By RICK McGINNIS

People who run restaurants love food, but you also have to assume they love the restaurant business, because love is the only way you can explain working in a business with such famously thin profit margins and dubious rates of success.

Since restaurants feed us so often – Statistics Canada says households eat in some type of restaurant an average of 520 times a year – it’s worth knowing a bit more about the people who put that food on our plate. Let’s start with the successes – people who’ve kept their doors open for a generation or more – and in the next feature in this series, we’ll talk to restaurateurs new to this game of risk.

For over two years, I reviewed restaurants for a Toronto daily, and as I travel through the city today, I’m constantly remembering places where I ate as I pass an empty storefront or a new restaurant that’s set up shop hoping to dodge the bad luck that might have attached itself to the location. The often-heard claim that one in 10 new restaurants close in their first year is largely a myth – studies have shown the real figure to be somewhere between three and five out of 10 – but the brutal reality of the restaurant trade is still very real, as veterans of the business will confirm.

Arron Barberian’s father Harry opened his steakhouse in 1959, on a stretch of Elm Street hardly known for fine dining, but Barberian’s has thrived, expanding with a spectacular new wine cellar a few years ago and proving his father’s intuition that what mattered most was being within walking distance from most of the city’s attractions, hot spots, and centres of government and finance. Location is everything, to be sure, but Arron is quick to add that it depends on what you mean by location.

In a city that was once full of independent steakhouses, Barberian’s is among the last of a dying breed, one of only a half-dozen rival eateries that served high-end protein in dark, woody rooms. “If we sold pasta, we’d probably be in better shape but we don’t,” Arron reflects, but tells me that he’s more worried about the countless new restaurants that open all over Toronto every month – little places in tight retail storefronts on streets like Roncesvalles and Ossington, with talented chefs in the kitchen and eager young owners and staff serving the latest crowd-pleasing variations on rustic Italian, upscale Asian or comfort food.

“Toronto’s going down a path right now of incredible restaurants that are unfortunately too small to survive,” he tells me. “People pay the same whether you’re a five-seat diner or a 500-seat banquet hall for some of these costs – we have got a whole rash of restaurants opening right now that are 50 seats and under. And they might be the most spectacular restaurants with the greatest chefs in the right locations, the right neighbourhoods, but they’re doomed to fail because of scale.

“Put it this way – if you’ve got a 50-seat restaurant, you’ve got a gentleman who washes your dishes, it costs X, and if you’ve got a hundred seat restaurant, it costs half of X because you still only need one person to wash your dishes. So you’ve got that to start off with, you’ve got the scale issue. Right now, I’d say a restaurant, if it really wants to survive, it’s got to have at least a hundred seats.”

Another peril that awaits a new restaurant that survives its first year is the rent. Start-up costs are high, but restaurants opening in cutting-edge or gentrifying areas often get a sweetheart deal from landlords who simply want to get a space rented. Fast forward five years, when the customary five-year lease runs out and the success of a restaurant might be mirrored by its neighbours, at which point any landlord will rightly assume that circumstances have changed.

“That was one of the things that my father used to tell every restaurateur along the way,” Arron tells me. “Buy your building. At the end of the day, restaurants will close, and your used pictures are pretty much worthless, your goodwill is pretty much worthless, your inventory is pretty much worthless. You might as well have a big piece of land that’s been paid off over the years.”

Surveying the city’s restaurant landscape, it’s hard not to notice that while there are a handful of high-end places like Barberian’s that have lasted more than a generation, there are just as many on the low end that have weathered the years just as well, mostly diners and venerable Chinese restaurants, while the vast middle is a churning place where packed houses and rave reviews can still result in a “Closed” sign just a few years later.

Looking out over the city from Scaramouche, co-owner Carl Korte can’t help but envy the robust economics of the greasy spoon and the coffee shop.
“Volume kills a lot of sins,” he tells me, echoing Arron Barberian’s assertion that a business model based on the profit from a cup of coffee is hard to deny.

Scaramouche is very definitely not that kind of place. Located on a side street off Avenue Road, in the vague border between Rosedale and Forest Hill, it’s definitely the location for a big night out, with its $40 entrees and its truly spectacular view over the city atop the forested canopy of its best neighbourhoods. With chef and co-owner Keith Froggett in the kitchen for most of its 30-year-plus history, Scaramouche has a reputation for consistency and quality that’s priceless in its very exclusive niche.

It’s a niche, Korte tells me, that’s been getting smaller lately. “Clients are looking for different types of restaurants, so nobody’s opening high-end restaurants any more. It’s a matter of we’re here, we’re established, we’re different, but our competition has diminished, so there are fewer places opening the type of full-service restaurant that we’re offering. People are leaning toward the middle price point based on economy and customer realities.”

