Hamilton's public profile

[flar]

Let me just post the old York pictures once more so we can weep again:

[Millstone]

Originally Posted by crhayes

It's too bad because York could be a beautiful street. Once you get to Copps and it makes that band at Hamilton City Center it's so nice...but if there were nice offices to the east and west of that 1 block it would be awesome.

Around that bend you can make out where they demolished streetwall to connect Wilson St with York Blvd, and fill the empty gaps with parking lots.

I'd like to see pictures of what was in the super parking block of Wilson/John/Rebecca/Hughson before.

[flar]

Originally Posted by Millstone

I'd like to see pictures of what was in the super parking block of Wilson/John/Rebecca/Hughson before.

I'd like to know too.

[crhayes]

Originally Posted by Millstone

Around that bend you can make out where they demolished streetwall to connect Wilson St with York Blvd, and fill the empty gaps with parking lots.

I'd like to see pictures of what was in the super parking block of Wilson/John/Rebecca/Hughson before.

It would be nice if all of those parking lots were office skyscrapers.

[adam]

Originally Posted by Jon Dalton

Sorry for going off topic but Mex - I - Can deserves a shout out here.

Yeah! Its amazing food. Much MUCH better than chain mexican cuisine places like Mexicala Rosa's. They just upgraded the floor in there too.

[raisethehammer]

Originally Posted by Millstone

York Blvd hasn't changed much since it was created... still those ugly stucco-type disasters with convenience stores lining it up until Copps.

you need to go to the library. York is one of the oldest streets in Hamilton. It was ruined in the 1960's not 'created'.

[raisethehammer]

Originally Posted by Millstone

Around that bend you can make out where they demolished streetwall to connect Wilson St with York Blvd, and fill the empty gaps with parking lots.

I'd like to see pictures of what was in the super parking block of Wilson/John/Rebecca/Hughson before.

I'm pretty certain that a huge church was located on the east side of Hughson between Wilson and Rebecca. Don't quote me though. It's been a while since I browsed my history books.

It's really unfathomable what they did to York. I'm I ever glad that 'progress' isn't so stupid and blind these days. If only we could have made it through that couple decades without so many massive attempts at 'renewal', downtown would be a different world today. Much more pedestrian-friendly and vibrant.

[adam]

Sorry to take the other side, but those old pictures don't look like a good sustainable model to me... and look how soon after the city became decrepit. Replace the old cars with new ones and the old retro signs with newer ones and you have the hell that is Upper James with street parking.

[highwater]

Huh? You're being sarcastic, right? The photos show 2-3 storey buildings abutting one another and coming right up to the street, lots of pedestrian traffic, and on street parking. This is pretty much the antithesis of Upper James.

[raisethehammer]

look at the top picture again my friend.
If that was upper james you'd be lucky to see both sidewalks in the photo. This shows a great streetwall of historic buildings the entire length of the street. The city rammed 4 lanes of traffic into it later on, but it would be more suited to 1-lane each way with street parking on both sides like College or Queen in Toronto (and, again, like the top photo clearly shows WAS the case before we 'fixed up the road').
How you see Upper James in that pic is beyond me??

[raisethehammer]

great observation highwater re: heights of the buildings. Most are 3 and 4 floors. King St east of the core is generally 2 or 3. James North and King West are generally 3. That indicates to me that York through this stretch was as vibrant and dense as those other streets...down in market square York had even higher buildings than that. It was a prime, important street in our city and we destroyed it for the #$%& car!

[flar]

I would estimate that about 3/4 of Hamilton's streetwall's have been demolished.

[raisethehammer]

Originally Posted by flar

I would estimate that about 3/4 of Hamilton's streetwall's have been demolished.

I think that's high.
Barton, King, James, Ottawa, Kenilworth, Parkdale, Locke, Westdale, Concession all have theirs fully in tact for the most part.
Main St between Queen and Wellington was ravaged as was York, Jackson Square, and parts of King William, Rebecca, Jackson, Catharine etc.....
Not to mention, residential areas in the lower city. Thank God, most are still almost fully intact. Durand was hardest hit, but otherwise, most areas haven't been harmed much by demolition.

[FairHamilton]

Originally Posted by flar

I would estimate that about 3/4 of Hamilton's streetwall's have been demolished.

