For the past few years, we have seen lots of changes on Ossington. What does it mean that we are down to one laundromat on Ossington? Hollywood Laundry looked pretty crowded this morning, so if you need to use their washing machines, I guess you’ll have to give yourself more time, or go on off hours.

We’ll keep you posted when a new tenant takes over 132 Ossington, and let us know if you hear anything, in the comments!

In the meantime a number of other Ossington businesses have joined the twittersphere and the community, Ossington Village blog included.

The community has grown.

Back in the early days, it was PizzaLibretto who was on Twitter. And they still tempt us with their daily specials, as well as their community interactions.

Delux lets us know the changes in their menu and new offerings:

Lab Consignment, out of Silver Falls Vintage, lets us know the celebs that are haunting their locale.

The ever-delightful Cindiloowho helps promote other businesses in the area, in this case @chefRoccoTO, of Pizza Libretto is opening Enoteca Sociale next week.

Our favourite tequila joint on Ossington helps out their neighbour at 134 by tweeting their next exhibits.

We do have to give some honorable mentions to neighbourhood locals and entertaining tweeters @whetmyappitite and @modernmod who keep us entertained and informed.

And let us know if there are other twitterers on Ossington, and of course, keep an eye on @OssingtonVil to keep up to date with us.

It was one year ago that Joe Pantalone, our current mayoral candidate, annoyed me so much by blocking new restaurant openings on Ossington without consultation from the neighbours that I went home and started writing.

90 Posts later we are still going – and an example of Hyper-local blogging.

A lot has happened this year on Ossington.

• The opening of Bohmer, Paramour and Union restaurants.
• The launch of City Store, Crepes & More & Our House.
• Evan Bidell, of Project Runway Canada fame, showed his wares in the location next to Reposado.
• Angell Gallery moved up from Queen Street.
• There were the closings of Bar au Soup, Get Real, Rolly’s Garage and the final demise of the never-opened The Saint.
• Pizzeria Libretto not only got certified by VPN, but also got named by En Route Magazine as a Best restaurant of 2008

We launched our Twitter account only 2 months ago and are keeping the neighbourhood up to date with our shorter updates. Follow us on Twitter here.

We thought we’d celebrate with a new look! The fantastic graphic design of Ananuku Kolar and Better Art Design & Direction put together our first logo, and I spent a beautiful May afternoon in the backyard putting together a new format for the blog. It will continue to evolve and grow as will the neighbourhood.

We’ve had a great time getting to know all our neighbours in Ossington Village and hearing from you our readers. We appreciate everyone who commented and sent us feedback – even if we disagreed.

We love the way this neighbourhood keeps changing and love documenting the evolution of Ossington Village. Keep commenting, sending us feedback, story ideas, and other happenings in the area.

There were a whole series of Toronto walks, which continue tomorrow (Sunday). Ours was called Dundas and Ossington, the past and the future, and started at St. Christopher House, right on said corner. We walked west to Dovercourt, down to Queen and across to Trinity Bellwoods. The tour was led by someone from St. Christopher’s House with commentary from a couple of local Portuguese residents who talked to the group about the local churches and community centres.

We did learn a few great stories from some of the people who came along on the walk with us, including Ron Fletcher, who has written a few books on Toronto, including The Humber: Tales of a Canadian Heritage River, and is working on book on Queen West.

One of the pieces of trivia he offered up was that the wall that surrounds the CAMH was actually erected by patients of the facility, which has been a mental health facility since the 1800s (back then they had other terms for such institutions), in 1850. Tomorrow, there is another learning walk around the wall, given by Geoffery Rheaume. (Check out this little film his students put together)

Another little piece of trivia he offered up was that there was a toll booth at the bottom of Ossington, right near Queen. It was, at one point, the entrance to Toronto if you were coming along Dundas. You’d have to head down Ossington. Some of the locals who were coming into the city often used to duck around the toll booth and go down a little lane to the side. The lane ended up being named Rebecca St., after the Rebecca Riots in which Welshmen dressed up in their wives and daughters clothing and stormed tollbooths in the 17th century.

All in all it was an interesting tour!

UPDATE – May 11th: Nicky informed me that this event raised over $40,000 for the charity! Well done!

The Painted Lady is a busy place, and Nicky Potter, the proprietor, has her hands full daily with growing and building the business. But, when she’s not running one of Ossington’s local hot spots she has been busy with a charity she holds dear : Friends of Noah Canada. This Thursday, the charity which helps children orphaned by the Aids epidemic in southern Africa is having a dinner and benefit concert at the Berkeley Theatre at 315 Queen St. E. The dinner is early and features a Afro-Fusion dinner by chef Nathan Isberg, formerly of Coca and opening a place soon on Dundas near Brock.  You can get tickets for by calling their office at 416-557-4819.

But for those that can’t afford the dinner there is a great after-party and show featuring local musicians Noah Mintz and Pierson Ross and that’s only $15 starting at 10:30pm.

For those of you who don’t know about Noah, it was originally set up in South Africa to build Arks – essentially places for kids who have been orphaned by the Aids epidemic could go and get necessary service and assistance. Friends of Noah is the Canadian arm, started by Nicky, to raise money in Canada for this great cause.

It should be a great night. For tickets to the after party, and to support a great cause click here.

It seems that our local supplier of everything from paint, to tiles, to lumber (everyone should know they have a big lumberyard behind, down the alley, where they keep all sorts of building material too big for the store) has a full booth at the show. They do more than just being the local retail location. They are also designing and building kitchens and bathrooms with their design centre.

On the HomeStars site they’ve got a good lot of reviews, but it’s all for their retail work rather than their design work.

I like all the neat tubs and hardware they’ve got on display.

One of the booth visitors:

It looks a little small to be a full sized grocery store but perhaps a fine foods shop? The name of the store seems to be City Store, with small print below that says “Groceries.” Can anyone fill us in on what’s going in here?

Below are a few photos of the recent devestation:

Empty Storefront on Ossington

The Long Awaited Saint closes - is Joe Pantalone to blame?

Get Real awoke to the new Ossington Reality.

Does Ossington need another mechanic now that Rolly's will be closing?

A Fantastic Potential Restaurant Location - but no more

(will I have to change this blog to be the DundasVillage blog? – or is that the next local target)