It’s an anxious position that Korte says discourages the sort of voguish experimentation that will launch the reputation of a young chef in a new restaurant that will likely close as fashion and the brute realities of the mid-priced restaurant market assert themselves.

“We do what we do,” Korte says. “It’s served us well. Are we cutting edge? Not really. Are other people doing really interesting things in Toronto? Yes. Can we do that? No, because our clients and market don’t want us to – they know us and respect us for who we are.

“When I travel – London, Paris, New York – you see lots of people doing cool stuff, but it just doesn’t apply to us because of our location and client base and our history. So I can’t say we follow trends too closely. We try to incorporate a sensible approach to new market ideas, but they’re just tweaks to what we do, not overhauls.”

While talking about low-end eateries, Arron Barberian mentions a family-run Chinese restaurant in Bowmanville, the Coronation, that opened in 1911 and finally closed in 2005, when the Seto family decided that three long generations was enough time to spend in the business.

I contact Johnny Seto, who took over from his father in 1954 and ran the Coronation for nearly 40 years, and his daughter Gail, to talk about how you keep a restaurant running for almost a century.

“There’s a huge sacrifice of personal life,” Gail tells me, translating for her father over the phone. “It’s not a nine-to-five business. The commitment to build relationships with customers – if you’re not committed to service and quality and building your market, you’re just spinning your wheels.”

When her sister Janice, a teacher, was working on a book about the Coronation, she found one of her father’s original menus – four items printed on a piece of paper as big as a business card, featuring chicken fried rice, sweet & sour chicken balls and vegetable chow mein, as well as steak for a dollar.

It’s a glimpse of Canada 60 years ago, a very different place but one where nearly every small town had a Chinese place like the Coronation whose traditional dinner menu would give way to a larger selection of Chinese dishes as the decades passed and tastes evolved.

Gail also tells me that her family never owned their building, but thanks to a relationship with the landlords that lasted as long as the restaurant, Johnny was paying $100 a month in rent when he took over for his father, and was paying just $300 a month when he and daughter Bonnie, who ran the place in its last years, decided to close the Coronation.

It’s hard to imagine duplicating this sort of formula today, in Bowmanville or Toronto, which is probably why we’ll be seeing fewer and fewer new restaurants with the staying power of the Coronation on the low end – or Barberian’s or Scaramouche on the high.

I ask Johnny what he’d do now, if he was 25 years old again, but knowing what he knows now.

“He says he would do a Chinese food restaurant,” Gail translates for me, “while at the same time being able to offer a great breakfast and a great western sandwich – he would basically do the same thing again.”

Johnny adds, though, that it’s definitely better to own the building.

Toronto Blue Jays members mob teammate Joe Carter after his game-winning home run in bottom of 9th in Game 6 of World Series on Oct. 23, 1993. / Associated Press

By RICK McGINNIS

It snowed on the day that the Blue Jays played their first home game. Everyone knows that – it’s become part of Jays lore, like the seagull Dave Winfield hit while visiting with the Yankees, the first division title win in 1985, and, of course, the miracle seasons of 1992 and 1993.

The Jays have become such a fixture in the city that it’s sometimes hard to remember how it all began, in Exhibition stadium, on a chilly day 35 years ago.

Pat Hickey was there, covering the Jays for the Toronto Sun. He recalls the first-ever home crowd’s excitement just to see a game of baseball, 10 years after the minor league Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team played their last game at the stadium at the foot of Bathurst.

“It was one of two inclement weather games that I remember really well,” Hickey recalls, “but people were excited to be there, and they were determined not to let the snow affect the event. It was an event as much as anything else – it was one of those things that people wanted to be at to say they were there, and nobody was going to stay home because of the weather. As an opening day, it was certainly unusual.”

The Jays arrived in Toronto as Major League Baseball was recovering from nearly a decade of declining attendance, and, along with the Seattle Mariners, were the first new expansion team added since the late ’60s, when Toronto’s eternal rival, Montreal, became home to the Expos. Having spent his career in both cities, Hickey thinks that rivalry was a big deal for fans in the Jays’ early years.

“Montreal had had a team since 1969, and there was that competition between the two cities, and when Toronto had a chance to get a team, I think there was some excitement about it,” he says. “I think there was a fair bit of enthusiasm because of the rivalry, and Toronto was coming out of a very provincial period, where it was starting to see itself as a really big city that benefitted from the exodus of companies from Montreal, and Toronto had firmly established itself as the business hub of Canada, so this was another step in the city growing up.”

The early seasons weren’t stellar, with the team languishing at the bottom of the American League East, but Hickey doesn’t think that the fans cared.

“The first couple years, you get a pass – people were just glad to see baseball. There was more interest in the visiting teams, probably, than the home team itself. You got to see the Yankees.”

