Vanished Centretown
 

Gallery on Diane Holmes' site, some nice shots of streetcars etc.

http://www.dianeholmes.ca/gallery-index.php

There not all vanished; Elgin at McLaren is still there, just very different.

http://urbsite.blogspot.ca/search/label/Elgin%20Street

Metcalf YMCA is now the Indigo Hotel and the Imperial Theatre is now Barrymore’s.

No matter, she has, and will continue to have, plenty of parking lots to add in the next few years.

Those photos are interesting. I haven't seen too many pics of Ottawa from that time period. The Imperial looks very ornate, and I suppose it still is in a way.

Nothing lasts forever unless it's constantly maintained. If we could find the money to maintain every single building over a certain age the city would be bankrupt in no time.

Except for heritage buildings like Parliament etc, old has to give way to new at some point. Some people just don't want to understand that.

And yet EUROPE....

Not exactly a shining example of how things should be done right now.

They've been tearing down old buildings for millenia in Europe. We've only had a couple of centuries to tear down crap. Give us a few hundred years and we'll be full of old buildings that manage to survive because they are well built and have enough flexibility to be repurposed.

I don't know; look at our federal office buildings, we're tearing them down left and right. Lorne, John Carling, and now they we're talking about the Charles Tupper, Tunney's and Booth Complex.

I worked in the Sandy Hill area for a few years and every day I wondered how they let all those old brick houses be turned into multi-units that inevitably are not taken care of by the landlords in most cases. A lot of those old houses aren't going to last that much longer. I think that above all is what sparked my comment.

seriously? you're suggesting that maintaining old buildings is a root of Europe's macro-economic difficulties? Some remedial reading on the subject might be in order. Recall that Ireland and Spain's banking troubles are the result of popping real estate bubbles following a BUILDING boom.

Why do I bother? Seen it all over the Ottawa forum. Dude: JOKE. Step down off your frickin pedestal every now and then. You make jokes and sarcastic comments all the time. But then you have this holier than though attitude everytime anyone replies to something you say with anything but praise and agreement.

I do read this forum a lot so I'll save you from having to take the time for your next predictable reply.

Hey everyone - McC thinks i'm stupid, a jerk, and have a very weak sense of humour.

My apologies, I missed your joke.

On re-reading, my reply was obnoxious, you were right to call me on it.

@McC
I appreciate that. FYI. You should consider your comment the straw that broke this camel's back. I read it a few minutes after getting notification my flight home just before the long weekend was delayed. That meant getting to TO later then hitting the 400 later which meant for a long drive to the lake and the beer fridge. So yeah, I lost it. Right at that moment, I pretty much had zero tolerance for much of anything. Normally it would have just ticked me off but i'd get over it.

hope your long weekend wasn't completely ruined, that you salvaged what was left of it?

I'm totally drinking a beer right now! Yessiree...

But you didn't drunk dial the Ken Gray thread???
#kindadisappointed

;-)