Ugly Canada 2 (Only architecture, planning and design faux pas) - Page 61

stevanford1 · #**1201** Posted **Feb 10, 2019, 9:00 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by rousseau

Detroit is an ugly, spooky, dystopian wasteland outside of a few classic American skyscrapers downtown. Which makes it a fascinating place to drive around during daylight hours (you do drive everywhere, and...you don't do it at night).

Detroit is worth a day's exploring if you happen to be nearby or driving between Toronto and Chicago, but it takes a special kind of person devoted to the vagaries of urban decay to want to spend more time there. It really is all that bleakly oppressive.

Though this kind of disclaimer is probably catnip to SSPers who haven't been there.

I went there on a trip to work and the first thing my boss told me was “if someone bumps your car drive no matter what”. That advice came into full circle later on when someone did bump my car and I heard the sound of banging from behind my car. Needless to say I got the hell out of there and avoided driving in Detroit as much as possible. Thankfully I did not get carjacked and I did not have an encounter with a carjacker for the rest of my trip.

GeneralLeeTPHLS · #**1202** Posted **Feb 10, 2019, 9:07 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevanford1

Some Mississauga fuglys.

It's a turdly area. I have a friend who lives in a condo nearby, and he's commented on how the Crapitol towers have really small units that were unsufficient for his family when they moved there a few years ago....they moved out shortly to one of the older condo towers.

I used to live for a few years across the street from this Postmodern crap....which doesn't look awful, but with the layout and parking, it's fugly.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.56841...=en&authuser=0
Also, the boorish office complex next door....and then the fields....

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.56701...=en&authuser=0
Here's just more generic Missingsausage scenery...bleakhttps://www.google.ca/maps/@43.55716...=en&authuser=0

rousseau · #**1203** Posted **Feb 10, 2019, 9:20 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevanford1

I went there on a trip to work and the first thing my boss told me was “if someone bumps your car drive no matter what”. That advice came into full circle later on when someone did bump my car and I heard the sound of banging from behind my car. Needless to say I got the hell out of there and avoided driving in Detroit as much as possible. Thankfully I did not get carjacked and I did not have an encounter with a carjacker for the rest of my trip.

I've heard gunshots there. Seen cars riddled with bullet holes next to me at stoplights. Been on the receiving end of intense, unfriendly stares from locals sitting on their front porches on side streets that I was driving through.

Though I've also had friendly encounters. And really, these days the CBD itself is probably as safe as any American downtown. If you're in the area you should go to Ann Arbor as well, as it's a classic American college town featuring everything that that entails.

stevanford1 · #**1204** Posted **Feb 10, 2019, 9:20 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeneralLeeTPHLS

It's a turdly area. I have a friend who lives in a condo nearby, and he's commented on how the Crapitol towers have really small units that were unsufficient for his family when they moved there a few years ago....they moved out shortly to one of the older condo towers.

I used to live for a few years across the street from this Postmodern crap....which doesn't look awful, but with the layout and parking, it's fugly.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.56841...=en&authuser=0
Also, the boorish office complex next door....and then the fields....

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.56701...=en&authuser=0
Here's just more generic Missingsausage scenery...bleakhttps://www.google.ca/maps/@43.55716...=en&authuser=0

All awful. That strip mall has one of the stupidest layouts I have ever seen.

stevanford1 · #**1205** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 12:45 AM**

Some more Laval ugliness.

Well we're off to a lovely start aren't we?
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.6071...7i16384!8i8192

Big Box Dreck.
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.6099...7i16384!8i8192

Ugly Apartments.
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.6022...7i16384!8i8192

Downtown Laval, a bustling architecturally amazing city.
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5822...thumbfov%3D100

Seriously, isn't Laval amazing?
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5830...7i16384!8i8192

The king of em all.
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5628...7i13312!8i6656

They Built some other fuglys around Clockzilla as well.
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5609...7i16384!8i8192

vid · #**1206** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 12:47 AM**

Can you do one for Thunder Bay?

Start here.

O-tacular · #**1207** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 1:24 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevanford1

The king of em all.
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5628...7i13312!8i6656

They Built some other fuglys around Clockzilla as well.
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5609...7i16384!8i8192

It’s funny I’ve never noticed the name of the street Clockzilla is on. Boulevard de L’avenir. Blvd of the future. Clockzilla is the future!

stevanford1 · #**1208** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 1:29 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by vid

Can you do one for Thunder Bay?

Start here.

It would be a pleasure! I’ll do it sometime tomorrow morning when my laptops all charged up. I also wanna do Waterloo and London

stevanford1 · #**1209** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 1:29 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by O-tacular

It’s funny I’ve never noticed the name of the street Clockzilla is on. Boulevard de L’avenir. Blvd of the future. Clockzilla is the future!

What a nightmarish future of mishmashed stucco horrid balconies and clock towers.

Proof Sheet · #**1210** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 3:46 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by rousseau

Detroit is an ugly, spooky, dystopian wasteland outside of a few classic American skyscrapers downtown. Which makes it a fascinating place to drive around during daylight hours (you do drive everywhere, and...you don't do it at night).

Detroit is worth a day's exploring if you happen to be nearby or driving between Toronto and Chicago, but it takes a special kind of person devoted to the vagaries of urban decay to want to spend more time there. It really is all that bleakly oppressive.

Though this kind of disclaimer is probably catnip to SSPers who haven't been there.