Unfortunately, that's all past. Fortunately, we have the power to ensure it never makes it to 7/8's

[flar]

Originally Posted by raisethehammer

I think that's high.
Barton, King, James, Ottawa, Kenilworth, Parkdale, Locke, Westdale, Concession all have theirs fully in tact for the most part.
Main St between Queen and Wellington was ravaged as was York, Jackson Square, and parts of King William, Rebecca, Jackson, Catharine etc.....
Not to mention, residential areas in the lower city. Thank God, most are still almost fully intact. Durand was hardest hit, but otherwise, most areas haven't been harmed much by demolition.

I'm thinking about the core, I should have specified. The other ones out along Barton, King, Concession, Ottawa, etc stretch out quite a long way and make up for it a little. Most of those are holey compared to what was downtown. I can't imagine some of the buildings that were demolished downtown, entire streets erased.

[ryan_mcgreal]

Originally Posted by raisethehammer

great observation highwater re: heights of the buildings. Most are 3 and 4 floors. King St east of the core is generally 2 or 3. James North and King West are generally 3. That indicates to me that York through this stretch was as vibrant and dense as those other streets...

Boston (the city proper, not the larger metropolitan area) has 600,000 people living on 130 square kilometres, for a population density of 4,600 people per square kilometre.

Aside from a small financial district right downtown, the entire city is composed of row houses and three- to five-storey mixed use streetwalls.

Hamilton proper, by contrast, has 350,000 people living on 228 square kilometres, for a population density of 1,530 people per square kilometre.

[flar]

The lower city bounded by the 403, escarpment, harbour and Red Hill Valley has a population of 133,837 and an area of 49.16 km2 for a density of 2722.48 per km2. If you subtract the industrial census tracts, it's 126,983 in 32.12km2 for 3953.39 per km2. Between Queen, the rail corridor, Wentworth, and the Escarpment there is a population of 40,136 in 5.81 km2 for a population density of 6908.09 per km2. Not too shabby.

[Boomtown_Hamilton]

Originally Posted by omro

I have to say the Wikipedia pages on Hamilton are incredibly good, I've always been impressed by them and they were a huge selling point for me when Hamilton was just a place on the map before my first visit.

Thanks for the kind words omro,

I am glad to hear that it was a huge selling point for you. This was my primary motivation for doing the work that I did over there on wikipedia. Like has been said many times already in this forum the image that a lot of people have of our city that have never been here is the image they get of Hamilton whenever they make the drive over the Skyway bridge. For me personally I love that image especially at night time when the waterfront is lit up by the flames shooting up from those smokestacks at Stelco and Dofasco but that's just me.

So we have to come up with multiple ways, creative ways to get the word out. With me I'm all about marketing and promoting and whether you are running a business or running a city I believe that you can never do enough of the marketing and promotional work that needs to get done.

Wikipedia was a way I tried to use for this, web cams I think is the next logical way to go. I've also uploaded a few of the images on Google Earth that are on wikipedia. I still have a few more to add there as well.

I like the idea presented by flar regarding some form of a timely marketing blitz of our city in all of the Toronto and National dailys and magazines.

Thanks again for the kind words!

[Boomtown_Hamilton]

Originally Posted by ryan_mcgreal

Thank you for your very kind words. Honestly, it's not nearly so daunting a task as you might think. The trick is to recognize that any such campaign is a collaborative effort. I'm only one of several founding members, and I don't "own" the LRT campaign by any stretch, as it's a movement started and carried out by several dedicated people who do what we can with the time and resources we have.

We make decisions on a loose consensus basis and we stop frequently to assess how we're doing so we can make sure we're still being productive and effective.

If you're serious about starting a campaign to bring more film productions to Hamilton, I'd be glad to meet with you and share my experience being involved with the LRT campaign. You can reach me via email: [email protected]

Hey Ryan,

Thanks for the offer. I just may take you up on it.

