Quote:
Originally Posted by TheHonestMaple
I've tried to find images of the downtown in the late 1990s or early 2000s and can't really find anything. Which year would you say was the absolute low point?
Streetview from 2007 doesn't look great, but not that bad either.
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The 80s wre bad for the destruction of buildings and the suburbanization sprawl, but I'd say the worst was between 1997 and 2007. What others fail to mention is they also shut down "the loonie bins" as they called them which left a lot of people with mental health issues wandering downtown, muttering to themselves, crazy people running up to you - downtown just didn't feel.. safe. I was going to college at the time and the bus stoop back then was at gore park - it's since been moved a block over - but yeah you saw a lot of crazies in gore park - like a LOOOT. Now you see families with strollers trotting around liek it's nothing and you simply marvel..
Many many buildings were boarded up or just.. rotting after a century of neglect.. james st n was a mixed bag but most of it was boarded up - broke windows, shady stuff going on in alleyways, and the bingo hall which to many attracted a lower class of people to the downtown core. Thrifty type places and places with bars on the windows were everywhere..the collapse of the eatons center just sucked the life out of the core. I grew up in stoney creek and we kinda looked down on hamiltons as "hamiltonians" - those dirty lower class people who don't speak properly and buy clothes at k-mart etc.
Now go back to the 50s and you have an entirely different story - fur shops cigar shops jewelery shops - downtown was a place of class that you dressed up to go to - the eatons center had their giant windows full of christmas displays that people flocked to see - and many people lived above the businesses, sporting flags on the sides of buildings, as parades marched down king st - one only has to look back to the past to see the pride hamiltonians HAD in the city, when it was still mainly people who had grown up IN the city - the industrial workers who toiled hard (and ruined their health in the process) - they were grimy jobs, but they were jobs nonetheless.
There were also several department stores which brought people flocking - woolworths, kresgys, eatons, all in the downtown, where they are meant to be. Replaced by cash loaning places now and other such places.
Barton was its own township originally and it was hit the hardest with decline, as was cannon st - to this day they are still a symbol of hamiltons decline - the lister blocks state of disrepair was so bad thy actually used its current state at the time as one of the buildings in the silent hill movie. The rest was filmed in Brantford. The city felt like flint Michigan or Detroit - just a rust belt of things gone by
The lister block redevelopment changed EVERYTHING. Spidering out on both sides redevelopment came as people saw hamilton was serious in trying to turn things around - the lister block was a costly renovation with the white terracotta being restored and the entire interior being restored to its original standards after being almost entirely gutted. My friend opened an art gallery in the lister block after it was revived and I had my art in there so I got to appreciate its splendor
In addition gore park suffered a major setback with the cutting down of all of its mature trees - its bathrooms were paved over for fear of drugs deals gone wrong. The culture mostly changed - and I think the 80s brought along more of the worse drugs which ruined many lives in hamilton.
To many hamilton is still dirty, the people are still poor and in some peoples eyes lower class - remember the era of scooters everywhere ? Well that changed when the govt stopped handing them out like free candy - now you barely ever see them.
Hamilton is now going through a culture war. Seeing cheaper prices than toronto, torontonians are coming here, but they are expecting the same toronto lifestyle here as they had in toronto, and thus many eventually leave feeling disappointed, but many bringing their sorta "the world is all about me" mentality that big cities bring with them here, to hamiltons more friendly (sometimes too friendly) blue collar town vibe. Also some of the restaurants, esp on king william, have enormous prices and small servings that leave some feeling.. like it's a bit too.. pretentious. I mean it's fine to have those places of course but hamiltonians are used to affordable eating - esp these days. Hearty eating over ritzy eating.
They spiff up buildings which then skyrocket in price (gentrification), slowly pushing people out of areas they can no longer afford - this spawned a big backlashg a few years back of people vandalizing buildings, gluing locks etc as a way to protest, which led to a lot more affordable housing being proposed. And don't get me wrong - these buildings being revived is an amazing thing - but a buildng shouldnt have to be falling apart in order to have affordable rent. The price of rent in the downtown is now simply astronomical, and the jobs downtown don't reflect the price tag needed to pay for it - unless you work for say a bank.
The sad part is people still view affordable housing as a place where gungy lower class people live - as opposed to just making the city a place to live affordably. 13 years ago I moved into my apartment and was paying 675 a month - the unit next to me now pays 1800 - this isn't sustainable - it's purely greed.
We may be building bigger and better things finally in hamilton, but we may find at the end of the day it's none of us who end up living in the city anymore - but an entirely overturned generation of rich people working in toronto - hamilton really needed to focus on the fact that we can provide all those big name jobs here - we have the office buildings, we just need to lower the taxes and fill them. Bring industry back here, and not just small ma and pop shop stuff - don't make hamilton into a bedroom community like burlington or scarborough or mississauga.
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