Historic Halifax

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by HalifaxRetales

Thanks

Those are cool shots. I don’t recall seeing the movie but remember the city when it looked like that.

One note that I can add is that when those buildings below the Texpark were slated for demolition in the early or mid 1980s I used to walk by them on the way to the ferry. As abandoned buildings I recall a very strong smell of sewage as you passed by them, and that remains my strongest memory of them. I remember thinking that it was too bad they were left to deteriorate like that, because they seemed like they were probably cool buildings in their day. In my relative innocence, I just thought oh well, that’s the way it has to be because all old buildings tended to be neglected, abandoned and then torn down in Halifax, sometimes to be left as vacant lots for years (or decades). It’s just the way it was, and our city leaders didn’t pay it much mind. The older generations tended to have the “out with the old, in with the new” mentality as well.

Now when I see the pics I realize that we lost a lot in a relatively short time. Only now is it being built up in a way that I would have been happy with back then, but I would have been even more thrilled if some of these older buildings with character had been maintained and repurposed. Too late for that, though, so on we go.

[someone123]

It's a bit wild how many mid-tier buildings in Halifax were demolished around 1960-1990. I sort of thought the lesson was learned but then another round of later historic buildings like Maritime Life or the Bank of Canada were torn down in the 2010s. I think, basically, all of the development that took place downtown since then could have been accommodated without demolishing anything substantial, and Halifax is an outlier in how easily it let buildings go not due to decline but due to growth. I think often it was development potential that led to demolition and not a lack of economic capacity.

That being said, I'm not an absolutist about it; it doesn't bother me if some wooden houses or small commercial buildings go. Or even a mid-tier building for something really architecturally exceptional. But in Halifax the demolitions were often a downgrade even though the city and downtown were growing.

I remember around 2000 there were debates about demolishing even the Lord Nelson or Nova Scotian hotels. Some people were sentimental about it but a lot of the feel was that it was merely a kind of business decision, and if a spreadsheet showed a Wal-Mart would make more than the Lord Nelson then it was time for the Lord Nelson to go. It was similar with the Kelly facade on Granville which in retrospect would have made perfect sense to save. At the same time, people were fiercely sentimental about abstractions like the ramparts rule.

[OldDartmouthMark]

I stumbled upon this earlier and felt it was a really good example on how removing detail affects the appearance of historic buildings. I don't know when the steeple was removed, but will say that it looks a little top heavy and even the 1899 photo looks like there has already been some significant masonry repair to it.

Regardless, the conversion to condos was done in the 1980s and while I'm glad they decided to not knock down the old building, I am somewhat astounded as to how relatively bland it appears today compared to the 1800s.


Source


Source

[JET]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/urban-development-halifax-1950s-1960s-1.4051542

[JET]

List of a number of old houses in downtown dartmouth, when built, who first lived there, and ‘his’ profession
https://archive.halifax.ca/archive/final...e4-4ca5-9994-e1f49529dbd0&showSave=False

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by JET

List of a number of old houses in downtown dartmouth, when built, who first lived there, and ‘his’ profession
https://archive.halifax.ca/archive/final...e4-4ca5-9994-e1f49529dbd0&showSave=False

Very cool. Thanks for posting it!

Unfortunately there are some missing streets and addresses, but it gives one an overview of when things were built and what type of buildings populated downtown Dartmouth all those years ago. 🙂

[DartmouthSteve]

Originally Posted by JET

List of a number of old houses in downtown dartmouth, when built, who first lived there, and ‘his’ profession
https://archive.halifax.ca/archive/final...e4-4ca5-9994-e1f49529dbd0&showSave=False

Very cool. My house is on there.

About 12 years ago when we were renovating the basement we discovered some newspapers lining the walls from the late 1880s. I kept some of the more readable fragments. I'll try to post a picture.

[JET]

Originally Posted by DartmouthSteve

Very cool. My house is on there.

About 12 years ago when we were renovating the basement we discovered some newspapers lining the walls from the late 1880s. I kept some of the more readable fragments. I'll try to post a picture.

Mine is a 1905, when was your’s built?

[DartmouthSteve]

Originally Posted by jet

mine is a 1905, when was your’s built?

1890

[DartmouthSteve]

The newspaper I mentioned earlier.

I was wrong, it's from 1894, not the late 1880s.

I love that the phone number for The Atlantic Weekly is 47.

[Dartguard]

Originally Posted by DartmouthSteve

The newspaper I mentioned earlier.

I was wrong, it's from 1894, not the late 1880s.

I love that the phone number for The Atlantic Weekly is 47.

Your Kids will probably ask what a Newspaper was.

[JET]

Under our kitchen linoleum we found an ad for a feed store at the corner of Pine and Ochterloney and some milk bottle tops.

