Five years after Ripley’s gave up on plans to bring an aquarium to downtown Toronto, balking at the proposed Exhibition Place location, the company is now waiting on City Council approval to give some big fish a place to swim at the foot of the CN Tower. Based on the templates in Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, locals can look forward to snacking at the Feeding Frenzy Eatery, buying souvenirs at the Cargo Hold gift shop, and the opportunity to Sleep With Sharks overnight in the dangerous reef tunnel. Losing out on the deal: Niagara Falls, where Ripley’s Believe It or Not! — inspired by Robert Ripley’s Chicago “odditorium” — has been a Clifton Hill fixture since 1963, along with a moving theatre and wax museum. While now owned by the Vancouver-based Jim Pattison Group, a brand that originated with a daily panel of edutainment on the comics page of the New York Globe in 1918 has persevered long enough to have a pinball machine, a TV show co-hosted by Jack Palance, and a Twitter feed. But a project in the works for as long as the Toronto aquarium was announced in 2005: the guys who wrote movies about Ed Wood and Andy Kaufman did the same about Ripley, for a biopic starring Jim Carrey, to be directed by Tim Burton. Then, it was given to Carrey’s Ace Ventura collaborator Steve Oedekerk to try and salvage. Later, the project was handed off to Chris Columbus, who wanted to make “a big fantasy adventure film where we believe that all these oddities are possible.” Noted recently was the project vanishing from the “in development” section of Carrey’s IMDb page — so maybe the story of a guy who spent his life looking for facts turned out to be a tough sell in the age of Google. But, there’s always the prospect of an iPhone app.

“A $10-million shakedown in the name of art,” raged Globe and Mail columnist Marcus Gee on the morning of the Toronto City Council vote about whether or not billboard companies should pay for the privilege of advertising corporate messages, and what that money might be able to do. “It all sounds just dandy,” wrote Gee. “Who doesn’t want more public art? But why should the company that rents out a billboard beside the Gardiner Expressway have to fund a performance-art piece in a Queen West club?” Because, responds Toronto Arts Council executive director Claire Hopkinson in a letter to the editor, it’d be a public space quid pro quo — and the petition effort at BeautifulCity.ca hopes to fill the council chambers later this afternoon to watch the final vote, although it probably won’t happen until Friday. The overnight suspense was due to a different priority taking over part of the Tuesday session: how to effectively accommodate girls’ hockey leagues in city-owned arenas. That debate may resonate in more homes, but the billboard battalion is the one representing on Twitter, so here’s your halftime recap. Continue Reading

“If you’re looking for a Budget Hotel in Toronto, the Bay Street Motel is the right place for you,” beckoned their website. “Pay for 4 nights and get 3 nights FREE!” was the offer valid through October 30, 2007 — but the longtime roach hangout around the bend from the Toronto Coach Terminal was evidently in business for two more years, even as its squalour was mirrored in the windows of many a new neighbouring high-rise. A photo posted at the Urban Toronto Forum indicates that the signs have been taken down, and ground floor windows papered up, not that you would have ever wanted to look inside. What was going on there for all these years? The page for the Bay Street Motel at TripAdvisor provides insight where your media feared to tread.  “Pleas DO NOT stay here — Bed Bugs!!!” read the most recent submission from September: “I am super itchy alll over, look like a freak, and am so traumatized that I feel dirty, can’t sleep, and when I do I have nightmares.” Another was recommended the hotel by their Greyhound driver during a layover: “Nightmare, scarred mentally for life!” Yet the place even had a honeymoon suite with ceramics in the middle of the room — guests claiming they saw a rat sticking his head through the bathtub drain had their claim refuted at the front desk, on the basis that the hole wasn’t big enough. But if you signed for the key — no refunds! The rare review breaking above “Terrible” suggested the experience improved on a second visit — so long as you didn’t have to share a washroom. But the Bay Street Motel has likely expired without anyone heeding one suggestion, “Anyone should visit it ONCE. Just to see.”: “I am positive there are caves in Afghanistan with better living conditions than this hole,” a seasoned traveller wrote. “On the bright side I’ve noticed a quite diverse fauna in there … Guess who they’re feeding on at nighttime?” So, maybe that’s where the deer who spent this morning huddled under some shrubs near the bus terminal was hoping to stay.

The day after announcing a 25 cent fare hike, the Toronto Transit Commission couldn’t have asked for a better kind of six-hour Yonge Street subway shutdown — one that allowed them to pass the buck. TTC chair Adam Giambrone sounded like had a rough night when interviewed this morning on CP24, even though service was restored hours before they expected, at 8:25 p.m. “A third-party contractor cut a trench across the subway tunnel structure,” he explained in a sleepless rasp. “And that’s not supposed to happen.” Worried that a slab would fall on the tracks, or maybe even a train, commuters were sufficiently enraged at having to take a shuttle bus. Brad Ross, director of communications for the TTC, took to Twitter earlier this year, allegedly to field passive-aggressive complaints on a day like this one. Just how impolite can his 2,321 followers collectively get? Continue Reading