Condo Skyline

SimToronto has Moved!

Ok SimToronto now has a new home. So as you continue to check out my blog from time to time remember to also check out whats happening in the land of SimToronto.

SimToronto Click Here!

From the Grange to the Tower and Back to the Grange

Wash your clothes at the CNE Midway

What the heck is a washer doing in the middle of the CNE Midway? I am going to throw away my napkins and wash my shirt after I spilled ketchup on it.

Toronto's Vimy Circle

Looking south across Vimy Circle

Drawing by: Earle C Sheppard, 1928


Inspired by a post on the Spacingwire about road roundabouts, and Toronto's lack of having some, I decided to finish and finally post something up about Vimy Circle.




Just before 1930 traffic in the city started to become unbearable. New measures needed to be taken to ease the traffic flow from all directions. The extension of University Avenue had been in the talks for some years and time finally came to put the thought down on paper.




In 1927 the Provincial government had passed the University Avenue Extension Act, basically giving themselves complete rights to the land directly south of Queen and University. The plan was to build the extension and a memorial to those who lost their lives at Vimy Ridge. Along came new designs for great massive buildings to line the street. It is very unfortunate that as the depression hit the city the plans for a roundabout circle soon faded.

Looking south on University across where Vimy Circle would have been.

Photo by: r.d.i. on Flickr

Constructing TO

MLG in a Condo City

Rom done, Ago Next

North facade Art Gallery of Ontario www.AGO.net
Gehry International, Architects, Inc.

Sim Toronto: Expansion and Redevelopment in Downtown Core

Sim Toronto has expanded more than ever before with the addition of the residential neighborhoods from Bloor north to Dupont and from Spadina westward to Bathurst. Some new landmarks include Toronto Central Tech High School, Casa Loma, Varsity Stadium and the ROM. It is really too bad that I do not have the exact look a likes for these buildings. I have used the default landmarks that are given in the game. For example, I used a high school, small stadium, a landmark that kind of resembles a castle and a museum. I still have not included U of T. Remember I am a York Guy! I might just hold back including a university until I get up to Steeles, or maybe not.

Click Here to see this pic in greater detail.

One big change I made was to the Downtown Core. A block of land from Front and York up to Queen, over west to Spadina and back down to Front was initially designated as a residential zone. To be honest the land did not develop into the type of residential buildings I had hoped for. Instead it developed into a mix of low-medium houses and row houses.

Click Here to see this pic in greater detail.

As the newly added neighborhoods started to develop up in the northwest part of the city the unemployment rate began to rise. I figured this part of the downtown core would be perfect for more commercial zones. Want an update to how this addition of residential and change to commercial zoning pans out? Let me know…

Click Here to see this pic in greater detail.

Yay! Sim Toronto’s second bank, a CIBC branch on King just west of University.
What’s next?

Hanlan’S Point Amusement Park and Staduim or Island Airport? The Sims are demanding a small commuter Airport.
Expand east, west or north?

Leave a comment...

Masonic Hall, 1888

Queens Park

Interesting Find: Of Toronto the Good

I found this book on Ebay and bought for less than 10 bucks, including shipping. Its basically everything I need to know in regards to why Toronto is "The Good" It defines the term through every aspect of the city just before the turn of the century. It talks about the government, how it is formed, the budget, tourism, housing, homelessness, traditions, social and night life, businesses, restaurants, schools, drunkenness and a bunch of other cool stuff. After reading some of it I can truly say some things never change.

Artricle in Torday's Toroto Star: Surprised by Toronto the Good

Who was C W Jefferys?

Yes, I know the name rings a bell. Yesterday a 15 year old boy was gunned down in the very same hallway I use to hangout in during my lunch hours when I went to high school there many years ago. Here is a different side to the name we are going to hear for the next couple of days...

C.W. Jefferys (1869-1951) was the first artist to take Canadian history and make it leap off the page and come to life. Before Jefferys, history was written down, but never illustrated in such a dramatic and refreshing way. As well as being a newspaper illustrator and historian, Jefferys was also an accomplished landscape artist and political cartoonist.

An inspiration for many artists, Jefferys played a hand in forming Canada's most famous group of landscape painters, the Group of Seven. Even today, Jefferys remains Canada's most reproduced artist and has influenced the work of Order of Canada recipient artist, Tony Urquhart, and comic book writer and illustrator, Chester Brown.

Through the artist's own words, as read by passionate Canadian actor, Eric Peterson, expert opinions, and personal accounts from his daughters and grandson, this documentary provides a comprehensive look into Jefferys' life and work and explains why he remains relevant for anyone interested in Canada's political and cultural past.



