Morse's Tea Building Signage

[SignalHillHiker]

Excellent news.

But boo at the source saying "there's no story here". Maybe he should rethink his external communications plan if a non-story becomes one.

[someone123]

Starfish has done a lot of great restoration work in downtown Halifax. Here is the list of their properties: http://www.starfishproperties.ca/tor...io/halifax.php

I'm looking forward to seeing the new lobby space for Morse's Teas and the new lighting. That building already looks way better than it did back when its north facade had no ground floor entrance and that tacky, pointless downtown sign was still there.

[halifaxboyns]

I remember reading that restoration was required as part of the Baton Rouge approval or maybe it was something else? But this doesn't seem to be a big surprise...it was fading. If the restoration will keep it around for many more years, then great!

[JET]

something that we all agree on, that is something

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by JET

something that we all agree on, that is something

Totally...

[halifaxboyns]

Here is the report from the Heritage Advisory Committee and here are the minutes. The report doesn't talk about the Moore's Tea sign, but in the minutes the committee said it would be 'preferable' to retain the sign. In the report, there is an elevation drawing and it looks like the text of the sign would actually change from "Moore's Tea Company" to "The home of Moore's Tea Company". If that's the proposed change, I don't have an issue with it.

[Nifta]

How do you 'restore' something by completely obliterating the original?

[steve61]

Originally Posted by halifaxboyns

Here is the report from the Heritage Advisory Committee and here are the minutes. The report doesn't talk about the Moore's Tea sign, but in the minutes the committee said it would be 'preferable' to retain the sign. In the report, there is an elevation drawing and it looks like the text of the sign would actually change from "Moore's Tea Company" to "The home of Moore's Tea Company". If that's the proposed change, I don't have an issue with it.

The photos in the report are taken from all sides of the building. "The Home of Morse's Teas" already exists (or did until a couple of days ago) on the west side. The "Morse's Teas" sign is on the north wall. I also wonder why they would have painted over the old sign if they planned on simply restoring it. The letters are the the unpainted negative space which always gave the illusion of a different colour brick inlay. If they're going to now have painted letters on a white background it will lose a lot of what made it so unique.


http://s683.photobucket.com/albums/v...4.jpg&newest=1

[HalifaxRetales]

I heard it is being re worded to its original name "The Jerusalem Warehouse"

[Jstaleness]

Is there a chance the letters were covered in a film that will be pulled off again once the paint is cured? Exposing the old brick again?

[steve61]

Originally Posted by Jstaleness

Is there a chance the letters were covered in a film that will be pulled off again once the paint is cured? Exposing the old brick again?

Anything's possible. You'd think however that after all of the negative press and local outrage at the paint job over the past 2 days that if the intention was to just restore it, Reznick would have said as much to the press instead of the confusing references to the "Jerusalem Warehouse" being the "true" original name and ambiguous responses to direct questions.

Why let so much anger fester when you could diffuse it with one clear statement. My guess is because he fully intended/intends to change it to the Jerusalem Warehouse and didn't expect this level of backlash.

[fenwick16]

Just out of interest I looked up the "Jerusalem Warehouse" on the NS Archives and found the photo below. Here is the NS Archives link - http://gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/Rogers/album.asp?ID=74. Based on the description it is the building on the left, with the horse carriage in front (although the address seems to be different than it is today - the description on the NS Archives website states that the address was 261 and 263 Hollis Street).

(source: Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management, Halifax, NS)

[scooby074]

Originally Posted by steve61

My guess is because he fully intended/intends to change it to the Jerusalem Warehouse and didn't expect this level of backlash.

This is/was his intentions exactly! Look no further than his mention of "rebranding" as quoted in the Herald piece.

There is something about doing a job like this over a weekend that screams "sneaky" to me.

One would hope that this public outrage will persuade him to keep the Morse's Tea name..

[Dmajackson]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

Based on the description it is the building on the left, with the horse carriage in front (although the address seems to be different than it is today - the description on the NS Archives website states that the address was 261 and 263 Hollis Street).

The civic addresses in a city commonly change as the city is built out.

Halifax's system is based on a single-quadrant grid (top-left quandrant of a graph) where the civic addresses are given based on their distance from the south (x-axis) and east (y-axis). As the peninsula was developed it was necessary to renumber the existing lots to fit in with the new development. This crude drawing I made shows what I mean;



Calgary uses a combination of a 4-quadrant and intersection based numbering. In the urban centre each block spans 100 civic numbers (Along any AVE; 0-100 is between Centre & 1 ST, 100-200 is between 1 ST & 2 ST, ect). So for example;

2120 16 ST SW -> "21" indicates its between 21 & 22 AVE -> "20" is even so therefore on east side of street -> "16 ST" is the street the entrance is on -> SW is the quadrant of the city. Therefore I can say; The address is on the east side of 16 ST between 21 & 22 AVE in the southwest section of the city. This method also allows rough calculations to be done (ie 21 + 16 = 37 standard blocks from the "centre" of Calgary (Centre St Bridge) or 5 + 14 = 19 standard blocks to the future 11 ST SW LRT stop)).

Since Halifax's grid pattern has been filled out I imagine our mass civic renumbering days are finished unless we adopt another method.

Halifax's system is not based on blocks but rather a distance from an imaginary line so converting to Calgary's system would not work well. Also east-west the numbers randomly start at "5000". However if we were to convert for some reason using one-quadrant still; Inglis Street = 10 AVE, Vernon Street = "61 ST"/"11 ST", and so on. Most streets would not have a normal number because the block width is not lined up with the "100" rule. This is especially true for downtown where every other street would fail to work with the current numbers so Water St = 1 ST, Bedford = 1A ST, Hollis = 2 ST, Granville = 2A ST, and so on.

[terrynorthend]

Originally Posted by HaliStreaks

I think we're going to have to wait and see about what they'll replace it with. THEN we get out the axes and pitchforks and go after the heritage trust!

To TerryNorthEnd.. they have a blurb on the menu, and had it posted online when they opened there saying that the restaurant, due to it's location IN that building that it exclusively provides Morse's Tea to it's patrons.

Alright, I'll put my cynic's beanie away for today. Although I must say, I am feeling oddly queasy being on the same side as Tim Bosquet on this...

[someone123]

If the text were changed to something like "Jerusalem Warehouse" in the same style and typeface, would people still be upset? Why?

It makes me wonder if anybody was upset in 1910 when they painted on "Morse's Teas". Back then the building was already 70 years old.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by Dmajackson

The civic addresses in a city commonly change as the city is built out.

Halifax's system is based on a single-quadrant grid (top-left quandrant of a graph) where the civic addresses are given based on their distance from the south (x-axis) and east (y-axis). As the peninsula was developed it was necessary to renumber the existing lots to fit in with the new development. This crude drawing I made shows what I mean;

Thanks for the information Dmajackson. There seems to be a problem with the flickr image though.

[Dmajackson]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

Thanks for the information Dmajackson. There seems to be a problem with the flickr image though.

Did that fix it? I had it on private settings.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by someone123

If the text were changed to something like "Jerusalem Warehouse" in the same style and typeface, would people still be upset? Why?

It makes me wonder if anybody was upset in 1910 when they painted on "Morse's Teas". Back then the building was already 70 years old.

I thought the same thing... Anyway, as much nostalgia as people have including me, it's scary that private ownership seemingly means nothing.

What if I wanted to paint my house a different colour? Think about it.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by Dmajackson

Did that fix it? I had it on private settings.

It doesn't display for me but maybe others can see it ?