The St. Louis Bar & Grill chain has expanded a lot over the past few years, and Wireless Toronto has set up free wifi at the ones at Atrium on Bay and at Fairview Mall. This week they opened at 528 Yonge Street (at Breadalbane, one block south of Wellesley), and that location’s now also a Wireless Toronto hotspot. Link: http://www.stlouiswings.com/locations/toronto/central/yonge-street/
Wychwood Open Door is a day-time drop-in centre that has served homeless and socially isolated people in Toronto’s midtown St. Clair West community since 1986. We’re really happy to be working with them to make wifi available in their space, including to two donated desktop computers which are now available for use. More info: http://www.wychwoodopendoor.org/
Today marks the launch of In-Site Toronto, a series of newly-commissioned artworks which will be presented on the portal pages at several Wireless Toronto hotspots. Artists Dave Dyment, Swintak, Jeremy Bailey, Fedora Romita, Willy Le Maitre and Brian Joseph Davis have created works that are automatically displayed when users log in to their Wireless Toronto user account at designated hotspots. The project is by media arts organization Year Zero One, is curated by Michelle Kasprzak, and was produced with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
The launch of the project will take place on March 31, 2010, at the El Mocambo (464 Spadina Ave, Toronto), in association with Spacing’s spring 2010 issue release party. Wednesday, March 31, 8pm-12am. Admission is $10 (gets you a new mag), or $5 for Spacing subscribers.
Hope to see you there!
For more info, see http://year01.com/insitetoronto/.
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Updates:
The St. Louis Bar & Grill at Atrium on Bay has been a Wireless Toronto hotspot since it opened, just over two years ago. A new location has just opened this week, at Fairview Mall, and it’s now a WT hotspot too. Nice people, lots of TVs, and it looks like they’ll have a great patio in the spring.
Tip: you can’t actually get to it directly through the mall, you have to go outside. It’s on the southwest side, near Sears.
Another new hotspot this week: the new Fox and Fiddle on Wellesley, almost right across from the entrance to the Wellesley subway station. It’s a huge place with three floors, and a great patio. Their grand opening is tonight, July 16th, from 6pm to close.
The East Side Mario’s on Front Street West is now a Wireless Toronto hotspot!
The newest addition to the Wireless Toronto network is Grapefruit Moon. It’s not in the photo, but they have a great patio, too.
Dufferin Grove Park is already the largest free outdoor hotspot in Toronto, however, this weekend it got even better. A small group of Wireless Toronto volunteers spent the day digging holes, climbing ladders and installing a new mesh network in the park. The park is our first official attempt at deploying a mesh network using the open-mesh system and the result is greatly improved coverage and signal strength throughout the park.
Although we are still tweaking it a little, you can now connect to the network from almost any corner if the park, from the far north-east tip of the playing field to the southern cob structure and playground (where park staff regularly serve up great food) right down to the tree-covered Garrison Creek Hollow.
There’s always great things happening at Dufferin Grove, so make sure to get out this summer and check it out. I plan on making the park my office for the next sunny day.
You can see some pictures of the day in the gallery below. In true Wireless Toronto fashion there was climbing ladders, minor excavations, organic hotdogs, conduit piping, tiny hacksaws, good coffee, miles of ethernet cable, multiple laptops and of course, beer. A great day.
As of this morning, free wifi is available at Alternative Grounds; one of my favourite coffee places in the city. Drop in when you’re on Roncesvalles!
The January 2009 issue of Toronto Life has a piece on finding free wifi in Toronto, and lists ten great spots; eight of them are Wireless Toronto nodes: http://www.torontolife.com/