Toronto

Rogers Centre is a multi-purpose stadium, in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated next to the CN Tower, near the shores of Lake Ontario.... Opened in 1989, it is home to the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball and the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. From 2008–2012, the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League are scheduled to play at the stadium for eight games as part of the Bills Toronto Series. While it is primarily a sports venue, it also hosts other large-scale events such as conventions, trade fairs, concerts, funfairs, and monster truck shows. The stadium was renamed "Rogers Centre" following the purchase of the stadium by Rogers Communications, which also bought the Toronto Blue Jays, in 2005. The venue was noted for being the first stadium to have a fully retractable motorized roof, as well as for the 348-room hotel attached to it, with 70 rooms overlooking the field. It is also the most recent North American major-league stadium built to accommodate both football and baseball.
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The Toronto Eaton Centre is a large shopping mall and office complex in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, named after the now-defunct Eaton's... department store chain that once anchored it. In terms of the number of visitors, the shopping mall is Toronto's top tourist attraction, with around one million visitors per week. It is also the largest shopping mall in Toronto and third-largest in Canada as a whole. The Eaton Centre is bounded by Yonge Street on the east, Queen Street West on the south, Dundas Street West on the north, and to the west by James Street and Trinity Square. Its interior passages also form part of Toronto's PATH underground pedestrian network, and the centre is served by two Toronto subway stations: Dundas and Queen. The complex also contains three office buildings and the Ryerson University Ted Rogers School of Management. Additionally, the Eaton Centre is linked to a 17-storey Marriott hotel, and to Canada's largest store, the flagship location of The Bay department store chain.
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The Air Canada Centre is a multi-purpose indoor sporting arena located on Bay Street in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The arena is popularly... known as the ACC or the Hangar . It is the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League , the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association , and the Toronto Rock of the National Lacrosse League . It was also home to the Toronto Phantoms of the Arena Football League during their brief existence. In 2006, the ACC was the 11th busiest arena in the world. From its initial design to completion, it revolutionized many concepts included in new arenas and stadiums since then, such as luxury suites accessible on the ground floor, splitting the main scoreboard into several sections, rotating all sponsor signage in the bowl at once , and multiple restaurants in and out of the main arena bowl view. The arena is owned by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd., the same group that owns both the Leafs and Raptors, and is 665,000 square feet in size.
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Roy Thomson Hall is a concert hall located at 60 Simcoe Street in Toronto, Ontario. It is the home of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto... Mendelssohn Choir. Opened in 1982, its circular architectural design exhibits a sloping and curvilinear glass exterior. It was designed by Canadian architects Arthur Erickson and Mathers and Haldenby. The hall seats 2630 and features a pipe organ built by Canadian organ builders Gabriel Kney of London, Ontario. The hall was formerly known as New Massey Hall. It acquired its current name from the family of Roy Thomson who had donated $4.5 million to complete the fund-raising efforts for the new hall. The hall was renovated over a period of six months in 2002, after years of complaints from musicians about the quality of its acoustics. The hall is one of the main venues used by the Toronto International Film Festival, with many gala screenings held there each year. The concert hall was used in scenes of the film X-Men. Filmmaker Jeffery Klassen's 2005 film, Toronto Architecture, interviews Arthur Erickson about the structure.
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Spadina Museum, also called Spadina , is a historic manor on Spadina Road in Toronto, Canada that is now a museum operated by the City of Toronto... Cultural Services. The museum preserves the house much as it existed and developed historically. The art, decor and architecture of the house used to reflect the contemporary styles of the 1860s through the 1930s, including Victorian, Edwardian, Arts and Crafts, Art Deco, Art Nouveau and Colonial Revival styles. After being closed for a year for restoration work, Spadina Museum re-opened in November 2010 in the inter-war era style of the 1920s and 1930s. The estate's gardens reflect the landscape during the Austin family's occupation of the house. Many Torontonians follow a convention of pronouncing Spadina Road with the i as /aɪ/ as in mine, and Spadina House with the i as in /iː/ as in ski. Occasionally Spadina Road is pronounced the second way. South of Bloor Street, however, Spadina Road becomes Spadina Avenue, which is always pronounced the first way. The distinction between the two ways was once an economic class marker in Toronto with the upper classes favouring the second pronunciation.
