Quote:
Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark
Yeah, I think there were a lot of really cool brick and stone (and probably some wood) buildings that could probably be repurposed quite nicely if they had survived the redevelopment.
When I'm thinking of those poor housing conditions described, scenes more like these come to mind:
Source
I think it's hard for many of us to imagine living in some of these places, as it is more like something we would expect to find in a third world country these days. The housing standards in this country have improved considerably since those times.
It is a shame that a lot of good stuff was torn down. One thing to keep in mind is that the Feds were offering considerable funding to municipalities for this type of redevelopment at the time, so I imagine that there was a fair amount of pressure to flatten entire areas with some good buildings being incidental losses in order to receive the funding. |
Mark, I looked at those photos before I read your comments, and it seems that we saw different things: you saw slums and poor living conditions; I saw buildings that look similar to 1930 pictures of my house, people lived more utilitarian lives then, they hung laundry, my area of downtown dartmouth was know as slabtown, due to the slabs of wood that were used for fences, people had barns and sheds and horses and chickens, and vegetables growing instead of flowers gardens. The back of the building looks like the fire escape from my attic apartment I rented on Brenton St my first year at Dal 1976; it's still there and worth a lot more than my house. Black and white photos don't show the degree of colour that life had then. As Coolmillion said a lot of those old buildings had strong bones, and if they survived were upgraded and are much sought after; those that survived the neglect and disinterest.