Old Halifax

[kph06]

Here's an interesting photo of expansion on the VG from the Herald's Community section.


"The steel skeleton of the Centennial Building of the Victoria General Hospital on Tower Road in Halifax was due to be completed in a couple of weeks when this photo appeared on Dec. 31, 1964, according to Manual Zive, chairman of the hospital board." - The Chronicle Herald archive

[someone123]

George Street. Tearing down some of these buildings was a mistake:


Source

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by someone123

George Street. Tearing down some of these buildings was a mistake:

Nice find. For comparison I pasted a link of the current view from Google Street View but slightly closer to the harbour on George Street - http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=&q=geo...8.36,,0,-10.09 . (It takes a few seconds to load).

Although from a viewpoint of nostalgia, I agree with your statement, but from a practical viewpoint, the low ceilings and inadequate building code standards compared to current standards would tend to sway the argument towards modern buildings. It is fortunate that some of the buildings in the old image still exist. Most of the the old buildings on the right side of the street are gone. But I think the two on the left side still exist. PS: I think one on the right side of George Street still exists also(?) Is this one in the old image? - http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=&q=geo...,0.008256&z=18. I think that it is but it is just barely visible. And of course the old town clock at the top of George Street is still there.

I am glad that Halifax is a mix of old and new buildings. In the Street View image, the newer Bank of Montreal tower looks good and the TD Bank tower is passable, but the newer Royal Bank tower didn't add anything to George Street. These newer towers are all almost 40 years old now.

Question: Would George Street in the old picture have been dirt as it appears to be? If it was dirt then it must have been difficult to maintain.

[JET]

Originally Posted by someone123

George Street. Tearing down some of these buildings was a mistake:


Source

Where the TD bank is located there was a restaurant called Sanford's, second story, great food, lovely building. There have been significant losses. I'm not a fan of facades, but...

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by JET

Where the TD bank is located there was a restaurant called Sanford's, second story, great food, lovely building. There have been significant losses. I'm not a fan of facades, but...

Saving some of the facades would have been a benefit to Halifax, if the towers could have been built on top. The resulting buildings would have maintained their historical appearance but they would have been brought up to functional modern buildings with modern, safer building codes. However, I don't think it is economically practical to maintain many old buildings in their current form. The Founders Square is a good example of saving the historical appearance and making buildings economically functional with modern building codes.

[gm_scott]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

Saving some of the facades would have been a benefit to Halifax, if the towers could have been built on top. The resulting buildings would have maintained their historical appearance but they would have been brought up to functional modern buildings with modern, safer building codes. However, I don't think it is economically practical to maintain many old buildings in their current form. The Founders Square is a good example of saving the historical appearance and making buildings economically functional with modern building codes.

Some of the facades are definitely worth saving, but it's nice walking in any city and looking at something modern. If Halifax was made up of these new developments built with old facades, I think for the pedestrian on the street level things would get very boring. Halifax would look great in skyline shots, but for anyone walking around in the downtown they wouldn't see Halifax as very progressive. I'm not saying tear down everything old, I just like some modern buildings thrown in. I don't know if these buildings in question were worth saving though, but I'm guessing probably not.

[halifaxboyns]

That's part of the whole HT argument that I will never understand. They say they want to preserve heritage, yet when someone proposed to do so but incorporate modern buildings - they go nuts?

I challenged them a while back and asked them why they were not more supportive of that idea because you got the best of both worlds. The basic response was that this kind of thing 'still destroyed the history because of the modern building above'. So I asked them - well why do many of the old historic cities in Europe do that? The answer - those cities cave to developers. Whatever. So, the HT: It's their way or no way.

[someone123]

Office towers could have been built nearby. There were plenty of sites in Halifax with marginal buildings -- many of those are now parking lots.

In places like Quebec City there is far more emphasis on preservation, but in Halifax we get excuses. You can also look to Europe to see many well-preserved cities. Somehow they managed the building code issues without bulldozing Paris.

[Keith P.]

That's an interesting pic, but I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion that those buildings were so special.

Keep in mind that just about everything on the left side of that photo still stands. So it is the ones on the right that we are talking about, which is where the BMO Tower, the Royal Bank Tower, and the TD Tower are located.

Are those great buildings? Arguably no, but neither are these. They are not the British Museum. They are the typical Halifax 19th-century 3 storey walkups, and while they had some interesting detailing, they were nothing particularly special even when they were new. The owners allowed them to run down over their lives. They were uneconomical at the end and were replaced with something new. That's what happens in societies. You do not live in a time warp, despite the best efforts of the HT.