Things changed when Bobby Cox took over as manager in 1982, pulling together a solid organization in four years that included a former centre-fielder, Cito Gaston, who joined the team as a hitting coach. By 1989, he was managing the team, reluctantly taking over from Jimy Williams. A year later, he made the trades that would bring Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar to Toronto.

The early ’90s were an exciting time in baseball. For a decade, the World Series championship had bounced all over the map, with only the Los Angeles Dodgers and Minnesota Twins winning it twice, though never in consecutive years. Free agency and burgeoning attendance had brought big money and volatility into the game. Halfway into their second decade, the Jays had quietly built an organization that was ready to do big things, but Hickey insists that the foundation had been built before then, by Cox and general manager Pat Gillick.

“All of a sudden, you had two really good guys – Gillick went on to build two really good teams in Seattle and Philadelphia, and Bobby Cox had a tremendous run in Atlanta after he left Toronto. Cox had these really great people around him, like Cito Gaston, who went on to win those two World Series, but he didn’t get enough credit for what he did. Everybody said he had all this great talent, but it’s easy to screw things up in sports – he managed to get all these people on the same page and built this strong winning team.”

The story of those two glorious years – 1992 and 1993 – probably doesn’t need to be told again; all you have to do is mention some names: Roberto Alomar, Joe Carter, Dave Stieb and Winfield, of course, but also Devon White, John Olerud, Pat Borders, Paul Molitor and Juan Guzman. The Jays won the first back-to-back championships since the Yankees in ’77 and ’78, and anyone who was there will tell you that it felt good.

What happened next is like something out of a novel, as Toronto’s age-old rival, Montreal, stormed ahead to become the clear leaders of a tragic ’94 season that ended with a players’ strike and dashed what would prove to be the Expos’ last, best shot at the World Series.

The walkout shut down Major League Baseball and made attendance figures plummet as outraged fans stayed home. The Expos would never recover, and in 2004, the rivalry ended when the team was moved to Washington.

“Toronto and Montreal had done a really good job of building through the draft,” Hickey recalls, “getting good young players, putting together really good teams. In ’94, for instance, the Expos were the best team in baseball, and they might have gotten three World Series for Canadian teams, but the strike or lockout intervened, so that broke that streak.”

Jerry Howarth saw another tragedy happening to the Jays in the wake of their World Series triumphs. The Sportsnet 590 broadcaster has been following the Jays for over three decades, and his memories of 1994 feature another name – relief pitcher Duane Ward, whose contributions to the championship seasons were, he says, crucial.

“The devastating injury to Duane Ward’s right shoulder was the most significant injury the Jays have ever had,” Howarth recalls over the phone from the Jays’ spring training home in Florida, “because after he was so vital to winning two World Series as a set-up man in ’92 and then the closer in ’93, he never returned, and it was sad for him but it was devastating to the Blue Jays franchise. And in ’94, their record wasn’t that good, even though they were the two-time defending World Series champions, because of Duane’s injury, more than anything.”

Much of what happened to the Jays after ’94 went on off the field, Howarth recalls. The team’s founding owner, Labatt, was sold to Interbrew, a Belgian conglomerate, and fans began to feel that their stake in the team wasn’t as keen. GM Pat Gillick also left, to the benefit of the Baltimore Orioles and the Seattle Mariners, and, ultimately, the Philadelphia Phillies, whom he took to the World Series championship in 2008, his final year as a general manager.

Howarth thinks the wilderness years ended when Rogers took over majority ownership of the team in 2001.

The team had great players like Carlos Delgado and Roy Halladay, but the rebuilding was slow, and he says it took years for all the pieces to fall into place, until Alex Anthopoulos – whom Howarth calls “a young Pat Gillick” – took over as general manager two years ago.

“Toronto is a baseball town,” Howarth says. “I think what you’re seeing now is, while the fans have been in a holding pattern, now they see not only everything coming back into place with ownership, (president) Paul Beeston and the general manager, they see it’s happening.

“They see it on the field, they see Jose Bautista, now coming into year two of five of his contract, and the best leader that the Blue Jays have ever had. Then you look at the uniforms – well, the Jays went from the Black Jays to the Blue Jays, and now fans see that the Maple Leaf is back.”

“The fans look at the Jays now and they can say, ‘That’s my team.’”

Down in Florida, Howarth says his hopes for the upcoming season are high, if only because of one thing he saw before the first spring training game was played, and he credits manager John Farrell.

“He’s very plugged in, very gifted in what he does; the players like him,” Howarth says.

“You can see that already, and after his first year, in the off-season, he contacted players and let them know what was happening. And then 40 players came into training before they were supposed to this spring, in camp a week before deadline.”

