Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
A lot of heritage buildings in downtown Halifax have been stripped of significant ornamentation, even public buildings. The former post office (AGNS) used to have a cupola on top, and so did the Spring Garden Road courthouse. The former school building at Brunswick and Sackville used to have a lot more detailing. Some others like the Pacific Building are in really awful shape.
It might be the worst city in the country for quality of heritage buildings vs. level of upkeep. Halifax has a lot of dumpy looking national historic sites. The Citadel is okay for example but York Redoubt is in awful shape. The Prince of Wales tower is from 1796, the oldest of its type in Canada, and it has a fake looking roof that was built only after the masonry in the tower started to degrade. The original roof looking significantly different and better proportioned.
At least the active decay is slowing down so if things improve in the future it will be more practical to restore these buildings. Growth in the city is probably a good thing too because it reduces the cost of maintaining so much expensive old stuff relative to the general pool of money floating around in the city.
It'll be interesting to see how the North Park armoury turns out. The restoration budget for that is something like $150M. Then again, it is being restored for use as military infrastructure, not just a historic site.
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I agree that heritage properties in Halifax don't get the attention they deserve. It perplexes me, actually, given the historical significance of the city. When I was a kid I used to wonder why there didn't seem to be many really old buildings in the city. At that time I attributed it to the Halifax explosion, until I learned that the major devastation was mostly confined to the north end. I later learned of the 'urban renewal' of the fifties and sixties, where many old buildings, good and bad, were razed due to the fashion of the day - "old is bad, new is good". However I still noted through the 1980s and 1990s, that many century+ old buildings continued to disappear, right up current day, actually.
Regarding removal of ornamentation on the buildings you mentioned, would that have been due to structural integrity (i.e. crumbling ornamentation or load-bearing capacity of the roof) from aging, or would it have been due to 'updating' - removing ornamentation to make the building look more 'modern'? I haven't yet read any documentation to support either idea.
I'm curious as to why you've included national historic sites in your summation of Halifax. Aren't they controlled by the federal government? Is it somehow a failing of Halifax in not maintaining those sites?