Category: Events (Page 1 of 5)

Roncesvalles Polish Festival

September 14, 2025 / Marvin Job / 0 Comments

There were two major ethnic street festivals happening in Toronto this weekend: the Roncesvalles Polish Festival and the Bloor West Village Toronto Ukrainian Festival. I’ve posted previously about the Ukrainian Festival, so I thought I’d cover the Polish Festival this time.

Time for Polka and Pierogis!

On September 13 and 14th, the Roncesvalles Village played host to the Roncesvalles Polish Festival. Now in its 17th year, the event stretched down Roncesvalles Avenue from Dundas Street West to Queen Street West. The Festival bills itself as North America’s largest celebration of Polish culture.

All up and down Roncesvalles, there was authentic Polish cuisine, Polish song and dance groups, and over 90 merchandise vendors. The site also included 6 beverage gardens, 2 family zones and multiple outdoor stages with over 40 performances. Local restaurants, bistros, cafes and shops along Roncesvalles Avenue also heavily contributed to the Festival’s celebratory atmosphere.

Roncesvalles-Polish-Festival-map

Lots of Merch for Sale…

And Food Galore…

Polka Time…

A Little Festive Dancing…

Polish Cars & Motorcycles On Display…

Street Scenes…

… And a small midway for the kids

Click here for the entire photo gallery of this event

Festival Links

Toronto Chinatown Festival 2025

August 24, 2025 / Marvin Job / 2 Comments

It just wouldn’t be summer in Toronto without the street festivals. Pretty much any weekend from June to September there is a festival happening in the city, sometimes two or three events on the same weekend.

The Toronto Chinatown Festival is an annual tradition recently celebrated on Spadina Avenue between Sullivan Street and St. Andrew Street. This year, the Toronto Chinatown Festival celebrated its 25th anniversary, with an abundance of multi-cultural street food, cultural performances and the occasional dragon dance.

I’ve always loved the Chinatown Festival – it’s such a joyous celebration of sound, food, music, colour and cultural diversity in our city:

I didn’t catch her name, but this singer had an amazingly delicate, yet powerful, voice:

This mannequin in the red jumpsuit was kind of freaky…

The CN Tower looms over the Chinatown dragons. These Spadina Avenue dragons form a gateway to Toronto’s Chinatown neighbourhood. They were designed to form the Mandarin character for “gate”.

Waiting for the call, literally: This lady was waiting backstage for her queue to go on. What else to do but check one’s Instagram feed, I guess?

Click here if you’d like to view all my shots of the Toronto Chinatown Festival

Toronto Pride 2025

June 30, 2025 / Marvin Job / 4 Comments

OK, I realize Toronto Pride is not really a TO Cityscape, per se, but it’s a major event that shakes up the city once a year, so I think it’s worthy of coverage.

Love it or hate it, Pride was back for another year, despite a $900,000.00 shortfall of cash – a result of some of the major investors backing out due to the current idiocy happening down south. ANYWAY…. it was still a great party this past weekend.

Yours truly was too vain/stupid/stubborn to wear a hat for the events (it’ll mess my ‘do!) so, of course, I ended up with an intense facial/forehead sunburn. As a result, my wandering was somewhat curtailed over the weekend and I didn’t quite capture the allotment of shots I normally get on a Pride weekend.

At any rate, here’s a few photos to give you an idea of the weekend’s events:

Local Businesses

Area businesses and offices showed their support, as always:

The windows at Dudley’s Hardware (511 Church St.) are always an excellent barometer of what’s happening in the village. This weekend was no exception:

Festival Grounds

Wandering around the general area of Church Street on Pride Weekend, you’re bound to see anything:

Mark Henderson never misses a Pride event. The booklets he’s holding – and the blue banner behind him – proclaim him “King of Pride”.

Drag Ball 2025, Nathan Phillips Square

And, of course, we can’t forget the Drag Queens and Kings. The Drag Ball ran from 2:00PM to 11:00PM on Saturday, June 28th, one act immediately following another with no break between. The energy at this event was simply electric, and the weather actually behaved itself and delivered a perfect day:

Drag Ball 2025, Nathan Phillips Square — Georgina Hudson

I leave you with this performance by Lena Di Matrix, shot just before I left City Hall. It exhausts me just watching this. Drag artists, I salute you!:

Good Friday Procession

April 18, 2025 / Marvin Job / 0 Comments

OK, I cheated a little on this post. I just wasn’t up to shooting the Good Friday Procession in today’s rain, so I’ve brought forward my shots of the event from a few year’s ago.

For those unfamiliar, the Good Friday Procession is a long standing tradition taking place every Good Friday in Toronto. The mile-long procession is a three-hour event reenacting the fourteen stations of the cross, symbolizing what Christians believe to be the path Jesus took before he was crucified.

The Procession got its start in 1962. These days, thousands turn out for the Good Friday procession as it winds its way through the streets of Toronto’s Little Italy. The sombre event is organized and performed primarily by the parish of St. Francis of Assisi Church at the corner of Mansfield Avenue and Grace Street.

Getting ready for the procession outside the St. Francis of Assisi Church

The Procession along College Street

Click here to see the entire photo gallery of this event

Remembrance Day, 2024

November 11, 2024 / Marvin Job / 5 Comments

Although an event like Remembrance Day is not really a cityscape per se, I feel it is extremely important to acknowledge the day.