By RICK McGINNIS
for t.o.night Newspaper

It’s when you’re waiting on a crowded platform for a train, or huddling in the rain looking for the bus that’s 20 minutes late, that you can’t help but think that the miracle of public transit is that it works at all.

The fact is, public transit does work – remarkably well, in fact – against the avalanche of obstacles it faces in the course of its daily operation. It’s when things go wrong, however, that our opinion of it diminishes, but even then, the system is working hard behind the scenes to keep us from throwing up our hands and either getting back in our cars or moving into the utility shed next to the office.

When things go wrong on the TTC or GO systems, two things need to happen: First of all, the problem needs to get fixed, but an equal priority is letting riders affected by service delays know what’s happening, when it’ll be fixed and what they can do in the meantime.

There’s a whole layer of employees tasked with this mission, and it might be useful for riders to know – even if just for their own amusement while they watch their morning commute telescope into infinity – what’s going on.

Brad Ross, director of corporate communications for the TTC, describes the city’s transit control centre, a secure facility that serves as the nerve centre and clearing house for information on the system’s daily routine: “It’s not unlike an air traffic control centre just in terms of its layout – low-lighting, theatre-style setup with computers and large screens and boards. When something is happening, it’s a very frenetic environment.”

TTC critics often describe it as the “best 1950s transit system in the world,” a dig at its antique facilities and resistance to new technologies like automated ticket booths and transit debit cards.

It’s not an entirely fair knock – some substantial technological advances have been made to the running of the TTC in the last few years – but despite the high-tech sheen of Ross’ description of the transit control centre, some quaint legacies remain further down the line.

Subway drivers have a direct connection with the control centre, but bus and streetcar drivers use their communication unit – the device with the old-fashioned phone handset near the driver’s seat – to talk to their supervisor, who radios the delay ahead to the control centre.

In the ticket booths of subway stations, collectors have to rely on radios, the public address system and a telephone in the booth, where they might find a voicemail informing them of a delay. There’s no email, no messaging system – nothing that would remind you that we’re 20 years into a communications revolution.

Ross says that in 2015, when the TTC adopts the Presto card system already in use on GO, ticket collectors will be released from the booths to work more actively with riders, to enhance the station managers they already have working at subway stops in the downtown core.

“Those are people whose sole responsibility is customer service, whether it’s providing information to customers or making sure the station is clean and making sure that any maintenance issues at the station are dealt with, or during an emergency providing direction.

“We’ll start to see more people in the system in terms of station management.”

At the moment, however, anyone arriving at a subway station might already have purchased a ticket before discovering, while they wait on the platform, that a delay is underway and won’t clear for some time.

As a front-line service, the TTC is installing information screens at the entrance to stations, with one already in service at Dundas West and another about to be installed at Downsview. It’s more than welcome, and more than a bit overdue.

While the future of the TTC is being hotly debated at City Hall, CEO Andy Byford has found himself at the helm of the city’s transit system after the very public firing of his former boss, Gary Webster, a month ago. He’s committed to improving customer service on the system, and says that improved efficiency is as crucial as new technology.

“We see customer information as a priority,” he says. “There are existing means of communication already in the system that we can use more effectively, but additionally, we can install additional pieces of kit to keep customers better informed.”

Laura-Gaye Moats, manager of the GO Transit contact centre, says the commuter transit system also has a control centre, at Union Station, that oversees the whole system and handles service alerts for riders. Like the TTC, trains communicate directly with the control centre while buses use supervisors as middlemen.

As soon as a delay happens, details are published on an internal PC whiteboard system, setting in motion a series of timed reactions to the crisis. At the 10-minute threshold, the delay is published on the system’s website (www.gotransit.com) and customer service ambassadors, installed on the fifth compartment of each train, are alerted by Blackberry of the delay. Further alerts are sent to media partners like 680News and CP24.

At the 15-minute threshold, alerts are sent out to riders who subscribe to the On the GO service alert system, either by email or SMS; station announcements are made, the sign board at Union Station is updated and a message is put on GO’s phone contact number. Moats says that communication with riders has improved over the last few years, as they’ve gone from having just three potential channels to eight.

Both systems have invested heavily in social media in the last few years, on both Facebook and Twitter, and through smartphone apps.

GO’s Facebook page and Twitter feed (@GetontheGO) don’t publish delays, however, while the TTC has a more active relationship, with a Twitter channel devoted to service alerts (@TTCnotices) and a recently launched, separate help line (@TTChelps).

They also have an email service, TTC e-alerts, similar to GO’s service, which lets you subscribe according to frequently used routes, but it seems curiously inert – over two weeks since subscribing, I didn’t see a single email, despite subscribing for both the Bloor and Yonge-Spadina lines.

