CITIES | Mayor Rob Ford of Toronto + Toronto’s Missing Groove

Toronto’s “art mayor” eating bikes IMAGE > Martin Reis

Sarah Lazarovic

SPOTTED BY > Photographer Martin Reis

Fordzilla (SPACING Disaster Issue cover) ARTIST > Steve Murray

Dave Murray – Polygon Series (Rob Ford)

Kagan McLeod

James Edward Clark

Fake Ford

Real Woody

Cleo Halfpenny PHOTO > Cheol Joon Baek

Stephanie Kervin

John Cullen

In the reception area of the Mayor's office there is a big wall dedicated to newspaper editorial cartoons featuring Rob & Doug Ford. The ones from the tabloids are reverential while the ones from the left-learning papers poke fun at his weight and his policies. Good, I thought, the Mayor has a sense of humor.
And he did - the Mayor was quite relaxed considering there was an entire photo studio set up in his waiting room. We talked Etobicoke living and swapped business cards (sans the Brett Easton Ellis undertones) and I have kept that card in my wallet for the last few months. Not as a souvenir, but because Rob Ford is the kind of Mayor you could call up any day of the week and get some things sorted out in your neighbourhood. Potholes, garbage collection times, dangerous overhanging tree branches. I can see why he got elected. Populism one-on-one is a pretty remarkable thing.

luv song for rob ford: A poem

Ford Bros. Meats by Dan Springer PHOTO > Kollin Lore

Mayor Rob Ford took his family to the Canadian National Exhibition on Thursday, appearing to be in campaign mode as he kissed a baby, handed out fridge magnets and posed for dozens of photos with gawkers.
His first stop before taking his children, Stephanie, 7, and Doug Jr., 4, on rides was at a butter sculpture of his likeness in the Better Living Centre.
The 227-kilogram rendering took 24-year-old Olenka Kleban six days to make in a cabin kept at 7 degrees Celcius and depicts His Worship reading a Margaret Atwood book, while leaning on a steering wheel.
He laughed when he saw it.

sally

Duly Quoted: Doug Ford

BY TORONTOIST

“Well good luck to Margaret Atwood. I don’t even know her. If she walked by me, I wouldn’t have a clue who she is.”

— Councillor Doug Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke North), proudly proclaiming his inability to identify one of Canada’s (and this city’s) most prominent cultural figures, Margaret Atwood. Ford was firing back at the internationally renowned author after she tweeted about a petition to protect Toronto’s libraries from KPMG’s suggested cuts. According to the Star, Ford also said Atwood was “uninformed” and she should run for office if she’s interested in influencing policy.

Toronto mayoral candidate Rob Ford is shown in this mugshot taken shortly after his arrest in Florida in February 1999. (Miami-Dade Police Department)

'Forgot' marijuana charge
When the Sun first asked him about the incident, he denied ever being charged. But he later backtracked after being provided with Florida state records of his arrest, saying he "completely forgot" about the episode.
"When somebody discusses [the marijuana charge] with me, the first thing that pops into my head was failing to provide a breath sample," Ford said Thursday.
Polls suggest Ford is among the frontrunners in the race to replace outgoing Mayor David Miller in the Oct. 25 municipal election. The other major mayoral candidates are Coun. Joe Pantalone, former Liberal Party national director Rocco Rossi, former Ontario health minister George Smitherman and publisher Sarah Thomson.
"I am not perfect. I have never claimed to be perfect," Ford said. "I truly believe this election is not about mistakes I made 11½ years ago — by me or by any other candidate that has made mistakes. It's about today and tomorrow."
Ford said he doesn't have a criminal record, but confirmed he had been charged with criminal offences two other times. When he was 18, he was charged with assault in relation to a hockey fight, but the charge was dismissed.
In 2008, he was charged with assault and uttering a death threat against his wife. Both of those charges were later withdrawn. 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2010/08/19/ford-marijuana-possession-charge489.html

A swan contemplates the post-industrial harbour, near Queens Quay West and Spadina Avenue

A school in the heart of Scarborough

A neglected sapling in the shadow of the CN Tower

An illegal garbage dump, under Jane Street and Weston Road

An aging transit system, near the end of the line

One of Etobicoke’s monolithic apartment complexes

Flooding in a new underpass, south of Front and Simcoe Streets
Scaled-back renovations on City Hall’s Nathan Phillips Square
A symptomatic pothole, at Dundas Street West and Spadina Avenue

Underfunded park maintenance at Cherry Beach

Infill development transforms a former brownfield in Etobicoke

 PDF > “How Toronto Lost Its Groove” by John Lorinc | The Walrus | November 2011

MARCI MACDONALD | The weirdest mayoralty ever—the inside story of Rob Ford’s city hall

 

 

Andrew Haji, right, stars as our mayor in Rob Ford: The Opera on Sunday, alongside an angelic Margaret Atwood, played by Rosanna Murphy. KEITH BEATY/TORONTO STAR