Click Here to watch his biography.

Victoria Day Bike Ride

Today a couple of buddies and I went on the longest bike ride I have ever taken. I live at Bathurst and Sheppard and at 8:30 this morning I biked north to Bathurst and Steeles to meet them. Then we proceeded to just about Steeles and Leslie and started south. We followed the paths all the way to Queen, cutting through Edwards Gardens, Sunnybrook Park, Don Valley Brick Works and past the Bloor Viaduct. Then across Queen to University, Left on College and stopped at Mossimo's Pizza on College west of Spadina for a bit to eat. After eating it was home time, College to Bathurst north all they way to Sheppard. I got home at 4:30pm. I was biking for about 8 hours. How sick is that?

For more pics of my trip check out my Flickr account here.

Sim Toronto visits Selkirk, Saskatchewan

Here is an awesome Sim City gamer who matched to perfection the simulated city to the real thing. There are even several pictures from its conception in 1880 all they way up to 2007. Click here to check it out.

Sim Toronto: Night Life

The New Lower Donlands

So here's the winner of the Lower Donlands Design Competition. Any guesses to when we will be able to hang out there and ride our bikes across those bridges? Hopefully before my 50th B-day. Oh yea, i'm only 29.

Click Here for more pics...

Double Trouble Royal York

Sim Toronto: The Birth of Queen's Park

So here is another installment of Sim Toronto. Currently we have a population of just over 28 000 Sims and the city is definitely looking to expand. I have decided to expand the city north ward up to Bloor. Currently the city limits are at Dundas, so this means including College and Wellsley into the picture and of course extending Bathurst, Spadina, University, Yonge, Church and Jarvis. The East west Limits remained the same, starting at Bathurst over to Jarvis. Since the last update the Southern Beaches community and "Cork Town" have been created but has yet to make its debut.

No that the new streets have been drawn; the main attraction in this new area is Queen's Park. As we know, Queen's Park is the provinces capital buildings for a very long time and has been a monument in itself showcasing the city's greatness.

As Spadina and Yonge expanded north so did the retail zones along its stretch. Residential zones have taken op the majority of the newly expanded territory along with a few small industrial zones created down by the waterfront. Two elementary schools and 2 more fire stations have also been added to the Queen's Park area to keep the community stable. I have also introduced medium level residential zones running along Church just south of Bloor down to College. These medium level residential zones are expected to grow to smaller apartment buildings ranging from 2 stories to about 20 stories, depending on the likeliness of Sims moving into the area.

So where is UofT? Well, being a YorkU guy myself I may not include UofT at all! Actually, I will include the university when there is a demand for higher education. I don't believe I have even created a high school yet for the Sims of this city, but eventually they will call for more education and I will be there to provide it. Just like in real life, the more educated the citizens are the easier your industries and commercial sectors will grow in turn, producing a wonderful economy for the city.

Here is the budget for this city before I expanded. As you can see I was only making a profit of about 2k a month from a population of 28 000. Notice too, my demand for commercial zones was in the negative, meaning no one wanted to do business in the city. Once all construction of roads and zones was complete I ran the Simulation for about 15 minutes on the highest speed possible, the results were surprising. The monthly income went up 5 times, my population went up to almost 50 k and my demand for commercial zones was high. There was a small amount of unemployment but it seemed to level off after a few minutes.

This is what the city looks like now, lots and Lots of residential zones. You can see there are a few blacked buildings which may be either abandoned buildings or slum areas. On a positive note I did notice the city's first Bank of Montreal, surprisingly on what is probably Wellington in between Yonge and Bay. Now, I had no hand in its development, it grew on its own. I downloaded several
"plopable" (The term used by SimCity gamers, buildings that grow based on demand) Toronto landmarks and banks were one of them. Let’s see which one comes next, RBC, TD or Scotia.

Christina Aguilera Concert

These were our seats for the concert. My mother had bought my wife tickets for this concert last Christmas and the moment had finally arrived. Our seated tickets were literally the last row on the right side of the stage. In other words, the were pretty bad. Thanks to my sister and the Big NOrm Show we were able to sit here and watch the concert. Thanks for the secret Sis!

Go Raptors Go!

This has got be the greatest Toronto Raptors picture of all time! A few of my staff have this picture posted at their desks. The new number 15 squashing the old number 15. Amazing!The Raptors are back in the NBA playoffs for the first time in 5 five years. Love him or hate him, Vince Carter is back! I will go with the Raps in six games!