Smartphone apps are an even bigger part of the picture, especially as both GO and the TTC have equipped buses and streetcars with GPS that allows routes to be followed with minute-by-minute precision.

GO has been more proprietary with their app, GO Mobile, which was developed with students at Ryerson University. The TTC, on the other hand, has taken an open-source approach, publishing their schedule data and allowing third-party developers to build apps like Next Bus and Rocket Radar that have proved enormously popular.

It’s an approach that Byford says he’s willing to revisit, however. “I’d like to review that. Ultimately, I’d like what’s best for our customers, so if there is a product out there that is good for our customers that we can get out more quickly maybe by having a more direct relationship with the provider, I’d like to take a look at that.

“At the end of the day, I’m not hung up on any way we’ve operated in the past. I’ve said under my leadership, we will be open, we will be transparent and we will be receptive to new ideas. Ultimately, I just want what’s best for the customer.”

By LUCY SLAVIANSKA
for t.o.night Newspaper

In the early sunshine of March 11, 2011, Eric Chan, a Canadian English teacher from Markham living in Japan, enjoyed the graduation ceremony of his students at Yuriage Junior High School in Natori, Miyagi prefecture.

The school gymnasium was beautifully decorated, the students sang the national anthem, teachers and local officials made speeches and parents sat proudly as their children walked to the podium to receive their certificates.

These students had just reached an important milestone in their lives. Little did they know that for many, it would be their last.

A year after the 9.0-magnitude Tohoku Earthquake and devastating tsunami, memories of the tragedy are vivid.

“After the students were sent home, we (teachers) remained in the school to clean up,” Chan remembers.

“Suddenly it started shaking a lot. So the teachers said we should get out of the building … Once outside, I sat on the ground. … It lasted for a long, long time – just kept on shaking. Even after it ended, there were still tremors. Over the previous days there were strong earthquakes, but they were short, and I thought this one was just a part of those Japanese things you get used to. No one could imagine that the next big one will be that big.”

However, it was not the earthquake itself that caused the devastation. Minutes later, a siren went off, warning the town of a tsunami triggered by the quake.

Since the school was a designated evacuation zone (schools around the coasts of Japan are usually built to be strong and are located on higher ground), people from Yuriage rushed to the building.

Twenty minutes after the sirens began, the tsunami came. Unfortunately, not everybody reached the school before the giant wave struck and wiped out the town.

“If only the ceremony had been longer,” Chan says. “If only we hadn’t let the students go home after school … That would have saved so many lives. But who would expect that horror … They were just so young.”

Chan continues: “I was on the third floor of the school, and it was unbelievable – seeing the huge wall of water coming and pushing all the cars, houses and boats – it was something really terrible, something you could not even imagine to be happening at this very moment in front of your very eyes. All you could see were floating roofs, houses, upset boats and lots of cars. The ground behind the school was covered with cars, houses and boats, and in front of the entry, there were about 10 cars piled up.”

The school building withstood both the earthquake and the wave; however, it was surrounded by water, there was no power and cellphones were hardly working. It took 24 hours for the water to subside enough to allow the people trapped inside to escape.

Most of them started to make their way through the debris to the places where their homes used to be and search for their missing loved ones.

After the earthquake, tens of thousands of foreigners fled Japan for fear of aftershocks, tsunamis and especially radiation from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant.

There were more than 1,000 aftershocks, about 60 over 6.0-magnitude and at least three over 7.0. Plane tickets sold out quickly, and many governments arranged charter flights to get their nationals home.

Nevertheless, Chan decided to remain in Japan and devote himself to helping victims of the disaster. He moved to a shelter with other teachers where he helped take care of the injured, distributed donations, cleaned up the school and prepared food.

He was amazed by the compassion, devotion and sense of community of the Japanese. Donations started pouring in from all parts of the country. Bread was shipped from Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka. As a result, the sheltered people were able to eat twice a day.

At the end of March 2011, Chan made a short trip back to Canada to visit his mother, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the people he left behind, so he flew back to Japan the next month.

Today, where the lively, picturesque fishing port of Yuriage was, there is now a totally different landscape.

“The biggest issue,” Chan says, “is if they should rebuild or not, and how they should do it. It will take years – if not decades. It is not something that can be done instantly. They removed most of the debris from things that were destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami. Damaged buildings and homes were cleared away. There isn’t anything around anymore. I can’t say for sure about other places, but I would imagine it would be a similar situation.”

Most shelters in the region were closed by the end of May. Temporary housing was built for the people who lost all of their possessions, and some of the survivors found their own housing arrangements.

Local city governments provided assistance, and money was received from donations from within Japan and from abroad.

A year after the disaster, Chan is still teaching in Japan. He recently signed a new contract and is going into his fourth year as an Assistant Language Teacher.

Despite the tragedy, life in the devastated areas goes on.

