La Roma restuarant on Preston Street in the heart of Little Italy applied to the committee of adjustment to open a patio on the small rear upper deck of the premises, facing the residential portion of the side street. It was approved by the CofA for a 12 seat deck, provided they put up a higher fence (the original metal railing is visible) and allow patron access only from the interior, not the firestairs. Meanwhile, millions of dollars of your water bill payments are being spent to redo Preston Street at the front of the building, where the restuarant has … Continue reading LaRoma patio

I know an Olympic medal triathlete who complains not about the training, the odd hours, the inhospitable facilities, etc, but about the random pee tests. The testers come any day, any time, although she thinks they have a preference to come Saturday nights right after she has just had a potty break. Then they get to sit around for an hour in her apartment while she drinks water until they can observe her fill a specimen bottle. Sidewalks and curbs on Preston Street also undergo specimen tests. Here are three containers of concrete taken from sidewalk pours on Preston at the … Continue reading Specimen Testing on Preston Street

On the residential portions of Preston Street the streetscaping is less fancy. A monolithic (one piece) concrete sidewalk + curb is poured in one go using wooden forms that were pegged in place a few hours before. The old lampposts are now in the middle of the new sidewalk. They won’t be pulled out until the new lamp posts with efficient “shoebox” overhead light fixtures and lower level decorative lighting fixtures are connected and working. Until then, the missing concrete squares will be filled with temporary asphalt patches. Then in Spring 2010, at the same time as the crosswalks are … Continue reading More Concrete Progress on Preston Street in Little Italy

In the commercial parts of Preston Street the sidewalks will consist of pavers and concrete squares, so curbs are poured first and the walks built later. Where parking insets are provided, the drainage continues to catch basins along a “flat curb” that helps define the travelled portion of the street (sometimes streets with bulb outs get visually confusing to motorists), and keeps water accumulation away from the sidewalks and snow-blocked road edges. Metal stakes with a string are placed with the aid of survey equipment. The curb placement will be about 2m outside the string line. The new streetscaping will provide … Continue reading Concrete Progress on Preston Street in Little Italy

I love guerilla marketing – or as it is more often called today, viral marketing – when it is well done. Joe Contronio of Pub Italia is always amusing, whether its the faux-religious themes, the faux-Queensway signs or now, making the most of the construction fences. If you enlarge the picture, you will see his fence that separates the patio from the sidewalk, then the construction fence that separates the sidewalk from the road-now-dig-up-zone, and the third fence that separates the construction zone from the travelled road surface. All of them are festooned with his advertising. Well done ! Keep … Continue reading Guerilla Marketing

(While browsing some buttons on my blogspot site, I found this older post that somehow never made it onto the blog. Recall that there was some controversey and commentary in the blogsphere and in the Citizen on burying wires. Old, but still relevant: ) – The city does not pay to bury the gas mains, it just requires the gas company to do that. It does not bury the water mains for free, it charges the users to do that. It charges customers/forces the utilties in most areas to bury the electric, teleco, cable tv wires but exempts existing urban … Continue reading Uniform Rules for Buried Utilities (Wiring)

Trees on Oak St.await planting Plouffe Park planters planted While some trees and shrubs were planted on the reconstructed parts of Preston south of the Queensway last fall, the north side did not get any planting done last winter. The crews are busy now planting. In Plouffe Park, the combination retaining walls and sitting areas have been planted with periwinkle (vinca), which will eventually spread into a thick mat. Pretty blue flowers in the early spring. A huge number of trees have been delivered and are being stored for now on Oak Street. Tree types include amur maple, ginko, and … Continue reading Preston Streetscaping; Plouffe Park