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Ontario Science Centre is a science museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, near the Don Valley Parkway about 11 kilometres northeast of downtown on... Don Mills Road just south of Eglinton Avenue East. It is built down the side of a wooded ravine formed by one branch of the Don River. Planning for the centre started in 1961 during Toronto's massive expansion of the late 1950s and 1960s. In 1964 the famous Toronto architect Raymond Moriyama was hired to design the site. The design, consisting of three main buildings connected by a series of bridges and escalators, follows the natural contours of the Don River ravine, into which the Centre descends. Construction started in 1966 with plans to make it a part of the city's 1967 Canadian Centennial celebrations. It was officially named the Centennial Centre of Science and Technology. However construction was not complete in 1967, and the Science Centre did not open to the public until two years later, on September 26, 1969.
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Black Creek Pioneer Village is a historic site in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, just west of York University and southeast of the Jane and Steeles... intersection. It overlooks Black Creek, a tributary of the Humber River. The village is a recreation of life in 19th-century Ontario and gives an idea how rural Ontario might have looked in the early-to-mid-19th century. The village is a regular destination for field trips by schoolchildren from the Greater Toronto Area. It is operated by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. B. Napier Simpson, Jr. 1925-1978, a restoration architect in Ontario devoted his professional life to raising public awareness of the importance of heritage conservation including the Black Creek Pioneer Village project. The pioneer village consists of over forty historic 19th century buildings, decorated in the style of the 1860s with period furnishings. It is operated by historical interpreters and craftspeople housed in the restored buildings. The site also features historical re-enactments and visiting artisans.
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Fort York is a historic site of military fortifications and related buildings on the west side of downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The fort was... built by the British Army and Canadian militia troops in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, to defend the settlement and the new capital of the Upper Canada region from the threat of a military attack, principally from the newly independent United States. It was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1923. In 1793, Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe authorized a garrison on the present site of Fort York, just west of the mouth of Garrison Creek on the north eastern shore of Lake Ontario. Simcoe recognized Toronto was an ideal site for settlement and defence because of its natural harbour and relative longer distance from the United States. Fort York guards the western entrance to the bay. Simcoe had decided to make Toronto the capital of Upper Canada, and the government, the first parliament buildings and the town were established one and a half miles east of the fort .
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Howard Michael "Howie" Mandel is an Orthodox Jewish Canadian stand-up comedian, television host, and actor. He is well known as host of the NBC game... show Deal or No Deal, as well as the show's daytime and Canadian-English counterparts. Before his career as a game show host, Mandel was best known for his role on the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere. He is also well-known for being the creator and star of the children's cartoon Bobby's World. On June 6, 2009, he hosted the 2009 Game Show Awards on GSN. Mandel became a judge on NBC's America's Got Talent, replacing David Hasselhoff, in the fifth season of the reality talent contest. He was a supporting character in the 2000 film Tribulation, from Cloud Ten Pictures. Mandel was born and raised in the Willowdale, Toronto area of Toronto, Ontario. His family is of Jewish ancestry and he is a distant cousin to Itzhak Perlman. His father was a realtor. After getting expelled from his high school for impersonating a member of the school board and signing a construction contract to make an addition to his school, Mandel became a carpet salesman who would later open a carpet sales business of his own.
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Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, O.Ont is a Canadian film director, producer, actor and founder of the Canadian Film Centre. Highlights of his... directing career include In the Heat of the Night , The Thomas Crown Affair , Fiddler on the Roof , Jesus Christ Superstar , Moonstruck , Other People's Money , The Hurricane and The Statement . Jewison has addressed important social and political issues throughout his directing and producing career, often making controversial or complicated subjects accessible to mainstream audiences. Jewison was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Dorothy Irene and Percy Joseph Jewison, who managed a convenience store and post office. He attended Kew Beach School and Malvern Collegiate Institute, and while growing up in the 1930s displayed an aptitude for performing and theatre, as well as a tendency to be mistaken as Jewish . He served in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II, and after being discharged traveled in the American South, where he encountered segregation, an experience that would influence his later work.
