Jesus in the City

One of the things I love about cities are those moments when you successfully peek behind the city facade and are surprised by a sight that is totally out of wack with its surroundings.This happened recently. I was in a building at Yonge and College and I looked out of a window and saw ..... Jesus on a cross on the top of a 25 story building across the street.

Happy Birthday Tower!

Today is the 30th birthday of our venerable CN Tower. Older, wiser and still the tallest free standing structure in the world. But not for long. In 2008 Dubai will complete the construction of the “new” tallest structure in the world. But we Torontonians don’t care. We’ve had the title for 30 years and now that we are mature urban dwellers we don’t need it any more. We are more then happy for Dubai.

But today we celebrate! Tall and elegant the CN Tower has stood watch over us for 3 decades. Millions have visited its observation pod (the thick thing two thirds of the way up) and stood on a glass floor with nothing between them and death but a 2 inch piece of glass. But not to worry (other than vertigo sufferers) because the glass can hold 14 large hippos. I was not there the day they took 14 large hippos up to the observation tower and put them on the glass floor but I still believe.

And talking of weight …. the tower weighs the equivalent of 23,000 large elephants. Now, I have never seen or lifted 23,000 large elephants and so I am no further ahead in my understanding of its weight. And some more mind numbing statistics:
The top sways three feet in the wind
There are 2,570 steps in the stairwell
No you don’t have to walk up … you can take one of the elevators that whisks you up at 1,200 feet per minute
Lighting strikes it 200 times a year

Oh, I almost forgot; it is 1,815 feet and 5 inches tall.

So come and celebrate our famous birthday. If you can’t come in person visit www.cntower.ca

A City Awakens

If you want to read a beautiful picture of what it is like to watch a city wake up .... read the comment left by Judi on the previous posting "Toronto - noone comes from here".

Toronto .... noone comes from here

Toronto is one of those strange cities that noone came from. There are 3 million of us living here and yet none of us came from here. We weren't born here .... we weren't educated here. It must have been some extraterrestial explosion that brought us all here.

There are schools where children were educated; there are hospitals where many were born. And yet none of us came from here. Weird.

If you are a Torontonian who came from one of the more "sophisticated" cities of the world ... maybe Paris ...Moscow ...London ....Bombay ....Peking ... then you would have first found Toronto somewhat, what's the right word?, simple. Then if you stayed it grows on you. It has a soul of its own and we stop being snobbish. We start to appreciate the wonders, the beauties, the very essence of this city as a unique and wonderful place.

We appreciate that it works. We love the diversity of the people. We walk the parks and the streets and the waterfront. We drink cold beers on the patios. We attend church and gain spiritual understanding. We moan about our politicians.....hey ... we are like all other cities. We have arrived!

I love Toronto and this is what this blog is all about.