[Keith P.]

The article about urban renewal is interesting, not because of being unaware of it, but rather both because of missing some context, and some of the statements from the HRM bureaucrat that, on the surface, don’t make much sense. This in particular jumps out at me:

“ Building inspectors were told to find the buildings that didn't meet code. They'd then submit their reports to the committee on works, who would evaluate the reports and hold public hearings for any buildings slated for demolition. The buildings would then be torn down within a period of 30 days to six months — at the owner's expense. “

I seriously doubt this is accurate. Code is always changing, and buildings built a century ago would never meet current day codes. If the city was essentially expropriating these properties there would have been processes followed with compensation payable. If the buildings were unsafe or deemed uninhabitable despite being lived in then there would have been some process to find alternate re-homing. This account just doesn’t pass the smell test.

The other thing here was that this was part of a larger initiative towards cleaning up a major area of slummy structures in DT in hopes of opening up new construction including Scotia Square. One could argue whether or not that was a mistake but that’s not the point here. The article also references the Africville situation which is likely very different than this, and there was no redevelopment there regardless. No perceived good deed goes unpunished I suppose. Should people continue to be allowed to live in squalor and unsafe structures or should a city govt try to do something? No simple answers here I suppose.

Also I should note that the article is very old, dating from 2017.

[OldDartmouthMark]

I find many historical things written in the twenty-teens took on a slant of the powerful privileged people taking advantage of and treating terribly the disadvantaged groups. I recently read a Halifax history book that focused more on this topic than what actually happened, under the guise of being a factual history book - it took on an opinionated, almost revisionist tone rather than just telling the stories of what happened and how we got here. It’s not that bad things didn’t happen, they did. It’s more of slanting the viewpoint to make it appear that the main focus of the actions was to punish those not in power, when in fact they wanted to accomplish something that they thought was good, but actually misread and in some cases disregarded what the people actually wanted, and what would have ultimately been better for them.

That said, I wasn’t there, but some relatives that did live in that neighbourhood (on Grafton) were reportedly compensated fairly well for their homes, and used the money to buy a better place on the outskirts of the city where they actually turned out to be happier (I was told that this was a rough part of town in that era). It’s just an anecdote about one case, however.

[HalifaxRetales]

Now Expressway on Woodlawn Rd

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by HalifaxRetales

Now Expressway on Woodlawn Rd

I remember this store!

[someone123]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

That said, I wasn’t there, but some relatives that did live in that neighbourhood (on Grafton) were reportedly compensated fairly well for their homes, and used the money to buy a better place on the outskirts of the city where they actually turned out to be happier (I was told that this was a rough part of town in that era). It’s just an anecdote about one case, however.

I don't know the details of this case but it's become more common to see activism or advocacy masked as history and there's often less research from primary sources. Some people say there aren't primary sources and we can't know what happened when there's a pretty rich record. You also sometimes see people lowering the bar if a story comes from an oppressed minority group but I'm not sure that does anybody any favours in the long run; it tends to make all past grievances seem folkloric when some truly are like that and some are more objective and deserve different treatment.

Typically people fought for incremental improvements in their day and if you don't understand the context it looks bad by today's standard. Of course, there are bad people in every era and as you go back culture becomes increasingly ignorant in some ways, although maybe we are sliding backward in others. Our media today is full of spectacular BS even by historical standards. We are not on the whole significantly more intelligent or moral than people who lived a few generations ago.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by someone123

I don't know the details of this case but it's become more common to see activism or advocacy masked as history and there's often less research from primary sources. Some people say there aren't primary sources and we can't know what happened when there's a pretty rich record. You also sometimes see people lowering the bar if a story comes from an oppressed minority group but I'm not sure that does anybody any favours in the long run; it tends to make all past grievances seem folkloric when some truly are like that and some are more objective and deserve different treatment.

Typically people fought for incremental improvements in their day and if you don't understand the context it looks bad by today's standard. Of course, there are bad people in every era and as you go back culture becomes increasingly ignorant in some ways, although maybe we are sliding backward in others. Our media today is full of spectacular BS even by historical standards. We are not on the whole significantly more intelligent or moral than people who lived a few generations ago.

I think that’s well parsed out and indicates that there should be concern by anybody who values history and considers it to be an important part of our society.

Additionally I wonder what will happen with the accuracy of our accepted and broadcasted history once AI has inserted its influence and includes much of the activist/revisionist history into its new accounts of history that it will create and that people will consume in the future. I feel that context will probably be tossed out of the window for the majority, with the exception of those who actually care to spend time researching on their own. However combined with society’s tendency to disregard anything that it perceives to be “authority” of late, the days of accepted, accurate history might actually become “history” itself…