By Chris Dart | Torontoist
Roughly two dozen protesters—and an almost equal number of reporters—gathered in St. James Park on Monday to mark Occupy Toronto‘s one year anniversary. The gathering, which featured all the flags, dogs, signs, and acoustic guitars that people have come to expect from the Occupy movement, felt like part protest and part class reunion.
“The goal for me is to just see old friends,” said Occupier Christopher Lambe. “I think this is a day where people are going to come to this …

Mayor Ford at a Pan American Games announcement in May. He’ll have lots more microphones in his face come September, that’s for sure. Photo by HiMY SYeD, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Women in Toronto Politics panel. Photo by HiMY SYeD from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Tonight’s panel, titled “The Front Page,” will discuss the way we talk about women in politics, and the way that impacts women who choose to enter politics. Featuring Toronto city councillors Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale) and Shelley Carroll (Ward 33, Don Valley East), Torontoist‘s own editor-in-chief Hamutal Dotan, and civics teacher Jse-Che Lam. Alison Loat, founder of Samara Canada, will moderate the conversation.

By Steve Kupferman, Torontoist

SPOTTED BY: HiMY SYeD, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
WHERE: Stapled to a fence at the High Park Zoo.
WHEN: Saturday, April 14
WHAT: City council cut the High Park Zoo’s budget earlier this year, but thanks to a generous private donation it will probably be fine for the time being. Even so, it seems at least one member of the public is still inclined to hold Mayor Rob Ford to account. We’re pretty sure those numbers aren’t accurate, and the penmanship and spelling could use some …

By John Michael McGrath, OpenFile Toronto

People shouldn’t make too much of Rob Ford losing the occasional vote in a committee or even at council. That said, there’s a number of recent stories that suggest the mayor’s office might not have iron-clad control over the budget process already, and that the real fight hasn’t even started (the height of battle will come in January when the budget goes to city council).
First we’ve got news from the Toronto Public Library Board meeting last night, where …

By Chris Boutet (@ChrisBoutet), The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Nov. 14, 2011 9:10AM EST
Last updated Monday, Nov. 14, 2011 10:53AM EST
View the story “Hundreds fill Toronto streets for #ghostride in memory of fallen cyclist Jenna Morrison” on Storify]

Himy Syed, once a mayoral candidate, asked, “How many cities have walked away from something like this and what the hell do they look like now?”

5:51 AM: More hilarity, courtesy of defeated mayoral candidate HiMY SYeD. Begins: “We need to acknowledge the city staff and clerks, they are the unsung heroes of this.” (This is true.) Then continues: “I’m a member of Ford Nation. Nobody was gonna do it, so I stepped up.” …

By Meg Campbell, Torontoist

Rob Ford’s CP24 interview with Stephen LeDrew last Friday raised many an eyebrow amongst City Hall watchers. Edward Keenan did some lightning-fast fact-checking for the Grid, and over the weekend Ford For Toronto writer (and Torontoist guest contributor) Matt Elliott put together his own debunking analysis of the interview. Elliott recommends people see the full interview before watching his edited version (above).
Margaret Atwood apparently has an Oprah-like influence over her legion of followers. When she tweeted about the petition to protect Toronto’s libraries, hosted on the …

Title: Tr_ns_tC_ty – Toronto Missing Urban Strategy
Starts at: Sunday, 3 p.m.
Meeting Place: Finch Bus Terminal, northeast corner of Bishop Avenue and Yonge Street

Rob Ford’s first action as mayor was to tell someone that he planned on killing Transit City in favour of building subways. While Ford’s position has caused considerable furor, the debate over transit in Toronto has been raging for decades, encompassing issues like the role of bike lanes and choosing between subways and streetcars. This hour-and-a-half-long walk promises to analyze the current political questions regarding Toronto’s transit system, and will also provide contextual background about public transit in Toronto dating back to the 19th century.

By Steve Kupferman, Torontoist
Every weekday’s end, Extra, Extra collects just about everything you ought to care about or ought not miss.

Photo by Remi Carreiro/Torontoist.

The CNE opened today, and it’s the perfect place to meet your future spouse, apparently. Consider taking advantage of this year’s speed dating services to expedite the process.
Birdnappers are striking fear into the hearts of Toronto’s parrot enthusiasts.

Such outlandish crimes against avian-kind would have been unthinkable in the 1950s, when these two ditties about life in Toronto on Sunday and the annoyances associated with subway construction, respectively, were written. [via F___Yeah Toronto!]
But Toronto’s innocence …

From Torontoist

Photos by Michael Chrisman/Torontoist.

WHERE: Inside Honest Ed’s, at Bloor and Bathurst.
WHEN: 10:10 a.m., Thursday.
WHAT: In preparation for its sixty-second anniversary—celebrations happen this Sunday, July 25—the famously cluttered Honest Ed’s has been partially cleared out, a change first spotted by HiMY SYeD.