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Rajiv Surendra is an Canadian film and television actor, best known for playing Kevin Gnapoor in the film Mean Girls. Surendra was born in Toronto,... Ontario, Canada; the son of Tamil immigrants. Rajiv Surendra was born and raised in Toronto and has been involved with the arts before he learned how to talk. He attended a special-arts high school, Wexford School for the Arts, and specialized in painting, sculpting and pottery. Winner of several awards including everything from Gingerbread House competitions to Wearable-Art contents, Rajiv's interests are quite diverse and range from keeping chickens in his backyard to developing and processing his own photographs. His interests shifted to the performing arts in high school and he joined the musical theatre program where he participated in numerous shows. Taking his newfound craft to another level, Rajiv began to pursue a professional career in acting and landed a lead role in YTV's System Crash . His more recent credits include guest starring on Family Channel's 'Radio Free Roscoe' and his breakout role in Paramount Pictures' 'Mean Girls' was well received by critics.
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Nicolette Goulet was an Canadian-American film, television and musical theatre actress. Goulet got her start in acting on the television series... Ryan's Hope with the role of Mary Ryan Fenelli in 1979. She was the fourth actress to portray the character. She also appeared on three other soaps: Search for Tomorrow as Kathy Parker Phillips Taper #2 from 1980 until 1982; on As the World Turns as Casey Reynolds in 1984, and on The Guiding Light as Meredith Reade Bauer from 1987 to 1989. Goulet was the daughter of the late singer-actor Robert Goulet and his first wife, Louise Longmore. Educated in New York at Marymount College, where she starred in several plays, she developed a lasting love for singing and acting. Her first professional break came at age eighteen when she landed the role of Corey in a production of Barefoot in the Park. While performing with her father, she garnered tremendous experience working in front of large audiences. She learned her craft well, and honed it into an art. Television fans got their first glimpse of Goulet when she was cast as Mary Ryan Fenelli in the popular daytime serial, Ryan's Hope.
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Andrew Miller is a Canadian actor, writer, and director. Miller began his career as an actor at age 16 in Toronto, Canada. Early theater roles... include Moritz Stiefel in Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening and Eugene Morris Jerome in Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs. Film roles include Simon in South of Wawa, written by bestselling Canadian novelist and screenwriter Lori Lansens, Kazan, the autistic man, in Vincenzo Natali's Cube, and Donald in Oh, What a Night, for which he was nominated for a 1992 Genie Award for Best Supporting Actor. As a screenwriter, Miller co-wrote the films Simon Sez, starring Dennis Rodman and Dane Cook and Miramax Pictures' Boys and Girls, Starring Freddie Prinze, Jr., Claire Forlani, and Jason Biggs. He also co-wrote Vincenzo Natali's independently produced feature film, Nothing, in which he also starred opposite childhood friend David Hewlett. Most recently, he created the web series, Imaginary Bitches. He has directed and produced all episodes, and written episodes one through 5, and episodes 8, 10, 12, and 13. He co-wrote episodes 6 and 7.
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Stephen Lobo is a Canadian actor, best known for his roles in the television series Godiva's, Painkiller Jane, Falcon Beach and Little Mosque on the... Prairie. In 2011 he appeared in Mike Clattenburg's film Afghan Luke.
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Henry Czerny is a Canadian actor. Czerny received formal training at the National Theatre School in Montreal. After graduating in 1982, he went on... to perform onstage across Canada, from Ottawa's National Arts Centre to Edmonton's Citadel Theatre and the Stratford Festival. By the late 1980s, he had established himself as a seasoned veteran of Canadian theatre—a long way from Lucky Larry, his first role. Czerny got his start acting in musicals at Humberside Collegiate Institute in Toronto, under the direction of Janet Keele. He had prominent roles in The Boys of St. Vincent, Mission: Impossible, Clear and Present Danger, The Ice Storm. In the 2006 comedy The Pink Panther, he plays the main antagonist "Yuri the Trainer who Trains". He plays Lieutenant Brooks in "Jackpot", a 2005 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. In Conversations with God, about the true story of Neale Donald Walsch, Czerny plays Walsch. In 2007, he appeared in the Showtime series The Tudors, playing the Duke of Norfolk. He also appeared as a subject in the Canadian television show Flashpoint.
