They don’t call Toronto "Hollywood North"
without a reason. After 31 successful years of festival magic The Toronto
International Film Festival plans to make year 32 the most exciting and
entertaining for festival goers. This year The Hazelton Hotel will be the
host hotel for VIP screenings during the Toronto International Film Festival
in its Silver Screening Room... read
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Franco Mirabelli has been selected to design and
create a fashion forward look for the outfits to be worn by the Hotel and
Restaurant staff. "Because The Hazelton Hotel is a very special small
luxury hotel, I am creating a chic and urban look for each staff function
-- one that complements the hotel’s glamorous and intimate environment,"
says Franco... read
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The Gardiner Museum is the only museum in Canada
to be entirely devoted to ceramics. With works from Picasso's Large Vase
with Veiled Women, Maiolica dishes from the Italian Renaissance and a wonderful
Chinese Porcelain collection, the museum has something for everyone. The
Gardiner Museum's collection exceeds 29,000 pieces and is like a treasure
chest of ceramic wonders... read
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... That's what the owner of the penthouse at the spanking new Hazelton Hotel is said to have paid. (And he also took 18 parking spots, so he's clearly expecting company.) The Hazelton, you may remember, took a lot of flak from locals about creating shade and blocking views. But after two years and some 250 workers on site each day, it's nearly finished; this week The Globe and Mail took the cardboard-encased freight elevator up to the wraparound terrace at the top of the nine-storey brick-and-marble condo/hotel for a look-see. Crowded in by buildings on nearby Yorkville Avenue, but affording great people-watching opportunities, the view from the top includes an eyeful of the nearby Four Seasons Hotel, which must be feeling the pain of losing out to The Hazelton as the place to be during this year's Toronto International Film Festival, opening Sept. 6. Besides a chocolate-brown and muted-bronze interior design by Yabu Pushelberg, and Mark McEwan's sprawling new restaurant and patio bar on the main floor, the hotel's hot status comes courtesy of its private 25-seat screening room, which TIFF has just confirmed will be the site of all its VIP viewings this year. And so maybe the folk at nearby Hazelton Lanes won't mind, after all, people peering into their private terraces, if the gawkers include the likes of Brad Pitt and Sophia Loren, rumoured to be Toronto-bound come the fall. It's too bad the penthouse won't be ready for occupancy until October, after the parties are over. This could have been the best place for the hipsters to be drinking their mojitos while looking down on the little people scurrying by on the sidewalk below.
Reprinted
from The Globe and Mail: Saturday July 14, 2007 Article by Deirdre Kelly
Photo by Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
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