Canadian skylines of the past

[Chadillaccc]

1979


http://www.calgary.ca/General/Pages/Rec-100-historic-photos.aspx


Early 70s


http://theinvestorzone.com/2015/02/02/17-classic-calgary-postcards-that-will-take-you-way-back/

[Black Star]

Very cool.......

[Mrs Sauga]

Ottawa should have kept a low height limit like Washington did. And yes a terminated vista with the Peace Tower is lacking.

[craner]

Originally Posted by Mrs Sauga

Ottawa should have kept a low height limit like Washington did. And yes a terminated vista with the Peace Tower is lacking.

This has always bothered me about our capital - big missed opportunity that seems so obvious.

[Rico Rommheim]

I wounder if the original parliament building was aligned with Metcalfe, or was it a clumsy mistake made with the 1927 reconstruction? Anyways, its a real amateurish mistake. Shame, Toronto's city hall is by far the country's best terminated vista. Ottawa should of taken a page from that.


Place Ville-Marie


The trench PVM was built on


Another view of CN's trench




PVM site prep


Place Ville-Marie almost complete, then the tallest building in the British commonwealth


1964


CN's grandiose Central Station

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

I wounder if the original parliament building was aligned with Metcalfe, or was it a clumsy mistake made with the 1927 reconstruction? Anyways, its a real amateurish mistake. Shame, Toronto's city hall is by far the country's best terminated vista. Ottawa should of taken a page from that. ...

I believe that Metcalfe was laid out when "Parliament Hill" was still "Barracks Hill", so there was never an alignment with the Parliament building, original or reconstructed.

Content removed

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

I

CN's grandiose Central Station

Toronto got the extremely nice Great Hall and extremely shabby boarding/disembarking concourse (below the tracks), whereas Montreal got the banal, utilitarian exteriour but with a rather nice boarding/disembarking concourse. Put them both together (Great Hall + Montreal's boarding area) and you'd have a wicked station.

[MolsonExport]

Fuckn great shot. PVM and the best int'l tower in the country (CIBC) under construction.

[1overcosc]

Ottawa's problem with not being a grandiose capital stems entirely from the federal government's lack of interest in its federal capital.

The only time in Canada's history that the Canadian government ever really cared about its capital was under Pearson & Trudeau in the 1960s and 1970s... the exact time period when urban planning principles were at its worst.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Ottawa's problem with not being a grandiose capital stems entirely from the federal government's lack of interest in its federal capital.

The only time in Canada's history that the Canadian government ever really cared about its capital was under Pearson & Trudeau in the 1960s and 1970s... the exact time period when urban planning principles were at its worst.

And Mackenzie-King (again, urban planning at its worst), Laurier (rolled out the predecessor of the NCC, back when it was useful, partly credited for the Château Laurier and Union Station) and Borden (though none of his plans were ever implemented because of WWI and the re-building of the Centre Block after the February 1916... you know, priorities).

Chrétien didn't snub Ottawa completely, but a lot of projects were never realized, for better (Metcalfe Grand Boulevard) or worse (Portrait Gallery, Sports Hall of Fame).

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

And Mackenzie-King (again, urban planning at its worst), Laurier (rolled out the predecessor of the NCC, back when it was useful, partly credited for the Château Laurier and Union Station) and Borden (though none of his plans were ever implemented because of WWI and the re-building of the Centre Block after the February 1916... you know, priorities).

Chrétien didn't snub Ottawa completely, but a lot of projects were never realized, for better (Metcalfe Grand Boulevard) or worse (Portrait Gallery, Sports Hall of Fame).

I find the concourse at both stations to be terrible. Unions concourse days in their current state are numbered though. Speaking of Union, here is a cool rare look inside the original union stations platform. It was so small.

Source: www.thestar.com

[itom 987]

Someone tweaked that image with a marker.

[Chadillaccc]

An incredible shot of Montreal...




http://www.taylornoakes.com/2012/02/19/montreal-from-mount-royal-in-the-late-1950s/

[Rico Rommheim]

That's an incredible shot indeed Chadillac. The 1959 Montreal skyline was an interesting mix.

[Darkoshvilli]

And the tallest building in the city at that time is missing

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

St. John's seems pretty well preserved compared to most though.


Also, is that a dirt road in the top (1940s? 50s? 60s?) photo?

Yes.

Water Street was cobbled in the early 1900s. But literally that was it. Everything else was gravel until Confederation. Street cars used it, but still gravel.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Yes.

Water Street was cobbled in the early 1900s. But literally that was it. Everything else was gravel until Confederation. Street cars used it, but still gravel.

I'm pretty sure there was a reasonable amount of pavement in St. John's before confederation, but many of the poorer streets near downtown were totally neglected. Some of these did not have sewers either. The following quote suggests that there was some, even if it was limited (and most of it was probably in and around St. John's).

There were only 195 kilometres of paved roads in Newfoundland and Labrador before Confederation with Canada in 1949

http://www.heritage.nf.ca/society/post_1949_comm.html

[SignalHillHiker]

You may be right, I don't know.

But I can say I have seen thousands upon thousands upon thousands of pictures of St. John's from the entirety of the 1900s and I have NEVER found even a single one that, even drunk, could be interpreted as having any sort of road type other than gravel with the single exception of Water Street.

Now, I'm perfectly willing to change that and toss it aside if proven wrong... but, to date, nothing other than the above. And you wouldn't believe the records I've been through.

[Architype]

^ Sorry, I was being literal; if you go back to 1900 there were dirt roads (all over Canada), but 1945 would be quite different. You may need to ask someone who is around 70 or 80 yrs. old.

^ The great Montreal shots on the page are worth noting, showing Montreal at what I would think was it's era of peak influence.