Chan says: “(The Japanese) are strong and have hope. Especially my students – I know that they are hurt, but they try their best to continue living and working hard. Many people reopened their businesses at different locations and I think that is a way that people show that they have hope, and it is also a way to give hope to everyone else as well.”

By RICK McGINNIS
for t.o.night Newspaper

No one is under any illusion that what’s going on inside City Hall these days is tranquil or reasonable.

City Council daily ricochets between the Roman senate the day after the new knives got delivered and a bear-baiting convention – but what about the world just outside council chambers, out on Nathan Phillips Square, where renovations that began in 2008 are in their final year, and citizens will finally get to see the grand revitalization of the city’s front room.

Sort of. Nathan Phillips Square has been open since 1965, and over nearly 50 years, it has seen skaters in the winter and concerts year-round, the usual routine of political rallies and protests, and the odd movie shoot that’s put Viljo Revell’s iconic City Hall buildings in the background of futuristic and even dystopic films like Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

It has, like anything that’s hung around for so long, attracted a bit of clutter during that time – a bit of the Berlin Wall stuck to the arches by the fountain and skating rink, a Peace Garden near the ramp leading to the council chambers and a “temporary” stage that turned out to be anything but.

It’s universally agreed, however, that the square has been a success, thanks to its simple but flexible plan and the decision to build it in plebeian concrete instead of marble or granite.

Michael McClelland is a principal at E.R.A. Architects and a leader of the city’s heritage preservation community. He says the square’s rough concrete surfaces helped make it “a very democratic sort of structure,” and one that’s capable of evolving.

“If you go to communities that are older, they may have public spaces that have been around for four or five hundred years, but they’ve always been in transition, where what actually happens in those places has changed dramatically. Those changes are happening in Toronto very quickly, in the 40 or 50 years since it was built.”

Chris Pommer is one of the founding partners of PLANT Architect, who along with Shore Tilbe Irwin + Partners won the 2007 competition to redesign Nathan Phillips Square. It was his job to deal with the square’s legacy of civic clutter and changing daily usage, which has resulted in the grassy fringes of the square looking shabby and the Peace Garden getting used and abused in more than peaceful ways.

“When Revell designed the square originally,” Pommer says, “there was a slightly more genteel sense of how you would behave there. That you’d use the paths and not walk across the grass. I also think that it might not have been clear originally how well-used the square would be. The number of people who traverse the front of Nathan Phillips Square to get into the square every day is much greater than anyone anticipated, and that’s why the grass there is completely pounded down by people walking across it. This is a great opportunity to change that.

“The square is incredibly heavily used, and the Peace Garden was built in the ’80s, and was really being worn very hard by events that were taking place around it. You’d have events where people were standing all over the plants and in the gardens – the thing was getting trashed. It was not as well cared for or as used as it might have been.”

Which is why the Peace Garden, eternal flame and all, was packed up in 2010 to be rebuilt in a new, expanded site on the west side of the square. The revitalization plans also called for a permanent stage to be built just in front of the new Peace Garden, a green roof on the podium surrounding the council chambers and offices, a new skating pavilion and snack bar, tourism kiosk and restaurant, as well as a lockup and clubhouse of sorts for cyclists in the underground parking levels. It was an ambitious and probably overdue plan.

The green roof was opened in 2010, and the new skating pavilion was ready for business late last year. The square’s revitalization is still on target to be completed by the end of the year, but there have been some inevitable delays.

“It’s a renovation,” explains Pommer. “It’s a 50-year-old site, and the records of absolutely everything that’s been done were not 100 per cent intact. As with any renovation project, you open the wall and sometimes you find things there that you didn’t expect.”

Richard Coveduck has the daunting title of Director, Design Construction and Asset Preservation, Facilities Management Division, and it has been his job to oversee the physical work being done on the square – which includes the surprises Pommer describes.

“A lot of cables where we didn’t know there would be cables,” Coveduck recalls. “There were no really good ‘as-builts’ of the place, so we got in there and started pulling stuff up and there were some pipes that we accidentally broke because we didn’t know they were there, and a couple of cables that we cut, and then we’d have to stop the work and say, okay, what the hell is this thing – it’s not supposed to be here and it doesn’t show up on any drawing, but there it is.”

I run through a checklist of the square’s redesign and Coveduck tells me when they expect it to be finished. The new “hidden” fountains – similar to the ones that spring up from the pavement in Yonge-Dundas Square, will be installed in June. The Peace Garden and the new ornamental “forest” next to it will be ready by the fall, and the new permanent stage will be completed by the end of the year.

A few other items, however, have seen their status change. The cyclist’s facility, which would have included bike lockups, change rooms and even a shower, has been eliminated after the city’s transportation division decided against it, and the tourist kiosk on the southeast corner is being downgraded to a simpler visual display after Toronto Tourism decided they didn’t want to staff a fully manned centre.

