CBC as Peggy Cameron's Press Agent

[OldDartmouthMark]

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[q12]

Here you go a more level playing field:

[q12]

No matter how you look at it, the late 70's/early 80's skyline/waterfront still looks worse than 2022.

[Keith P.]

Amidst the controversy this week of CTV firing Lisa LaFlamme for reasons more murky than the depths of Halifax Harbour, one of the even bigger mysteries is how and why Sportsguy a.k.a. Paul Hollingsworth has retained a position at CTV for decades, first doing local sports, then graduating to TSN, then reverting back to CTV Atlantic as a news reporter and fill-in anchor despite showing no particular skill in reporting on anything other than hockey and baseball. His news reporting is almost always atrocious as this shows yet again. Connections must run deep.

[Keith P.]

Regarding Mark's collection of old photos they well illustrate the Halifax waterfront I remember downtown as I was growing up being a dirty, dingy, run-down collection of wooden buildings close to falling down mixed in with unremarkable and neglected short brick structures badly ignored for decades, few if any of which offered public access to the harbor or any particular public use. This was typical of many working waterfronts at the time until traditional cargo and ocean based industries moved away from downtowns thanks to containerization and better uses for such lands. You saw it in places like Boston and New York too. There seems to always be a fringe that wants things of the past preserved in amber forever, but amber is not what makes a place vibrant and growing. There is a discussion to be had as to how best to respect past history while that growth occurs - why the Irving arch could not have been paid tribute to when what is now known as Summit Place was designed as just one example - but to suggest we just keep things as they were 50 years ago is seriously flawed thinking when most of those things were already well past their best-before dates, not just in terms of condition and state of repair, but also in terms of their utility. Cities are living organisms and cannot just be frozen in time.

[q12]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

but to suggest we just keep things as they were 50 years ago is seriously flawed thinking when most of those things were already well past their best-before dates, not just in terms of condition and state of repair, but also in terms of their utility. Cities are living organisms and cannot just be frozen in time.

Halifax is incredibly lucky to have a massive Harbour and basin that allow for many working areas completely away from the Downtown's world class waterfront. I'm sure more could have been done to preserve pieces of the old downtown working waterfront but it is what it is. Just look at St. John's with it's tiny harbour that has limited their ability to copy Halifax's waterfront.

But then CTV had to interview the woman who moved to the city in 1977 and suggested it was better or that she would like us to go back to the "Lunenburg Style" that she saw in the old drawings and pictures. And then to top it all off they get Peggy Cameron to throw her "opinion" that we should only build four to six stories.

[DT Hfx]

If one had to pick a permanent one-way time travel either Halifax of 1960 or 2060 which would it be?

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by DT Hfx

If one had to pick a permanent one-way time travel either Halifax of 1960 or 2060 which would it be?

In 1960, much of the pre-war urbanity we've since lost would still be intact, but it would have been A: shabby, and B: imminently doomed. The city also would have been a much smaller, more parochial kind of place. OTOH, 2060 is a mystery.

I guess I'd go with the future, since the city--in spite of some missteps and false starts--is generally moving in an ever-improving direction.

[OldDartmouthMark]

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[OldDartmouthMark]

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[OldDartmouthMark]

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[someone123]

I don't get the nostalgia. My "nostalgia period" should be around 2005 or so and I have no problem admitting the city's just better now as far as urbanism goes (maybe you could debate housing prices etc. or other problems).

I think the higher resolution discussions of the past are more valuable than blanket statements that tall buildings are bad or old buildings are outdated. When I look at the old pictures I see a mix of good and bad. For example I don't see the demolition of the Irving oil tanks as a loss but I do think that the old Cunard Building or RBC blocks were big losses. It's a bit frustrating to look at how many nice fine-grained buildings there were around Hollis Street in the 1950's and see how much it went downhill by the 80's or so. Similarly I question the planning value of imposing height restrictions on good tower sites and permitting squat boxes like Waterside Centre over heritage buildings. Then again there are apparent bright spots like Queen's Marque.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by DT Hfx

If one had to pick a permanent one-way time travel either Halifax of 1960 or 2060 which would it be?

Since the "experts" proclaim that it will all be underwater by 2060, I'll take 1960.

It actually isn't too hard to imagine, since except for the newer buildings and much, much heavier traffic, the streets and roads are still the same for the most part, the only bicycles we had to deal with were those of kids on the sidewalk, and city government was just as inept but much smaller.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by DT Hfx

If one had to pick a permanent one-way time travel either Halifax of 1960 or 2060 which would it be?