Remarkable old buildings deserve to get saved. I do not put these in that category, any more than I would argue that the aforementioned towers should be saved in the future.

[halifaxboyns]

What I was trying to say was that they could have been saved (even though I agree with Keith - they are pretty typical for Halifax) and then had modern additions to them. But they weren't.

My issue with HT is that they fail to see big picture and think about ways to accomplish both new additions and saving older buildings. Someone mentioned Founder's Square - that's what i'm trying to say could've happened with these (something along that lines). Either way, the HT can't see beyond their own blinders.

[spaustin]

The saddest part of the shot is look at the bustle on the street! You don't see that anymore anywhere Downtown except for on Spring Garden. We've sadly forgotten how to build good streets. Take a look at most modern buildings built into the side of hills in this city. They tend to all be hostile to the street below because they're really just too big for their location and their design isn't sympathetic (Centennial, Joseph Howe, bank towers, Metro Centre etc). Contrast that with the fine grain of those od Halifax buildings in the picture that kind of climb up the slope. That's sadly all gone. The only street that runs up a hill in this city that actually still works as a street and not just as a path to get between cross-streets is Blowers.

[Grav]

We cant be deluded by these grainy old pictures from 60 years ago. We are living in a city. Skyscrapers towering into the sky, down on the street they will have shear walls of marble, concrete and brick. Cars rush through the city making it a noisy unpleasant space for people to be and move through no matter what the buildings look like on the street level its still an unpleasant human habitat.

Back in days of those old pictures there wasnt as much traffic and retail was spread all over the downtown core. As more people got cars and downtown streets go busier and busier shopping downtown suddenly was very inconvenient having to cross multiple busy streets to get from shop to shop. People were sick of it. Thus they demanded planned shopping centers free of traffic. Downtown public squares with fountains, trees and art made by cutting off small unnecessary streets. Buildings interconnected by tunnels with public friendly indoor spaces to get away from the noise of the downtown core. Cars and people were separated.

NOW we have current building trends demand for a more old fasioned looking downtown with these old facades and street style retail scattered across downtown. Malls and super blocks are being demolished and broken up to allow noisy cars to zoom through, and urban planners are against skyways saying "cities thrive when people are on the street", despite the fact city center streets are an unfriendly human habitat. WHY? Because of these grainy pictures of our city in a state only seniors remember? I dont understand it. Maybe for a small town these methods would be ideal. But for a city its so counterproductive.

[planarchy]

Originally Posted by Grav

We cant be deluded by these grainy old pictures from 60 years ago. We are living in a city. Skyscrapers towering into the sky, down on the street they will have shear walls of marble, concrete and brick. Cars rush through the city making it a noisy unpleasant space for people to be and move through no matter what the buildings look like on the street level its still an unpleasant human habitat.

Back in days of those old pictures there wasnt as much traffic and retail was spread all over the downtown core. As more people got cars and downtown streets go busier and busier shopping downtown suddenly was very inconvenient having to cross multiple busy streets to get from shop to shop. People were sick of it. Thus they demanded planned shopping centers free of traffic. Downtown public squares with fountains, trees and art made by cutting off small unnecessary streets. Buildings interconnected by tunnels with public friendly indoor spaces to get away from the noise of the downtown core. Cars and people were separated.

NOW we have current building trends demand for a more old fasioned looking downtown with these old facades and street style retail scattered across downtown. Malls and super blocks are being demolished and broken up to allow noisy cars to zoom through, and urban planners are against skyways saying "cities thrive when people are on the street", despite the fact city center streets are an unfriendly human habitat. WHY? Because of these grainy pictures of our city in a state only seniors remember? I dont understand it. Maybe for a small town these methods would be ideal. But for a city its so counterproductive.

Talk about a timewarp. While I admire your strong belief in what most working in fields related to urban development would see as terribly outdated, the fact is that what you are describing is no better and has been proven time and time again as detrimental to general livability and economic viability of city centres. There are countless examples of current building trends reversing inner city decay - to the benefit of residents and investors. There is certainly lots to criticize about modern urban planning and building practices, but all you are doing is replace one nostalgic urban ideal for a more recent one. To say this revisiting of patterns and techniques in urban development is counterproductive, while remaining so attached to your modernist ideal - which in many ways set cities back decades - is baffling.