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James "Jim" "Kimo" West is a guitarist best known for working with the singer-songwriter "Weird Al" Yankovic. West auditioned for Yankovic, after... being introduced by Steve Jay, and the two have worked together ever since. West can be heard and seen on all of Yankovic's albums, videos, and concerts. West is also a composer for TV and film and produced a number of CDs for independent artists. He has released four solo slack-key guitar albums. He performs regularly at festivals and concerts. Born in Toronto, Ontario on December 18, 1953, West grew up in Tampa, Florida. He started playing guitar at age 12, and by age 16 was playing professionally in various Florida rock bands, including at least one with Steve Jay. He came to Los Angeles in the early eighties, where Jay introduced him to Yankovic. West still lives in the Los Angeles area, but spends several months a year in Hawaii. He retains his Canadian citizenship.
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James Randi is a Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic best known as a challenger of paranormal claims and pseudoscience. Randi is... the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation . Randi began his career as a magician named The Amazing Randi, but after retiring at age 60, he began investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims, which he collectively calls "woo-woo." Although often referred to as a "debunker," Randi rejects that title owing to its perceived bias, instead describing himself as an "investigator." He has written about the paranormal, skepticism, and the history of magic. He was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and was occasionally featured on the television program Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. The JREF sponsors The One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge offering a prize of US$1,000,000 to eligible applicants who can demonstrate evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or event under test conditions agreed to by both parties. Randi was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and has a younger brother and sister.
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Morley Safer is a Canadian reporter and correspondent for CBS News. He is best known for his long tenure on the newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which began... in December 1970. Safer was born to a Jewish family in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna and Max Safer, an upholsterer. He attended Harbord Collegiate Institute, and briefly attended University of Western Ontario. Safer began his journalism career as a reporter for various newspapers in Canada and England. Later, he joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a correspondent and producer. In 1964, Safer joined CBS News as a London-based correspondent. In 1965, he opened the CBS News bureau in Saigon. That year he followed a group of United States Marines to the village of Cam Ne, for what was described as a "search and destroy" mission. When the Marines arrived, they gave orders in English to the inhabitants—by all accounts harmless civilians—to evacuate the village. When the homes were cleared, the Marines burned their thatched roofs with flamethrowers and Zippo lighters.
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William Emerson "Will" Arnett is a Canadian actor and comedian best known for his role as George Oscar "G.O.B." Bluth II on the Fox comedy Arrested... Development. He is also known for his role as Devon Banks on the NBC comedy 30 Rock. Since his success on Arrested Development, Arnett has landed major film roles. He played supporting roles in the comedy films Semi-Pro, Blades of Glory, and Hot Rod. He starred in 2006's Let's Go to Prison and 2007's The Brothers Solomon. Arnett has also done work as a voiceover artist for commercials, films, television programs, and video games. He is currently starring in the NBC show Up All Night as Chris Brinkley. Arnett was born in Toronto, the son of Edith Alexandra and Emerson James Arnett, who was a corporate lawyer and brewer, among other occupations. In Toronto, he attended Francophone schools. He speaks French, but has stated that he is not currently fluent in the language. Arnett briefly attended Lakefield College School in Lakefield, Ontario, but was asked not to return after a semester for being a troublemaker.
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Stephen Joseph Harper, PC, MP is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada, and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became Prime Minister... after his party won a minority government in the 2006 federal election. He is the first Prime Minister from the newly reconstituted Conservative Party, following a merger of the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties. Harper has been the Member of Parliament for the riding of Calgary Southwest in Alberta since 2002. Earlier, from 1993 to 1997, he was the MP for Calgary West. He was one of the founding members of the Reform Party, but ended his first stint as an MP to join, and shortly thereafter head, the National Citizens Coalition. In 2002, he succeeded Stockwell Day as leader of the Canadian Alliance and returned to Parliament as Leader of the Opposition. In 2003, he reached an agreement with Progressive Conservative leader Peter MacKay for the merger of their two parties to form the Conservative Party of Canada. He was elected as the party's first non-interim leader in March 2004.
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