Canadian Urban Canyons

[Mrs Sauga]

I'd say Calgary and Ottawa have the best/most consistent canyons.

[Rico Rommheim]

More "Dorchester" boulevard


by mokita

[Chadillaccc]

Le V looks sweet.

[MTLskyline]

Bleury/Parc

Montreal Cityscape by Derrick_Abadi_Street_Phtography, on Flickr

[MolsonExport]

Rene Levesque (Dorchester) is a badass canyon. As is University. Also, de Maisonneuve Ouest of Guy...the fugly Concretesque Sao Paulo buildings of the Concordia ghetto. Avenue President Kennedy is a short but deep gulch. McGill-College is perhaps the handsomest Montreal canyon.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Mrs Sauga

I'd say Calgary and Ottawa have the best/most consistent canyons.

Ottawa makes up for lack of height with density..Some streets in downtown literally have no frontage and sidelines..The buildings literally butt up against each other..Having said that, both cities are what they are.Smallish cities like Calgary or Ottawa just won't have the canyons a la' Montreal or Toronto. Both outstanding for their respective sizes for sure though. Btw, Great shot above MTL Skyline

[Nouvellecosse]

Calgary doesn't have the canyons of Montreal due to its smallish size? Montreal may be able to pull size rank on Calgary on some things, but downtown highrise size/density isn't one of them.

[Mrs Sauga]

Originally Posted by Razor

Ottawa makes up for lack of height with density..Some streets in downtown literally have no frontage and sidelines..The buildings literally butt up against each other..Having said that, both cities are what they are.Smallish cities like Calgary or Ottawa just won't have the canyons a la' Montreal or Toronto. Both outstanding for their respective sizes for sure though. Btw, Great shot above MTL Skyline

Actually I feel both Ottawa and Calgary do match (and may even surpass) Toronto and Montreal in terms of urban skyscraper/highrise canyons. I define canyons as similar height buildings right up against the street with minimal spacing between them. Montreal has a lot of varying heights, while Toronto's big skyscrapers are part of plazas which don't make for much of a canyon. Ottawa and Calgary have that uniform up against the street effect.

Montreal is probably the king of midrise canyons though.

[Razor]

^ Well yes then..Ottawa does have some real solid street walls of buildings with uniform height..So what you stated may be very well valid..Sorry, just had to re-read your original post and think about it more...I can't speak for Calgary, but for sure Ottawa. Streets in the business district like Laurier, Queen, Albert etc.

[MTLskyline]

Gosford/Sanguinet is kind of a semi-canyon (missing buildings on the other side over the Ville-Marie Expressway)





(my pics)

[Ramako]

Front Street is developing a nice streetwall which should become more canyon-like once 171 Front, 156 Front and Oxford Place go up:



By Jack Landau at Urban Toronto

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by Razor

^ Well yes then..Ottawa does have some real solid street walls of buildings with uniform height..So what you stated may be very well valid..Sorry, just had to re-read your original post and think about it more...I can't speak for Calgary, but for sure Ottawa. Streets in the business district like Laurier, Queen, Albert etc.

Even with the many hundreds of pictures of Calgary posted on this forum, you still can't speak for Calgary?

[Razor]

^ Nope..Haven't been there, so I never walked Calgary's Urban Canyons..I pretty much fly through the pics on here, so my bad if I never made a note of the awesomeness of Calgary's urban canyons..I always maintained that I loved it's sky-line though, so what more do you want from me?..However,I'm sure it's got some great street walls.

[Chadillaccc]

Relax, it was a genuine question. I didn't "want" anything from you. Many of the hundreds of pictures posted here on a monthly/bi-monthly basis show the street walls, so I just thought regular forumers would have all seen at least a few of them by now.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Ramako

Front Street is developing a nice streetwall which should become more canyon-like once 171 Front, 156 Front and Oxford Place go up:



By Jack Landau at Urban Toronto

It's one of the most promising canyons in the city as few of the buildings are set back from the street and Front is bone straight on that stretch. It helps that some of our grandest buildings are there as well. It will look far better once Oxford's 4 towers go up.... if they ever do. Then there are the 156 Front and 151 Front proposals.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by MTLskyline

Well until 1987 anyway.

Oh right. Some habits are hard to break.

Originally Posted by Razor

Ottawa makes up for lack of height with density..Some streets in downtown literally have no frontage and sidelines..The buildings literally butt up against each other.

That's what I love about downtown Ottawa. Maximizing the lot by building right out to the edge has created a wonderfully built up/finished feel to the whole core. I'm not a fan of buildings set back from the street and always prefer a strong street apron. It adds to the monumentality of a city.

[Beedok]

Ottawa definitely seems to have more of it's downtown as canyons than Montreal, but where Montreal has them they seem grander.

[caltrane74]

I took this photo for the top 30 Construction thread, but I can post it here because it "is" an urban canyon although as we mention with Yonge you have low rise historical structures some well over 100 years old abutting (about) the sidewalks, and then behind that you have alleyways and then behind that you have now with recent developments monster towers growing from beyond the alleyway. We are pretty much assured that 100 years from now the streetscaping will remain relatively the same. Just with bigger buildings behind the lowrisers. Overall positive is that the towers massive and small help to finance the upkeep and restoration of the older or historical structures which front the sidewalk, either directly as is the case with the MOD developments at Massey Tower, Karma, Five Condos and Aura. Or indirectly as we are seeing with Nicolas Residences, and/or associated charges on development , increased property values and developer donations.



Other towers set to impact the Yonge Streetwall and Canyon

1. Karma - UC
2. Aura - UC
3. One Bloor - UC
4. 88 Scott - UC
5. Ryerson University - UC
6. HR Building - Site Prep
7. Massey Tower - Prep
8. 460 Yonge - Sales
9. Nicolas Residence - UC in photo far background
10. Five Condo - UC in photo Foreground
11. EC Tower - proposed
12. 501 Yonge - proposed
13. 599 Yonge - proposed
15. 11 Wellesley - proposed
14. 2 Gloucester - proposed
15. Casa 2 - Under Construction
16 Casa 3 - proposed in sales

[Martin Mtl]

Originally Posted by Mrs Sauga

Actually I feel both Ottawa and Calgary do match (and may even surpass) Toronto and Montreal in terms of urban skyscraper/highrise canyons. I define canyons as similar height buildings right up against the street with minimal spacing between them. Montreal has a lot of varying heights, while Toronto's big skyscrapers are part of plazas which don't make for much of a canyon. Ottawa and Calgary have that uniform up against the street effect.

Montreal is probably the king of midrise canyons though.

Montreal's biggest canyons are mostly broken in parts by some buildings being set back from the street for some plazas or podium. For me, the most impressive line-up of canyons though are the ones made by south-north streets in the downtown core, starting with University in the east up to Guy in the west. Some of those streets, like Drumond or stanley are so narrow that most buildings are build right to the street and you really have that engulfed feeling that we like about canyon. The narrownest aspect of those streets are probably the thing that mostly distinguishs Montreal from Ottawa, where the streets are larger. I ´ve never been to Calgary, but I suspect the streets are also mostly larger there. The only "grand" canyon here would be René-Levesque, it´s the only street line-up with big enough towers to make a striking impression. Hopefully, it will get better with everyhting UC now.

[Razor]

My wife just made a good point about Montreal...I was showing her some of the comments and posts, and she mentioned that a good part of Montreal's downtown is on the southern slope of Mount Royal.The terrain is uneven..Could this actually hinder any sort of canyon or street wall effect? Just putting it out there.