I find your love for anti-urban elements like interior malls, superblocks and pedways somewhat disturbing. There. I said it. Ha!

[alps]

Yeah...the Spring Garden Road area is modern, dense, urban, but also one of the most walkable and pleasant spots in the city because it retains the sort of streetscape Grav might consider old-fashioned.

[Grav]

Spring Garden road is very chaotic. The wide variety of retail is a draw there. The street itself is an unpleasant obstacle course to navigate its a major busy roadway which is noisy and dangerous. Navigating it is often met with confusing situations. One such situations is the; "There are no cars coming but the sign says dont walk, should I run for it? should I wait?". Some people do make a run for it. Which causes confusion by others wanting to do the same thing. Some people will follow, some will step out into the street just to jump back out of fear. People dont like to wait to cross the street nor do they like to wait for traffic. Spring garden is notorious for J walkers which proves that theory. Not to mention the beggers the line the street which cause people to speed up their pace while navigating shop to shop. Nobody dwells and relaxes on the sidewalks even in the summer. They are in more pedestrian friendly areas like the Malls or the park area in front of the Library.

Another theory I have about the Retail half of Spring Garden is it essentially acts as a shopping mall. It has Anchors which are the Mills and Duggers departments Stores, Petes Frootique, Empire and the giant 24 hour shoppers. These venues being so close together support each other and the smaller shops between. Cars being able to zoom through have nothing to do with its vitality. They just make it an unpleasant place to navigate. If the street were to be cut off from traffic, it would still thrive so long as it had its anchors. It would also be a much more pleasant place to shop and navigate and relax

A shopping mall needs an anchor! Barrington has no anchors anymore thus it died, the Maritime Mall never had an anchor and it died. It is at the bottom of Spring Garden but is too far and separated from the main area and its anchor stores by the expanse of cemetery and that big church. I also find alot of city center malls have failed because they were designed with no anchor or had a department store which was part of a chain that no longer exists like Scotia Square and Woolco. We have to be careful because to add an anchor to these venues and streets and revive the them as a shopping destination would be competition against Spring Garden road... Though Scotia Square would be a more logical place to be the retail center of the city. Things would become unbalanced. Like the Halifax shopping center growing and running West End Mall into the ground, or Dartmouth Crossing taking Walmart from Penhorn and closing it down.

[Grav]

Originally Posted by planarchy

Talk about a timewarp. While I admire your strong belief in what most working in fields related to urban development would see as terribly outdated, the fact is that what you are describing is no better and has been proven time and time again as detrimental to general livability and economic viability of city centres. There are countless examples of current building trends reversing inner city decay - to the benefit of residents and investors. There is certainly lots to criticize about modern urban planning and building practices, but all you are doing is replace one nostalgic urban ideal for a more recent one. To say this revisiting of patterns and techniques in urban development is counterproductive, while remaining so attached to your modernist ideal - which in many ways set cities back decades - is baffling.

I find your love for anti-urban elements like interior malls, superblocks and pedways somewhat disturbing. There. I said it. Ha!

Here is an informative video on the subject. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj0UTOXwskI

This Mall is an outdoor development. Not the best choice for Nova Scotia with its cold wet climate, but its still same idea. It still exists today and the city is considering it and its many works of art and fountains to be given historic status! The retail is suffering though, because in addition to anchors. A mall needs a certain number of people living nearby. Alot of these projects never included much housing. Something we now realize today and can fix!

And today in the Metro newspaper I was reading how the Winter Games organizers were happy with our interconnected downtown core. Four major downtown Hotels all connected to shopping and the WTCC which has recreation facilities for the athletes. “It’s not a necessity at any point for athletes to go outside unless they want to, so it’s a nice design,” said Bill Moore, volunteer chair of athletes’ services. Link http://www.metronews.ca/halifax/loca...he-hospitality

[planarchy]

Originally Posted by Grav

Spring Garden road is very chaotic. The wide variety of retail is a draw there. The street itself is an unpleasant obstacle course to navigate its a major busy roadway which is noisy and dangerous. Navigating it is often met with confusing situations. One such situations is the; "There are no cars coming but the sign says dont walk, should I run for it? should I wait?". Some people do make a run for it. Which causes confusion by others wanting to do the same thing. Some people will follow, some will step out into the street just to jump back out of fear. People dont like to wait to cross the street nor do they like to wait for traffic. Spring garden is notorious for J walkers which proves that theory. Not to mention the beggers the line the street which cause people to speed up their pace while navigating shop to shop. Nobody dwells and relaxes on the sidewalks even in the summer. They are in more pedestrian friendly areas like the Malls or the park area in front of the Library.

