dug 'em up. They're described in a regulation pursuant to the Ontario Heritage Act. (The act calls for the establishment of guidelines, but I...

I think we'll let the skyscraper people stick to skyscrapers, and the punctuation people stick to punctuation, and we'll all get along just fine.

Ooh. Well-put!

If this building were a puppy, I'd adopt it this very day.

Let's not confuse "large" with "world-class." I would humbly submit that Guv is not world-class fun. It is, in fact, about as low-class as fun gets. Maybe they could use a bit more of said "fun" in Etobicoke, though.

They'd better protect the hell out of that view corridor.

I CARE! Lots of people care! Agh, this city is so backwards sometimes! How hard is it to understand that details matter, little things matter, that the ugliness of things matters. Because if you don't pay attention to the details, you get a city full of eyesores that's not terrifically pleasant...

I went by tonight, sans camera. Nothing to report, except that there doesn't appear to be any appreciable progress towards a temporary bridge for the access ramp. Which I suppose is a subset of nothing. Otherwise, can I interest you in some piles of dirt?