By Jamie Bradburn, Torontoist
Cheered on by supporters as he filed his papers, Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina) officially entered the mayor’s race this morning.
Pantalone is positioning himself as the candidate to carry on the work of the Miller administration in a non-flashy, down-to-business manner—as he told the Globe and Mail’s Marcus Gee, “you want someone who will do the job, not someone who is going to entertain you.”
So far two hopefuls (Karen Sun and Himy Syed) have submitted their papers to fill …

By Jonathan Goldsbie, Torontoist
At approximately 5:45 p.m. on December 21st, 2008, Torontoist received a phone call from Boy Reporter. “The parade’s been cancelled.” “What?” “It’s been cancelled. Because of the wind.”
A quick trip to the Red Pepper Spectacle Arts website bore this out; the 20th Annual Kensington Market Festival of Lights, aka the crazy solstice parade, had been called off: “Due to high winds, we regret that tonight’s parade has been canceled. Giant puppets, parade lanterns, shadow screens and a 16′ tall fire sculpture are a risky endeavour in these conditions. At this time …

NADJA SAYEJ
Special to Globe and Mail
December 20, 2008
When Torontoist announced it was going dark , a catfight broke out over the domain name Torontoest. One group , started by Torontoist contributing editor Jonathan Goldsbie on Facebook , called for a new site capturing the old site’s zeitgeist.
The other party was web designer Himy Syed, who registered the domain name for $13.50 and slapped up a splash page saying Torontoest.com would launch this past Thursday.
Mr. Syed wanted to include stories in Mandarin and Hindi and segments dubbed the …

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It’s our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve.
The other scramble intersection — HiMY SYeD
BY HYFEN

By Marc Lostracco, Torontoist
Whilst performing our pre-read ritual of tearing out Toronto Life‘s 8,000 annoying snot-glued ad inserts and heavy stock subscription cards, we suddenly came across Torontoist’s name in the mag’s “Roundup” feature. The chart compares Toronto’s four major city blogs: Torontoist, Spacing Wire (now Spacing Toronto), BlogTO, and the newish Torontopedia.
Torontoist’s raison d’être is listed as “news, arts, culture, snark”—and we won’t argue with that—while BlogTO is like “your geeky friend who’s always in the know.” Author Dave McGinn accurately lists Spacing Toronto as “civically engaged and proudly earnest” and lauds Torontopedia for …

By Danu Mandlsohn, Torontoist
Hopefully the success of the Dupont-Spadina message board that Torontoist previously reported on will spur some other neighbourhoods to have a go. In the meantime, with the original board filled to the brim, it’s kindly been replaced by a fresh canvas. That’s right—part deux is up and running, and it’s another good medley of confessionals, illustrations, and generally happy springtime thoughts, save for the poor soul who was, shall we say, rooster-checked out of a potential late night tryst. You’ll have to follow-up on that one in person. Also …

By ~ HiMY! ~

Scarborough Civic Centre Square on flickr , on photopia .
I have been pleasantly surprised with response to this photo.
First, Josh over at Torontoist dropped this into the photoTO file with the headline of Stand Up, Scarborough .
Second, over on my flickr , the above-for-me average number of photo views and comments for my posting there does indeed encourage me there exists a visual appetite for these kind of montage stitched together photographs.

By Photojunkie, Torontoist
The Apple Store Yorkdale will feature the second Toronto Area Photobloggers event on Sunday, February 26th at 6:30pm.
Presenters include
Chris and Jessica of istoica,
Payam Rajabi of ColourBlind.ca,
Irina Souiki of StillMemory.ca,
Sam Javanrouh of Daily Dose of Imagery,
Shahin Edalati of Foto Project, and
Taku Kumabe of media smaku with the latest issue of U&IMagazine.
Plus, arrive by 6:30 pm and receive a 10% off Full Retail Price coupon good for anything in the Apple Store.
Hosted by HiMY SYeD of photopia and sponsored by Torontoist, Spacing, U&I magazine and toronto.photobloggers.org.
Come participate in the evening’s …

By Joshua Errett, Torontoist
On Yonge Street just north of Elm Street, in front of the store in which 15-year-old Jane Creba killed by an errant bullet, a group of about 200 gathered to mourn the deaths of all those killed by guns in 2005. There was a moment of silence before each candle was dedicated to a shooting victim; one candle for any one of the 52 victims. Organizer Himy Syed placed his candle down for Jane Creba.
Around 5 pm, one lane of traffic on Yonge …

By Photojunkie, Toronto Area Photobloggers

On Sunday September 18th, Toronto Area Photobloggers and friends are invited to Photobloggers at Apple Store‘ event
Our event is a special presentation at Apple Yorkdale and is scheduled after the store’s regular retail hours. It begins shortly after 7 pm, Sunday evening. It’s the perfect opportunity to meet some of your favorite photobloggers as well as a great opportunity to find out more about photoblogging.
Scheduled Presenters include:
Matt O’Sullivan: www.thenarrative.net
Rannie Turingan: www.photojunkie.ca | photoTO
Matthew Blackett: www.mattbimages.com | spacing.ca/photoblog
Natalie Brahan: www.luminescent.org
Gayla Trail: www.makinghappy.com
Adam Krawesky: inconduit.com/
HiMY …