Canadian skylines of the past

[SignalHillHiker]

Sorry all, didn't notice at the time how large my post on previous page was. Bumping this one from just now to start a new page.

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Zibi, but how it was in 1922. From Lost Ottawa on Facebook.



How it's going. Similar views last month, from harley613 on Flickr.

Photo_6553750_DJI_150_jpg_4015859_0_2021325114826_photo_original by harley613, on Flickr

Photo_6553616_DJI_16_jpg_4062345_0_202131719450_photo_original by harley613, on Flickr

[kool maudit]

St. John's is a crime scene.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

St. John's is a crime scene.

Atlantic Canada in general has not done a good job of preserving its heritage. What is left today is just a small fraction of what there was originally. Towns like Sydney and New Glasgow used to have large historic masonry buildings and now they don't. A lot of old forts and settlements from the 1700's have just crumbled away or been built over.

I don't know as much about Newfoundland but in Nova Scotia people will often say it is because of the bad economy. In my experience that is true only in an indirect way, in that stories about the economy provide cover for real estate speculators who are happy to tear down heritage buildings for a quick buck. As the economy has improved in NS, this culture has not really changed.

St. John's seems to do a better job of small scale renos on houses. Halifax is weirdly libertarian about this. The municipal council won't push even mild upkeep requirements or register buildings without the owner's approval even though it's permitted and the owner may be a shell company that speculatively purchased a stone building from 1820. The right of a property owner to strip a building down to the point where it becomes a plain vinyl box is sacrosanct. Many owners do a good job of this maintenance for their own reasons but there aren't a lot of nice neighbourhoods with consistently well-maintained older buildings.

[SignalHillHiker]

These days most people are pretty rabidly pro-heritage preservation, and the laws are decent. The City even dictates acceptable paint colours in some areas. All of this a result of the outrage following the construction of Atlantic Place - that was the point when we changed from wanting to modernize and not be a laughing stock to industrial mainland towns, to wanting to preserve what we had. Dorothy Wyatt and Shannie Duff (former Mayors/councillors) longed to see it come down before they die

These days, anything that gets destroyed generally follows the same process - owner (almost always an absentee landlord in Montreal) neglects it, leaving it empty for YEARS, until its condition is so bad it "cannot be saved due to the high cost" (their insistence, not mine). Then its torn down, goes to some developer. If the City flexes its muscle at all, it's only to require off-street parking, limit the height, and insist on some generally hideous faux heritage elements.

It's not all dying, though, of course. Can't stress enough that the majority want to preserve it. Every year there are numerous businesses and private homeowners who receive Southcott Awards for restoring their buildings in a historically accurate way.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by someone123

Atlantic Canada in general has not done a good job of preserving its heritage. What is left today is just a small fraction of what there was originally. Towns like Sydney and New Glasgow used to have large historic masonry buildings and now they don't. A lot of old forts and settlements from the 1700's have just crumbled away or been built over.

I don't know as much about Newfoundland but in Nova Scotia people will often say it is because of the bad economy. In my experience that is true only in an indirect way, in that stories about the economy provide cover for real estate speculators who are happy to tear down heritage buildings for a quick buck. As the economy has improved in NS, this culture has not really changed.

St. John's seems to do a better job of small scale renos on houses. Halifax is weirdly libertarian about this. The municipal council won't push even mild upkeep requirements or register buildings without the owner's approval even though it's permitted and the owner may be a shell company that speculatively purchased a stone building from 1820. The right of a property owner to strip a building down to the point where it becomes a plain vinyl box is sacrosanct. Many owners do a good job of this maintenance for their own reasons but there aren't a lot of nice neighbourhoods with consistently well-maintained older buildings.

What cities in Canada have done exceptionally well at preserving their heritage though, do you think Vancouver has done better? Actually for St. John's, if you go back through SHH's examples you will find that most of the streets shown are still pretty intact and look even better today, perhaps no small feat considering the expected lifespan of buildings, especially wooden ones. Most of the older buildings being changed or lost was due to such things as structural deterioration and lack of interest in maintaining character. The concept of preservation over replacement is relatively new at least in this part of the world. Today we have more awareness and different heritage values but it seems it still happens without excuse.

[SignalHillHiker]

A couple more heartbreakers...

