Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
After the fire that destroyed everything but the facade in the early '90s, Halifax Council of the day reacted in knee-jerk fashion to impassioned pleas by the Heritage Trust and other like-minded people to save the facade from demolition. I do not recall if there were pie in the sky promises of redevelopment making use of it. What occurred of course were the window openings facing Barrington being boarded up with artistic images of Charlie Chaplin that did not change for over 20 years as the lot was left derelict. The result was that it remained a decaying albatross around the neck of the street in that section for decades. The "horrible box" you refer to would have brought some degree of vitality and activity to this section of the street which has suffered from being a dead zone thanks to this and the equally decrepit Khyber for far too long.
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I didn't recall that it was city owned. IIRC, though, that area was in decline then, so I'm not sure how much of a loss it was, not having developed it for all those years. Maybe it could have been a surface parking lot? What really seems odd is how it just stood in suspended animation for something like 30 or 40 years.
Perhaps we would have been better off with a new building there, but it's not what happened. We have what we have, which seems to be at better result than that Argyle building I referred to. I would actually consider that one to be a dead zone, as it offers little to the public, unless you want to pause to read the cornerstone of the building that used to be there. Is there still a bank machine there?
Doesn't matter, though. It is what it is. All fabric of what makes up a city, all open for discussion, no matter how meaningless...