I really don't know if you are serious ?? Cities are chaotic, complex, etc. Halifax in general is barely a city, relatively calm, easy to navigate. Sure, some streetscapes can be improved - eg. wider sidewalks on Spring Garden, but it is a great street. And if homeless people make you walk faster, that is your issue and not necessarily shared with everyone. They still exist when you are in strolling around in the safety of the mall.

I would also assume, based on your expressed experiences, that you would encourage the proliferation of private "public" spaces, cctv cameras, gated enclaves, etc., or, in general, a more exclusive take on 'urban' and 'city'. Dangerous ideas that are certain to ultimately fail everyone.

I am in no way a new urbanist or traditional urbanist or whatever you want to label it, but I do walk, bike, take public transit etc. and am generally engaged in the places I live. I choose to live in the city for convenience, the diversity, as well as the chaos, which I think there isn't enough of in Halifax. City centres are made for jay-walking, or at least should be. There should be more encouragement of loose spaces and interium uses more creative than parking lots - appropriation of the city.

The picture you paint is a city for a narrow few. Sounds boring to me.

[halifaxboyns]

I have to agree with Planarchy.

You talk about cars zipping through the streets. We changed downtown to be about the car (as planners) and guess what...IT DIED. Because we focused so much on cars, we (planners) killed the downtown and quite nicely I'd add.

Also because we focused on cars, we created the awful suburbs we have now where roads aren't in grids and you end up taking longer to get to your destination.

A good city (to me) is about a rebalanced vision putting pedestrians and other non-car modes of transit first. I love the fact that Spring Garden road is crazy busy with pedestrians, delivery trucks, buses and even beggers. It means that the street is alive...it's electric. That's what I want Barrington to be. I want Gottingen and Agricola to eventually be that way and Quinpool too (to a certain extent because it's a major traffic corridor for getting into downtown, there will be more cars).

I don't agree with this idea that a modern commercial street needs a major anchor tenant. When I look at areas in Toronto and Vancouver that are major shopping streets; they are a wide variety of shops for all different things. What feeds these places is nearby residential, which is often tall multi-residential high density projects. That's what the downtown needs and as much of it as possible. And more on the edges, Agricola, Quinpool and around Fenwick.

The joy of Halifax is that everything in the core is roughly a 20 minute walk from places like Fenwick, the South End, Agricola Street and Quinpool. So if you don't have it in these areas - you can walk or bike too. If you add in a modern transit system like a streetcar, the place will explode.

I post a link to a youtube clip about Portland's Streetcar in the Metro Transit thread I'd suggest watching. The Commissioner of the Streetcar system (who is now the Mayor of Portland) talks about how the streetcar created over $3 billion in investment within 3 blocks of the streetcar line (which included multi residential and mixed use). Portland's vehicle trip distance is actually going down, versus other US cities. That's the way Halifax needs to be going - making the downtown about people, not cars and developing good transit options.

[Grav]

My issue is not with what is driving on the streets whether its cars, buses or old style street cars (which I agree would be nice for this city) . Its that the new trend is against getting rid of the streets in exchange for pedestrian only courtyards and indoor atrium's. The current trends call for shattering super blocks which for the most part, like Scotia Square a person can walk in one end and out the other because of all the public friendly corridors and common areas. Current trends favor buildings that are have street front retail but the building itself has no public friendly indoor space on the bottom levels. It's all employee's only, residence only ect...

I dont believe these types of places are "anti urban". If you build an indoor mall downtown and and put housing, office space, hotels and restaurants on top, parking underneath as well as integrate it with the rest of the downtown core's attractions like stadiums, museums casino's and libraries with tunnels and skyways it can be a healthy and positive thing for the downtown core so long as there is the population density to support it, and yes... an efficient transportation system to get you there and back quickly. Personally I find such networks show a cities maturity. Montreal is a perfect example. The subway was awesome, and once I was in that underground network of malls and halls I never had to go outside again.

[cormiermax]

Some really amazing videos from 1969, basically just a guy going all over Halifax with his home movie camera. Really cool too see how much the city has changed, or in some cases hasn't changed.

pt. 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkwdB...eature=related

pt. 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACbTH...eature=related