The only thing worth salvaging from 1960 Halifax is Africville, otherwise it's an easy 2060.

[q12]

Originally Posted by JHikka

The only thing worth salvaging from 1960 Halifax is Africville, otherwise it's an easy 2060.

Racism in Halifax 1962 a CBC report:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ2OM03mtmg

Racism in Halifax Broadcast Date: June 24, 1962 Racist attitudes responsible for the miserable conditions of Africville are prevalent in the city of Halifax in the 1960s. In this footage from a 1962 CBC documentary called Close-up: Figure Your Colour Against Mine, a CBC reporter talks to "folks on the street" about racism in Canada. During an interview with a young black man, the reporter uses a derogatory term for black residents.

The only thing worth going back to the 60's in Halifax for is to listen to the best decade of music in history being played on CJCH and CHNS.

CJCH HALIFAX 1969:
https://lettheuniverseanswer.com/201...m-boston-1965/

https://soundcloud.com/105-9seaside-...social_sharing

[OldDartmouthMark]

[KMcK]

Originally Posted by DT Hfx

If one had to pick a permanent one-way time travel either Halifax of 1960 or 2060 which would it be?

Is permanently sending Peggy Cameron to 2060 an option?

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by q12

Racism in Halifax 1962 a CBC report:

Also a good point. Not that we're a post-racist society or anything today, but the nostalgia for earlier eras certainly overlooks the fact that the city (province, country) is certainly a much friendlier place now than in the past for a great many people. That has nothing to do with the quality of the built environment, exactly (the city can be both uglier and more socially equitable) but it's an aspect of this backward-looking instinct that gets overlooked.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Also a good point. Not that we're a post-racist society or anything today, but the nostalgia for earlier eras certainly overlooks the fact that the city (province, country) is certainly a much friendlier place now than in the past for a great many people. That has nothing to do with the quality of the built environment, exactly (the city can be both uglier and more socially equitable) but it's an aspect of this backward-looking instinct that gets overlooked.

While it's undeniable that people are more enlightened and less discriminatory today, and that is a good thing, I find that the past is often presented as a caricature. This is definitely true of a lot of historical Halifax stuff where at the time there was a variety of people of differing levels of enlightenment who were coping with trade-offs that provided important context that tends to be lost.

It interacts with NS negativity and Canadian attitudes toward the Atlantic region as well with a lot of people arguing that NS was particularly bad, while Canadians often don't really understand their history. A lot of places in Canada used to chase out or turn away black people, like the freed slaves in the 1700's. It's not true at all that there were a bunch of pluralistic societies around the world prior to 1960 and NS was a special place where people didn't get along. Everywhere was racist, and most places had no mix at all or had some extreme institutionally enforced caste system.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Also a good point. Not that we're a post-racist society or anything today, but the nostalgia for earlier eras certainly overlooks the fact that the city (province, country) is certainly a much friendlier place now than in the past for a great many people. That has nothing to do with the quality of the built environment, exactly (the city can be both uglier and more socially equitable) but it's an aspect of this backward-looking instinct that gets overlooked.

I want to clear something up. I posted about skylines of the past vs today, and since the vast wasteland of surface parking that happened in the 1970s and 1980s was being compared to today's built form, with the obvious conclusion that having it built up today is better than having it reserved for surface parking, I posted about that.

For some reason, people misinterpreted that the purpose of my posts were being nostalgic, and it was nothing about that. Then for some unknown reason, we had to start talking about systemic racism (Africville).

I was saying, as somebody old enough to have actually lived when there was something other than surface parking on the waterfront, that there was a certain charm to the working marine businesses there. And introduced the idea of a working waterfront not being a completely bad thing (i.e. nobody complains about people working in office buildings downtown). Regardless, I already knew the conclusion, as of course a finished downtown is nicer than a gritty, working one, and I didn't expect any appreciation for the idea that I was presenting.

My point was simply that I view the surface-lot era as a transition point between the old working waterfront, and today's developed waterfront. To my way of thinking, that's like comparing an empty lot where a building was demolished and let sit for four decades to a finished building. That's it. Full stop.

I deleted my above comments because I was tired of people misinterpreting them, but now when people are starting to talk about racism, I want to set the story straight that I did not speak of racism in any way at all. I was talking about built forms in terms of structures, planning, and how a city functions. I don't know why we are talking about Africville here, though there is a lot online to research. You could even start a thread about it if you want.