In the summer of 1986 my GF at the time was working in Windsor. I dropped her off at work in her car at about 8:30 and picked her up at about 5:30. During that time I did some urban exploring in Detroit. Went to a drug store/liquor store in downtown with the standard cashier behind bullet proof glass, bought some liquor I'd never heard of before that was cheap, went to a park and saw some locals smoking crack (first time for me to see that), ended up on this street

https://goo.gl/maps/qce5muaNRUn

which is you're into grit/urban decay/abadonment porn is a must see and in 1986 the street was more intact but still very grim

and basically drove around all day looking with amazement at all the abandonment. At the time, I lived in Toronto and had lived in Waterloo and small town England, so Detroit was one of the worst places I'd been to (since then I've been to Gary, East St Louis, some banlieu's in Paris.

The next day we went with some of her work colleagues to a mexican restauarant in the Mexcian district of Detroit and while waiting for a table somebody got fatally shot in the parking lot (that our car was in). My GF assured me that this was a safe trendy area of Detroit. After the shooting all I could say to the Windsorites was 'well I'm definitely not in Yorkville'

vid · #**1211** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 3:56 AM**

I think what fascinates us most about Detroit is that it has a very life after humans vibe to it, and we're fascinated by death so we get drawn to this kind of thing.

Also the resolution of those Streetview images is amazing, they've come a long way.

OK Holy fuck, I went one block south and it's like a different city???? This is pretty amazing too. As a human, I love contrasts and juxtapositions.

Proof Sheet · #**1212** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 11:38 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by vid

I think what fascinates us most about Detroit is that it has a very life after humans vibe to it, and we're fascinated by death so we get drawn to this kind of thing.

Also the resolution of those Streetview images is amazing, they've come a long way.

OK Holy fuck, I went one block south and it's like a different city???? This is pretty amazing too. As a human, I love contrasts and juxtapositions.

Yes, the image you linked and the one I linked are less than 1 km apart and both in the 'City of Detroit' I would imagine that the natural shopping destinations of the people who live in your link would not be the 'party shops' that tend to dominate Detroit.

A great series on Netflix set in Detroit is Low Winter Sun.

stevanford1 · #**1213** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 1:54 PM**

Some Thunder Bay fuglys.

This is the extent of the Intercity.
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.4100...7i13312!8i6656

Thunder Bay: Desolate Wasteland and Shopping Center
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.4031...7i13312!8i6656

Here we have Thunder Bays most chic apartments, Les Prison
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.3816...7i13312!8i6656

Giant brick and stucco mishmash.
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.3841...7i13312!8i6656

Obviously windows did not factor into the budget here.
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.3686...7i13312!8i6656

The worst part about these homes is that they back onto a Sewage Plant. I shit you not.
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.3974...7i13312!8i6656

Just plain bad.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@48.38302...2!8i6656?hl=en

Confederation College looks like a juvenile detention center.
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.4029...7i13312!8i6656

Shittybank
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.4053...7i13312!8i6656

Your final Chapter
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.4111...7i13312!8i6656

The local Cineplex has an oversized classic Cinema arch. This is as fugly as one would expect.
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.3984...7i13312!8i6656

We end with this bustling commercial district with five star restaurants to boot.
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.4056...7i13312!8i6656

Acajack · #**1214** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 2:14 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Proof Sheet

https://goo.gl/maps/fj69GbLotZG2

Not in Canada, but in that beacon of urbanity, Detroit, wtf is this place. I bet the walls inside could tell some stories.

Looks like no windows.

That look is actually quite common in Detroit and other extremely blighted cities in the U.S.

I take it there are probably a few reasons for it: cheaper maintenance, security, etc.

You almost never see this in Canada.

Acajack · #**1215** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 2:27 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by rousseau

I've heard gunshots there. Seen cars riddled with bullet holes next to me at stoplights. Been on the receiving end of intense, unfriendly stares from locals sitting on their front porches on side streets that I was driving through.
.

I've never had any "incidents" in Detroit, and in fact my only urban "incident" in the U.S. was in Buffalo. Driving through a not-so-nice area in broad daylight with my then-girlfriend, a bunch of teenagers threw bottles at our car. I only heard the banging on the back bumper as I had driven well past them. I looked in the mirror and saw the bunch of them laughing their asses off.

We didn't panic but we did drive with purpose to get out of that part of town.

When I was a kid on family road trips I was the designated navigator as I had my nose in maps all the time. Unbeknownst to my parents, when in the U.S. I used to purposefully lead us into "interesting" neighbourhoods of big cities, claiming that this was the "best route". We never got into trouble - we wouldn't have driven in unfamiliar cities after dark anyway. But every once in a while my dad would say "Jack are you sure this is the right way?", and I'd answer: "Yes dad, the Interstate on-ramp is just after the next block of crackhouses..."

stevanford1 · #**1216** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 2:32 PM**

kwoldtimer · #**1217** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 3:49 PM**

I’ve always bee surprised that Waterloo doesn’t get more “love” in this thread. It’s not in the local culture to do things “for nice” and, despite some award-winning exceptions, functionality rules. Kitchener has an old school, post-industrial ugliness to it that’s understandable, but Waterloo with its wealth and academic/high tech boom has little excuse. The new student housing zone is, imo, the ugliest neighbourhood in Canada, although the newer projects have shown iimprovement.

stevanford1 · #**1218** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 4:36 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

I’ve always bee surprised that Waterloo doesn’t get more “love” in this thread. It’s not in the local culture to do things “for nice” and, despite some award-winning exceptions, functionality rules. Kitchener has an old school, post-industrial ugliness to it that’s understandable, but Waterloo with its wealth and academic/high tech boom has little excuse. The new student housing zone is, imo, the ugliest neighbourhood in Canada, although the newer projects have shown iimprovement.

stevanford1 · #**1219** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 5:03 PM**

stevanford1 · #**1220** Posted **Feb 11, 2019, 5:11 PM**

Of all the fugliness in London I would like to nominate the jai.....err I mean Courthouse as the worst.

It dominates the skyline, has barely any windows, turns its back on the street, and just generally looks abysmal.

I can only imagine the amount of natural light in this building.