Quote:
Originally Posted by hipster duck
A building from 1789 in Canada is a museum piece, even in a place like Quebec City. The number of intact buildings in Canada that are this old is probably in the low hundreds. It should be given the highest heritage designation and the exterior should be restored to be faithful to its original design.
I mean, it's great that it's a living apartment building in a city rather than a museum piece on a set, like a Louisbourg or Upper Canada Village, but buildings this rare are often better off in institutional hands.
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Halifax is full of stuff like this. I was reading a paper on terrace housing in Canada a while back and it was mostly focused on Montreal. They mentioned in passing that the first terrace housing development in Canada was in Halifax. It is that stone building to the left of the wooden one on the corner.
I was reading about Imperial Oil's 1920 building at one point and part of the story casually mentioned that they tore down a dilapidated 1750's inn on the site in 1920 to build it. That was James Wolfe's base of operations in Halifax when he prepared for the Siege of Quebec. Another example is Prince Edward, Duke of Kent's townhouse which I think might have been demolished around the 60's as part of slum clearance. He lived in Halifax after 1800 and was Queen Victoria's father (there are a handful of Palladian buildings in town that he designed).
There is a cheesy 80's pomo mini clocktower that reminds me of a not-so-nice version of the old Kitchener City Hall clock tower. Except the clock itself is from 1767, and is supposedly the oldest working clock in Canada (or maybe oldest working public clock that you can go look at).
Not too long ago a bunch of historical material from the Seven Years' War (James Wolfe letters, 1719 edition of Robinson Crusoe, first edition Origin of Species, etc.) was stolen. It was eventually found in the house of a guy living in suburban Halifax. Turns out he had slowly stolen a bunch of material from Dalhousie over the years and that stuff was not properly tracked. Here is the story:
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/02/...artifacts-art/
Those who wish can visit the grave of General Robert Ross, the guy who "burned down the White House" and led the attacks on Washington and Baltimore. He was killed in 1814. He is buried in a downtown cemetery in Halifax. He has a nicer than average grave but it's not particularly well marked. In the US I think this would be some kind of major tourist attraction.
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That is going to be awesome. 
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