For me personally the Film Studios are the way to go. Without getting into any details I'll just say that we've had the private sector have a go of it to try and start-up a Film Studio here in town and both times they failed and it was short-lived. Because of it the next person or group of people from the private sector may be a little hesitant because of these two previous failed attempts. This is where I feel the city needs to step in and take the initiative to start one up. The city does have the money to get involved in such a project despite what some people in this town may think. The Hamilton Film Office also have the numbers to back up the start-up of a studio. The Economic Development Department recognizes the TV/ film industry as a growth industry for the city of Hamilton. The two things working against them right now when trying to convince council to move ahead with this would be the two previous failed attempts by the private sector and the slow year in 2008 in Hamilton and Southern Ontario due to the strikes in Hollywood with the Screnwriters and the Actors Guilds. Prior to this season the film production numbers in Hamilton had gone up for 5 consecutive seasons. In addition to this last season TV/ film industry was a Billion dollar industry here in Ontario and 40% of that was right here in Hamilton, Ontario. With Toronto being the film hub of Ontario Hamilton is benefiting in two major ways:

(1) Hamilton is close enough to Toronto that we are getting all the spill-over work there into our city.

(2) Hamilton is just far enough away from Toronto that we lie just outside the Toronto film zone. The reason why this is important is because the province of Ontario offers film companies extra tax breaks if they shoot outside the Toronto Film Zone to encourage filming to other parts of the province.

Its not like if we build the studios they will come. We don't have any studios in Hamilton and they are coming here already. We've seen the film trucks all over town. Nicolas Cage is in town right now shooting a feature called "Kick-Ass". We've had some other big names in town to shoot films like Sean Connery, John Travolta, Robin Williams, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Wahlberg, Ron Howard, Russell Crowe, etc, etc....the thing is whenever they are here they always ask if we have a film studio. If we had a film studio here in town to offer these guys they would shoot here more often.

Last season when they were in town filming the "Incredible Hulk" all off our hotel rooms were booked solid. They eat in our restaurants, they shop in our malls, they pump a ton of money into our local economy. It is for these reasons and more that Hamilton's Economic Development Department recognizes this industry as a growth industry. The next logical step for Hamilton is to build a studio. The guys shooting the Hulk would have stayed here even longer if we had a film studio to offer them and because we did not have any to offer them they went back up the road to Toronto to finsih filming because right now in Southern Ontario that is where we have the film studios.

Now I say build a studio but we also have a number of factory and warehouse buildings in our industrial north-end that could be easily transformed into film studio, just as long as there's not too many support beams in them because with film studios you need large un-interupted space inside plus ideally you need the facility to be at least 3-stories in height.

Thanks for the offer Ryan. You will get an e-mail from me within a week.

[Boomtown_Hamilton]

Originally Posted by raisethehammer

I second that! Boomtown - are you the one responsible for those pages?? If so, my hats off to you. And congrats on the 'feature article' recently! Way to get word out about the Hammer!

Thank you Sir for the kind words.

I first took a look at wikipedia and the Hamilton articles there after reading up on a Paul Wilson "Streetbeat" article where he was talking about it. That article peaked my curiousity to go over there and check it out. When I got there the two things that really stuck out for me was that there wasn't a whole lot of info on Hamilton. The second thing I noticed was that the little info they had there on Hamilton was not very accurate and no one was citing their sources there. So I began with the clean-up work and started citing sources, started expanding on the Hamilton article to the point where it just became too long and I started to branch out to other sub-articles, everything from the History of Hamilton, to the Historical timeline of events, The Economic History, List of people from Hamilton, The Culture, The film industry, Sports in Hamilton, Streets of Hamilton, etc, etc....I had no idea it would grow to the size that it is today. I would come home from work late at night from the bakery and work on it for about 4 to six hours a night and piece by piece, day by day, the database there on Hamilton just grew to this monster we now have there.

The neat thing of helping to make the Hamilton article over there a "Featured article" is that when it happened Hamilton, Ontario became only the 45th city from around the world on wikipedia to reach that level and only the third in Canada. The other two from Canada to make it before-hand were Vancouver and Dawson Creek British Columbia. Not even Toronto has reached the "Featured article" over there.

As much as there is there now we can always add to it because things keep changing all the time. It was starting to take up a lot of my time and luckily for me being single and not having any kids to support or look after I have a ton of free time at my disposal which allowed for me to work over there on wikipedia. No one told me to do it and know one asked me to do it. I just felt that I had a job to do there and I rolled up my sleeves and I got cracking on it.

Thanks again for your kind words!