Earlier today I attended the Remembrance Day ceremonies at Old City Hall. The sombre event was exceedingly well attended and the rain actually held off until later in the afternoon.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They were young, as we are young,
They served, giving freely of themselves.
To them, we pledge, amid the winds of time,
To carry their torch and never forget.
We will remember them.

7th Regimental Band, Royal Canadian Artillery Band, under the direction of Lieutenant Carina Lam

Aretha Phillip, Chief of Protocol, City of Toronto

A flypast by The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). The flypasts were conducted during several Remembrance Day commemorations across Canada.

Remarks from the City of Toronto, presented by Mayor Olivia Chow

Benediction, given by Rev. John Joseph Mastandrea, Chaplain, Toronto Police Services

Laying poppies on the Cenotaph, end of services

Flowers and poppies on the Cenotaph, end of service

Prepping For Pride

June 26, 2024 / Marvin Job / 1 Comment

Pride Weekend in Toronto is soon upon us. In preparation, this month an explosion of rainbows and inclusion messages from local business and merchants have been appearing in the downtown core. Here’s some of what I’ve come across in the last few weeks:

Eaton Centre

Rogers Headquarters, 333 Bloor Street East

Manulife Head Office, 250 Bloor Street East

OrangeTheory Fitness, 160 Bloor Street East

160 Bloor Street East

175 Bloor Street East

Circle K, 121 Bloor Street East

The Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario (CPA)

RBC, 2 Bloor Street East

Holt Renfrew, 50 Bloor Street West

TD Canada Trust

A Pride Chicken at Nandos, 832 Bay Street

Ontario Nurses’ Association, 85 Grenville Street

Pride Bicycle Lock, Church Street

LCBO

Underneath Hudson Bay Centre, 2 Bloor Street East

Rexall, Church & Wellesley Streets

Scotiabank, Yonge & Wellesley Streets

Shopper’s Drug Mart, Yonge & Charles Streets

Jack Astor’s, Yonge & Bloor Streets

Toronto Public Library, Yorkville Branch

The Wine Rack, Church & Wellesley Streets

Dudley’s Hardware, Church Street

And, of course, the epicentre of it all:
the corner of Church & Wellesley Streets

Happy Pride Everyone!

desiFEST 2024

June 16, 2024 / Marvin Job / 1 Comment

Last weekend played host to desiFEST, the annual celebration of South Asian music, art, food and culture, held in Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square. In this, the festival’s 18th year, the entertainment lineup consisted of exclusively Canadian talent. Mayor Olivia Chow was also on hand to address the audience; she was the first-ever Mayor to participate in desiFEST. The festival lasted over 12 hours, wrapping up at 11:00PM that night.

Here’s a bit of what last Saturday afternoon offered:

Dancers

BollyX hosted by Dance with Safa

Games

Music

Maple Masala Band

This homeless guy was feeling the vibes of the Maple Masala Band and decided to do something about it…

Shirjeel Jackson

Food (lots of it…)

If you’d like to learn more about desiFEST, click here.

Click here to view all the shots from this event

Cherry Blossoms

May 7, 2024 / Marvin Job / 4 Comments

You know it’s springtime in Toronto when the cherry blossoms suddenly pop out for their all-too-brief stay.

In Japan, flower viewing is an age-old tradition called hanami. Called sakura in Japan, the cherry blossom trees bloom in Toronto at the end of April to early May. When they bloom the trees look quite stunning, displaying their delicate, fluffy, pink and white flowers.

The first Japanese cherry tree was planted here in 1959; it was a present from the citizens of Tokyo. In High Park, 34 cherry trees were received from the Sakura project. Other cherry trees were also donated to other locations around the city, including Exhibition Place, York University and U of T.

I wasn’t up this year for the full-on urban battle that is High Park cherry blossom viewing, so I opted for a couple of alternate locations which offered a calmer, quieter experience:

103 Maitland Street

Robarts Library, University of Toronto

Trinity College, University of Toronto

Wellesley Street East During Solar Eclipse

April 13, 2024 / Marvin Job / 4 Comments

When the solar eclipse passed over Toronto this past Monday (April 8, 2024) I dashed out of my workplace on Wellesley Street East with camera in hand and shot a few images as the darkness progressed.

Although we were not in the path of totality, it became quite dark. There was some very heavy cloud cover that day, so unfortunately we weren’t afforded a direct view of the eclipse, but it was still a very unique experience. Here’s how things looked in my corner of the world that day:

2:10 PM

2:13 PM

2:17 PM

2:18 PM

2:19 PM

2:20 PM

And then it quickly passed and became light again. The eeriness of it was great while it lasted…

Toronto Comicon 2024

March 21, 2024 / Marvin Job / 1 Comment

Toronto Comicon is an annual comic book and pop culture convention held in Toronto at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre since 2001.

When it comes to the worlds of Fantasy, Sci-fi, Cosplay, Roleplay, LARPing, etc., I’m quite out of the loop and couldn’t identify with much of what I saw that day, but it was all quite fascinating nonetheless. I’ve come to the conclusion that people just simply love to dress up no matter the occasion, and this convention gives them a very generous outlet to do just that.

To attend a Comicon to shoot the costumes has been on my photo radar for a number of years, and it was fun to finally do that this past weekend. The sheer mass of people was almost overwhelming and all 3 floors of the Metro Convention Centre, plus the North Building, were jammed with attendees.

This event had it all, including: