Jane French is a self-confessed downtowner. As project manager for Doors Open Toronto, the annual open house of the city’s unique architecture, she was stumped when a colleague suggested adding York University’s Keele campus to this year’s lineup, reported the Toronto Star May 28. “I haven’t been out there in 20 years,” said French. She remembers the area as a “bleak landscape” with square, utilitarian buildings. That was then, this is now. “I was completely knocked out. They’ve got architecture out there,” French said. York University is one of several dozen new sites included in the fifth annual Doors Open lineup, which kicked off May 29 at more than 150 locations across the city. Also new to Doors Open this year was the Noor Culture Centre on Wynford Drive. Designed by Raymond Moriyama as the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in 1963, the building was transformed for new owners [York University Foundation board member Karim Lakhani and family] again by Moriyama, almost 30 years later.
Hoop notes
One of the top postsecondary basketball programs in Canada has a new coach, reported Associated Press in a story printed May 28 by the Toronto Sun. York University coach Bob Bain, 56, is taking a sabbatical year and is handing the reins over to longtime assistant Tom Oliveri. “I’m very excited to get this opportunity and see how well we should do next year,” said Oliveri, 38, whose team reached the Canadian Interuniversity Sport Final Four this season.
Rich vs. poor contest already underway
In a May 28 letter to the Toronto Star, Dennis Raphael, health management and policy professor with York’s Atkinson Faculty of Liberal & Professional Studies, responded to a May 27 Star editorial titled “NDP platform pits rich against poor.” Raphael wrote: “The poor are already pitted against the rich. And the poor are losing badly.”
Puck to drop on hockey reality
Hundreds of hockey hopefuls will flock today to the Ice Gardens at York University for the first day of the Bell Making the Cut tryout challenge, reported the Toronto Sun and Peterborough Examiner May 28. The ultimate objective of the event, a reality show to be broadcast prime time on CBC and RDS starting this September, is twofold: To allow recreational players the opportunity to experience the rigours of an NHL-style training camp; and to give players of higher skill, who may have gone undrafted in the past and have perhaps fallen through the cracks, the opportunity to be seen by pro scouts.