Special thanks to Ian at BlogTo and the BuffaloPundit for covering the Toronto Simcity style. I will try to keep consistent with weekly updates.

Sim Toronto: In the Begining...

Ok, so first thing on the agenda was to lay down some streets. Yes, Yonge Street would be the most obvious place to start but so is Front. Once I got those 2 streets down estimating the distance between the east-west streets was not so bad. So then there was King Street and then Queen. I did not want to go overboard with creating all the streets at once so I kept my new city to about 4 city blocks east of Yonge. If you notice in the picture above I have placed the City Hall exactly were it should be in relation to the streets that I have laid. That particular peice of land will become the "Ward" in do time.

So here are a few things to remember:

Green Zones= Residential Lots
Blue Zones= Commercial Lots
Yellow Zones= Industrial Lots

A list of civic Buildings are given to us to choose from but there are costs involved. Civic buildings include schools, hospitals, fire departments, police stations, etc. I will explain further later how these esential services are kept sustainable with the growing population. So far I have included a doctors office, a elementary school, a police station, fire hall and a small wind power generator for power. We also need a good water supply for our city. This means a water plant needs to be included and water pipes need to be built underground throughout the city. I will save the water explanation for later.

So, it looks like we are ready to turn on the city. Instantly we see growth in all sectors. We see meduim and smaller reseidential homes and small commercial lots. Unemployment kicked in pretty fast leaving me no options except create more jobs for those out of work. Should I create more commercial or industrial zones?

Jays Home Opener: The Best Seat in the House

OK, so this was my view last night at the Jays home opener. My ticket stub said seat 103 but someone was sitting there already and to make things easier I was the nice guy and sat in the end seat. It wasn't too bad. When everything was said and done the Jays won and I had a good time.

Its a Small World After All!

I was reading an article in the Toronto Star today about a barber that has been in business for a long time and I remember driving by a barber shop on Bathurst one day and seeing the barber standing infront of his shop. I said to myself this guy looks like he has been in buisness a long time and guess what, its the same guy that was featured in the article.

Here is the link to the article: http://www.thestar.com/News/article/196945

York U according to Uncyclopedia

I came across Uncyclopedia today and it blew my mind. It's just like Wikipedia but with a twist. Here is what they have to say about York University.

York University is a fashion district located in the northern suburbs of Toronto. During certain hours, the place turns into this wonderful, interdisciplinary, multicultural, excellent post-secondary institution, attended by excellent, diverse, and intelligent students with progressive and forward thinking, such as that trashy girl with the fake Louis Vuitton purse talking on her cellphone.

History

York University was first established sometime in the 1960's as a hub for socialists and communist potheads fleeing their persecution and lack of popularity in the United States. It soon came to be the hub of liberalism, the far leftwing paradise of the world. With drug sales propelling students income, hideous and "modern" looking buildings erected, and "hot" chicks with fake tans populating the campus, a guy who was smoking his reefer suddenly suggested: "Dude, we should totally turn this place into a university!". And thus it came into existence, York University was established as a multi-something interdisciplinary institution with the only mall in the southernmost region of Ontario or something wonderful like that.

Now, York University is considered an top-notch "ivy" league, and the third top university in Toronto. It has become a popular insitution, with leftwing, sexually unsure individuals and student body advocating liberalism and freedom by stripping you from your common sense and coercing your conformity to the left-wing mandate of the university. Should you disobey, you will get an F on your essay you right-wing racist homophobe.

For More: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/York_University

Technorati Profile

Dinner at Fran's

Ok, So yesterday I went to Fran's for the first time and I must say I was somewhat impressed. I say somewhat because I had to top up my Classic Canadian Burger, fries and a diet Coke with a spicy sausage after. My meal was filling but just needed a little more of anything. The service was good and fast, the booth was a little small but my overall experience was good. We hopped over to Queen and Spadina after for our cheap sausages. Apparently the price at that location has gone up. A sausage now cost 2.50 from 2.00.

Ghost Town: Sheppard Ave West

Along Sheppard Ave West heading east towards Bathurst You will find a series of houses ready for demolision. What will be going up? Well, my guess is more and more condos as they have been sprouting up like flowers in this area as of late. The one house above has been boarded up since the early 80s and its great that someone finally decided to give it a face. The traffic heading east is bad enough already during the late evenings. A right turning lane is much needed for those turning right onto Bathurst from Sheppard. If there is no right turn lane by the time these new condos are built expect traffic to be a killer.