Quote:
Originally Posted by mcmcclassic
King's Wharf is doing wonders for DT Dartmouth so far. One thing I have noticed though is that by bringing these upscale units to the area, the businesses in the community are at polar opposite ends.
Everything seems to be either real low end (pawn shops, The Landing, Whiskey's, etc.) or for the real well-off individual (Nectar, Spa, etc.). For those in between those wealth levels (i.e most people), there isn't much there (with the exception of Celtic Corner). There are business opportunities DT for sure.
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Most or all of the businesses you mentioned predate any aftereffects of King's Wharf, I believe.
If you look into it historically (not that I'm old enough to have experienced "history"...lol), I think you'll find that the low-end businesses such as the pawn shops, etc. are all an offshoot of when the downtown went downhill many years ago.
This is how I remember it (perhaps some of our more "experienced"
posters can fill in the blanks):
- I remember the late sixties/early seventies downtown. At that time, the downtown core (lower Portland Street, Commercial Street [which is what they called Alderney Drive before the realignment], and some of the adjoining side streets) comprised the main shopping area for DT Dartmouth. Of course there was also the Dartmouth Shopping Centre, which I believe was built in the late fifties (likely to take advantage of its location next to the "new" Macdonald Bridge). Other than Woolworth's I recall that just about all the businesses were small shops, typically family owned, that focused on giving good service to the customer. The ones that come to mind are Hiltz's Shoes on Commercial, Neiforth Furnishings I think, Jacobson's, The Five and Dime (predates me a little, but was located where the Landing is now), The Owl Drug Store, Myer's Sports store, Fisher's Stationery, Peoples' Restaurant, The Mayfair Theatre, etc. (there were many more who's names escape me at the moment). These all appeared to be successful businesses and the area seemed bright and vibrant to me at the time. A place where you wouldn't be nervous walking down the street - in fact quite the opposite.
- When Mic Mac Mall opened in the early seventies, I can recall one by one these family businesses starting to falter as people started flocking to the malls instead of frequenting the downtown shopping area, slowly being replaced over the years by pawn shops, strip bars, seedy-looking characters in the street, and the whole downtown area generally became forgotten and run down. It got to the point where I would be looking over my shoulder if I was coming home from the ferry at night.
- Other things started to occur as well during that time which started picking away at the residential aspect of the area. Such as a whole block disappearing (where my grandmother lived, incidentally) to facilitate Queen Square (ugly building imho) and the attached parkade. The run-down Belmont motel was torn down to make room for the Belmont House building, which is an improvement, but its parkade took out some residential including a small store on the corner of Edward and Ochterloney. There were many other residences in the area which were replaced with parking lots and the like, a symptom of a transforming neighborhood, I believe.
- Newer business like Nectar (which was built on the site of Gene Patterson's store on Ochterloney), etc. seem to be part of a slow revitalization of the neighborhood, which to me started a slow turn around with the building of the Admiralty Place condo building back in the eighties. Don't know if that was any sort of kindling point or not, but it seemed to be coincidental. The spa next to Nectar has been there quite a long time, actually, I think since the eighties.
All that said, I still see the area turning around but it has been a really slow, slow process, which is why I believe we still see some of the low-end stragglers (pawn shops, etc.) still taking advantage of low rent, etc., still hanging on. My hope is that projects like King's Wharf will give the area the kick in the pants that it needs to come back from the depths of despair that I watched it fall into 40 years ago.
Note: I'm sure some of the above is not 100% historically correct, as I'm purely going by my memory and personal experience.
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