The future of the planned 300-seat, two-level fine dining restaurant is even more up in the air. The city’s real estate division is releasing a Request for Proposal in the spring in the hopes of finding an experienced restaurateur willing to consult on the construction and then run the eatery – a process that the City hoped would be well underway, but which was put on the back burner when the economy went sour.

Joe Casali, director of the city’s Real Estate Division, says that they’re looking for someone to pay up front for the construction in exchange for a lease on the property, but that they’re willing to be flexible. In any case, they didn’t want to break ground and end up with something unsuitable for a potential tenant. Everything depends on the response they get from the marketplace, which may turn out to be less than enthusiastic.

“If not, then maybe there’s not a restaurant at the location,” Casali says. “We’re trying to build on the vision for Nathan Phillips Square, and so we’re trying to provide services that we think are going to be beneficial to the public and the city.”

The slightly humbled apparent outcome to the Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization is an echo of the much louder battles going on inside council right now, where grand plans are being announced, then run through the gauntlet to emerge compromised and hopefully ready for the real world.

That real world was one described by Ward 1 Councillor Vincent Crisanti last week, when he presented a motion to council insisting that basic upkeep is what Nathan Phillips Square needs, as much if not more than revitalization. He’s putting a motion in front of council asking that the square be kept in “a respectable state of cleanliness and repair,” and includes a long list of eyesores visible all over the square, including litter, rusting bicycles and graffiti.

Some of what Crisanti describes is part of the ongoing construction, like the “mud field” by the southeast corner of the square, and the drifts of crowd control barriers and picnic tables clustered around the supports of the overhead walkway. Pommer says that much of the clutter and wear will be taken care of either by re-landscaping or opening new storage facilities, but adds that “I think his comments are not out of place.”

Nathan Phillips Square, he explains, hasn’t had a manager since the position was eliminated after amalgamation, and therefore no one has had the job of coordinating the various departments since 1998. During the revitalization process, a new governance model was approved by council and the position was re-created, but it remains unfilled.

Walking around the square, it looks like all the elements are in place. The roof garden is dormant, dominated less by green than hues of brown and straw yellow, but the skate pavilion is buzzing and construction goes on despite the weather. Everything Crisanti lists, however, is in evidence, in addition to some notable wear and tear, and it’s hard to avoid thinking that the years have been truly rough on the square.

We can probably live without someone handing out maps at the tourist kiosk, and Nathan Phillips Square will probably remain a destination even without a white tablecloth restaurant, but some part of our civic pride would probably be buoyed by simple daily maintenance. Grand plans are nice, but they’ll look like window dressing if no one can be bothered to sweep up the cigarette butts.

By DAVE MCCARTHY

Throughout this season, the prevailing thought was that the Leafs had taken a step forward and developed to a point where the playoffs were a legitimate goal.

Get ready for a dose of reality.

A year ago, the Leafs sat four points out of eighth spot in the East.

Fast forward a year, and the Leafs sit, yes, four points out of eighth spot.

Sure, up until three weeks ago, they were well ahead of last season’s pace but when you look at it, the Leafs have simply delayed their prolonged slump.

Last season, an eight-game losing streak at the end of October and into November did irreparable damage.

The year before that, it was an 0-7-1 start to the season that crippled them before really even getting out of the gate.

So with the Leafs in no better a spot than they were last season at this point, they once again face the familiar task of having to fight their way back into the playoffs over the final 19 games of the regular season.

To get to 90 points, likely the cutline for the playoffs in the East, the Leafs will need to go 12-6-1 down the stretch, a tall order given their enormous struggles of late.

Nevertheless, the Leafs will look to get back on the right track tonight when they face the Chicago Blackhawks, a team also struggling, losing their past three games.

Dave’s Pick: Leafs (Leafs Season Record: 23-26)

Dave McCarthy writes and co-hosts A Foot in the Crease: A Hockey Podcast.
Follow him on twitter, @DaveAMcCarthy

By DAVE MCCARTHY

Just when you thought it was too much to ask for another favour, the Leafs caught one more break on the out-of-town scoreboard last night when the Ottawa Senators knocked off the Washington Capitals 5-2, keeping them two points back of Toronto in the standings.

Short of actually rolling out a red carpet to a playoff spot, there is not much more the Leafs can do to open the door for the Caps.

Problem is, they just don’t seem to want it, losing six of their past seven contests.

The Leafs, meanwhile, will once again try to break out of their slump of their own against – the slumping San Jose Sharks.

Coming off an ugly 6-3 defeat at the hands of the NHL’s worst team, the Columbus Blue Jackets, on Tuesday night – their third consecutive loss – the Sharks are likely to arrive in a hungry mood as they look to maintain their lead atop the Pacific Division.