This area actually looks more or less like this today, but just FEELS much smaller (i.e., this isn't even Water Street, our main drag. It's Duckworth):





Some of the commercial areas were, like the rowhouse areas, pretty well-preserved:







Lots of other parts were lost...




In total, in the Downtown West End, this is what was lost (most of the rest of the Downtown was relatively well-preserved):

[Architype]

Being lost due to a major fire or disaster, while equally sad or worse in result, is not as bad as losing heritage because of neglect, greed, incompetence, or indifference. So many cities had major fires, even Vancouver in its infancy.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

These days, anything that gets destroyed generally follows the same process - owner (almost always an absentee landlord in Montreal) neglects it, leaving it empty for YEARS, until its condition is so bad it "cannot be saved due to the high cost" (their insistence, not mine). Then its torn down, goes to some developer. If the City flexes its muscle at all, it's only to require off-street parking, limit the height, and insist on some generally hideous faux heritage elements.

Demolition by neglect. Quite common in Ottawa as well.

From the City's perspective, if the owner/developer does not contribute to re-election campaigns, they are terrible people who should be punished (with the City proceeding with strongly worded letters, deadline after deadline to fix certain issues, and small fines until the building falls down or needs to be demolished for safety reasons). If the owner/developer does contribute to re-election campaigns, well they are stewards to heritage preservation by keeping a wall or two.

[SignalHillHiker]

Architype, yeah it was a very different city before the fire. I've gone through SO MANY old photos since we last discussed this - things were generally more modest, and stone. It had an Irish seaside feel, looked like a beautiful old European town but certainly there had to be another like it just around the next bend. It did not look significant enough to be on its own.

I mean... this was our train station before:



And after:



So we lost a lot, especially gorgeous stone commercial and public buildings, including the main downtown library, etc. But we built a lot of nice shit from 1892 to the 1930s. The only real exception are the especially shittiest of the wooden rowhouse districts, all of which were hastily constructed to house the homeless from the fire.

So in hindsight I think it's objectively correct to say the 1892 fire indirectly increased our urbanity, while everything post-WWII has diminished it.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Architype

What cities in Canada have done exceptionally well at preserving their heritage though, do you think Vancouver has done better?

Why would people in Newfoundland compare their heritage preservation to Vancouver, a city that barely existed in 1887? Quebec and New England have generally done a better job at maintenance in the modern era. Europe is overall much better, to a degree that many developers would have us think is impossible due to economics. Europe even rebuilt a lot of stuff that was destroyed.

But for the most part I look at outcomes in terms of what happened versus what could have happened, not what happened in one place compared to some other place.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by someone123

Why would people in Newfoundland compare their heritage preservation to Vancouver, a city that barely existed in 1887? Quebec and New England have generally done a better job at maintenance in the modern era. Europe is overall much better, to a degree that many developers would have us think is impossible due to economics. Europe even rebuilt a lot of stuff that was destroyed.

But for the most part I look at outcomes in terms of what happened versus what could have happened, not what happened in one place compared to some other place.

That is to devalue Vancouver's heritage, I don't think people realize what has been lost here. Many of Vancouver's oldest buildings were built around the time of the St. John's fire (1892) or not long after, so there isn't that much difference in the ages when you put it in historical perspective. Most of St. Johns' oldest large structures which predate the fire are from around 1850 (i.e. the Basilica) or later; Vancouver's around 1900-1910. I live on a street in Vancouver which is probably older (1890s) than SHH's street, and I am about 2 miles from the city center.

[someone123]

I guess. I don't really have strong feelings or in depth knowledge about St. John's architecture and didn't intend to compare it to Vancouver or even bring Vancouver up.

I have lived around here for a while and have a great appreciation for Vancouver's historic architecture; I wish it were better preserved, and the DTES and Chinatown in particular were in better shape. But it's a young city. It had 26,133 people in 1901 and they were mostly recent arrivals. And it is not all about the age of the buildings. Vancouver has a late 19th century city plan that is fairly common around the West. There are not many North American cities with a layout like St. John's, and there's value to preserving fine-grained pedestrian-oriented buildings on those irregular and small blocks separated by narrow streets. Most of the newer buildings do a poor job of handling hills too.

I feel like if Atlantic Canada had been a bit wealthier in the postwar era or more in tune with its own history, or had been on the national radar more, a few of its cities would have had districts that were treated somewhat like old Quebec or Montreal.

[Architype]

Ironically, neglect or stagnation as we have in the DTES can be a great preserver of buildings. The DTES could become the trendy historic district one day, but with the unsolvable social situation there that will not happen soon. Prosperity is usually the great destroyer of buildings but so is too much decay. St. John's has lots of intangible storybook history, and as you say, older pre-industrial urban form which makes it more unique and historical, although not so much in actual building stock (relative to its actual 400 year age). But it has done pretty well in conservation, relatively better than Vancouver. Perhaps the best preserved cities in Canada are in Quebec.

[Black Star]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

A couple more heartbreakers...

This area actually looks more or less like this today, but just FEELS much smaller (i.e., this isn't even Water Street, our main drag. It's Duckworth):





Some of the commercial areas were, like the rowhouse areas, pretty well-preserved:







Lots of other parts were lost...




In total, in the Downtown West End, this is what was lost (most of the rest of the Downtown was relatively well-preserved):

Damn son...that's gold....

[Rico Rommheim]

McGill College, 1982


1981 McGill College, Montreal, 1982 by dianp, on Flickr

Place des Arts 1965


Montreal 1965 by dianp, on Flickr


Montreal 1965 by dianp, on Flickr


Montreal 1965 by dianp, on Flickr


Montreal 1965 by dianp, on Flickr


Montreal 1965 by dianp, on Flickr


Montreal 1965 by dianp, on Flickr

St-Paul street, 1975

Saint-Paul St, Old Montreal, 1975 by dianp, on Flickr

Duke street, 1981

Entrepôt Buchanan, Montreal, 1981 by dianp, on Flickr

Place Jacques-Cartier 1981

Place Jacques-Cartier, 1981 by dianp, on Flickr


Place Jacques-Cartier, 1981 by dianp, on Flickr


Place Jacques-Cartier, 1981 by dianp, on Flickr


Place Jacques-Cartier, 1981 by dianp, on Flickr

Notre-Dame street 1981

Place d'Armes, Montreal, 1981 by dianp, on Flickr

View from PVM, 1981

Montreal from Place Ville Marie, 1981 by dianp, on Flickr


Montreal from Place Ville Marie, 1981 by dianp, on Flickr


Montreal from Place Ville Marie, 1981 by dianp, on Flickr

Jeanne-Mance street july 1, 1982

Rue Jeanne-Mance, Montreal, 1982 by dianp, on Flickr

Laval street july 1 1982

Laval Street, Montreal, 1982 by dianp, on Flickr

Rue de Grandpré, Montreal, 1982

Rue de Grandpré, Montreal, 1982 by dianp, on Flickr

Marché Bonsecours, Old Montreal 1982

Marché Bonsecours, Old Montreal 1982 by dianp, on Flickr

[cityguy]

Love those Montreal pictures.

[MolsonExport]

some cool shots. Rue de Grandpré: does that stretch look anything like it did back then? Or has it been soul-sucked?

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by Architype

Ironically, neglect or stagnation as we have in the DTES can be a great preserver of buildings.

This is true, look at nearly all of downtown Winnipeg as an example of this, historic preservation through 50+ years of economic stagnation. They didn't really have an aggressive preservation strategy, and still don't... but their buildings were saved essentially because no one was building until quite recently.

Contrast that with Calgary and Edmonton where we've lost half or more of the significant historic buildings we once had because of explosive and near constant growth during that same, awful (in the sense of urban design "wisdom") time period.

[Rico Rommheim]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

some cool shots. Rue de Grandpré: does that stretch look anything like it did back then? Or has it been soul-sucked?

I actually pass by that street everyday. It's still got it's mojo.

[J.OT13]

Ottawa, 1965 from Lost Ottawa on Facebook. The majority is still around, with the exception of the city blocks centre right (Transportation Building on the corner is the only one saved as part of the Rideau Centre complex) and the white "Temporary" buildings, top left corner, now the site of the U.S. embassy. The "Temporaries" were wooden office buildings built quick and cheap to house a booming Civil Service during WWII. Many remained for decades all across the city, with the last being demolished in 2011. And of course, the tracks to Union are now gone, replaced with Colonel By Drive and multi-use pathways.