Things are much tighter all of a sudden, as the Phoenix Coyotes have drawn even with the Sharks after reeling off three straight, and eight wins in their last 10.

As much as the Sharks need a win though, the Leafs need it more.

Dave’s Pick: Leafs (Leafs Season Record: 23-26)

Dave McCarthy writes and co-hosts A Foot in the Crease: A Hockey Podcast.
Follow him on twitter, @DaveAMcCarthy

By DAVE MCCARTHY

The Leafs never, ever get any help on the out of town scoreboard – that is the familiar refrain from so many Leaf fans who are so quick to blame the shortcomings of their own team on others.

And frankly, it’s getting a little tiring.

When the Washington Capitals beat the Florida Panthers last Friday by a score of 2-1 in come-from-behind fashion, people were so quick to forget their previous two games where the Rangers and Sharks beat the Capitals in regulation time.

Add in last night’s abysmal 5-0 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes and Saturday’s 2-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning and it’s safe to say the Leafs are getting more than enough help.

At this point, it’s time for the Leafs to start helping themselves by winning some games.

If the Caps had won those four games, they would have been seven points ahead of the Leafs, which would have presented a different scenario.

But thanks to that help, the Leafs still find themselves clinging to the eighth playoff spot in the East despite losing five of six.

Before the Leafs faced the Winnipeg Jets on Feb. 7, Toronto held an eight-point gap on the Jets, one that could have grown to 10 if they had won that night.

But now the Leafs and Jets are tied at 64 points. Why? Not because the Jets got help, but because they’ve taken care of their own business.

Dave’s Pick: Leafs (Leafs Season Record: 23-25)

Dave McCarthy writes and co-hosts A Foot in the Crease: A Hockey Podcast.
Follow him on twitter, @DaveAMcCarthy

By CAROLINE CAMERON

Could this be the year? Did I just jinx it?

Let’s start again.

This could be the year. For a championship? No. For the playoffs? Yes.

The Toronto Blue Jays ended last year at .500, placing them fourth in the American League under new manager John Farrell.

And while some may say the offseason was a disappointment, with GM Alex Anthopoulos missing out on big names like Yu Darvish and Prince Fielder, the team kept most of its players while making a few additions.

Not only that, but the Jays have locked up some key young pitchers for their bullpen in Brandon Morrow and Casey Janssen.

Headed into spring training, Ricky Romero and Morrow are the clear No. 1 and No. 2 in the rotation, and if Morrow can continue his impressive play from the end of 2011, he can rise to Romero’s level.

The main goal for the 2012 Jays is consistency. They’re a young team with a lot of (here comes that dreaded word) potential. And the Jays’ success relies on their young core.

It’s nice having top slugger Jose Bautista on the roster, but he can’t win alone.

Starting catcher J.P. Arencibia is headed into his sophomore season on a high note after setting a franchise record for home runs by a catcher last season.

With the addition of veteran catcher Jeff Mathis as backup, Arencibia will have the breathing room to get better.

As for Canadian Brett Lawrie, it didn’t take him long to win over the hearts of Jays fans last season, and they can only hope his exciting and impressive play will continue.

Anthopoulos’ plan is working.

He’s building from within, and with the Jays’ crop of young, talented players it will just take time.

Let’s just hope we’re not waiting much longer.

By DAVE MCCARTHY

After an embarrassing 5-0 loss against the Montreal Canadiens in front of Mats Sundin on Saturday, the Leafs held a closed-door meeting, presumably to discuss the importance of halting what was then a two-game losing streak.

Given an almost equally poor performance in their next game – a 5-1 loss to the Calgary Flames last night – I’m not quite sure what was said at that meeting.

Not only did the Leafs’ effort show little improvement, it came at the hands of a team in a similar fight for the playoffs.

It was not like the Leafs were run over by the powerhouse Vancouver Canucks – they’ll face them on Saturday – they simply couldn’t match Calgary’s heart and desperation.

With every point so crucial, the Leafs have now lost four straight for the first time this season, and at the worst possible time.

Remarkably, though, they haven’t slipped out of the top eight in the East, largely due to the similar struggles of the Washington Capitals, who have lost their last two games to the Rangers and Sharks.

The Leafs should consider themselves lucky; they could easily be sitting three points out of the playoffs at this point.

Tonight the Leafs face the Edmonton Oilers, who are second-worst in the NHL standings.

Maybe the mediocre opposition will prompt a return to the win column.

Dave’s Pick: Leafs (Leafs Season Record: 22-25)

Dave McCarthy writes and co-hosts A Foot in the Crease: A Hockey Podcast.
Follow him on twitter, @DaveAMcCarthy