Downtown St. Catharines, ON

flar · #1 Posted **Sep 17, 2007, 4:31 AM**

St. Catharines (population 131,989; metro 390,317) is an industrial city near Niagara Falls.

OhioGuy · #2 Posted **Sep 17, 2007, 5:44 AM**

Thanks for the great tour! It looks pretty nice.

Jimby · #3 Posted **Sep 17, 2007, 6:08 AM**

I enjoyed the photos. It looks like a very liveable city.
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xzmattzx · #4 Posted **Sep 17, 2007, 2:39 PM**

Nice pictures. I'm always in that area in the Summer, but have never done a phototour of downtown St. Catharines (yet).

That last picture looks like it is of the buildings that you can see from Highway 406 just south of downtown. It looks very industrial and gritty from the expressway.

denveraztec · #5 Posted **Sep 17, 2007, 4:48 PM**

Good to see so many of the historic buildings still in use. Thanks for sharing!

Tony · #6 Posted **Sep 17, 2007, 5:15 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

That last picture looks like it is of the buildings that you can see from Highway 406 just south of downtown. It looks very industrial and gritty from the expressway.

Pretty sure that's where the photo was taken.

Thanks for the photos flar!

boden · #7 Posted **Sep 17, 2007, 6:13 PM**

Never been there so I enjoyed your excellent tour.

Jularc · #8 Posted **Sep 17, 2007, 8:27 PM**

Glad I saw these. Great photos and neat place.

the dude · #9 Posted **Sep 17, 2007, 9:20 PM**

the mystery of st. catharines has been unravelled. never been.

softee · #10 Posted **Sep 17, 2007, 10:33 PM**

Cool pics, thanks Flar!

For those who don't know, that metro population figure for St. Catharines actually includes the neighbouring cities of Niagara Falls, Welland and Port Colborne.

DC83 · #11 Posted **Sep 17, 2007, 11:22 PM**

Awesome tour! My old stopping grounds (went to Brock U)!
You really have a nack for making rundown cities & towns look great!
Is there a Brock Phototour in the making, too?? It has got to be one of the nicest campuses in Ontario!

flar · #12 Posted **Sep 18, 2007, 3:40 AM**

^^No, I didn't make it to Brock, or Port Dalhousie, or Facer St.
I just focused on downtown, which I didn't find to be rundown at all. I've only been to St. Catharines a few times and I had heard that downtown was in rough shape, but it seemed alright to me. Actually, it reminded me of downtown Kitchener. Nothing fancy, nothing trendy, a few midrise offices, but no real decay and not many empty stores. I did see a few bums around the bus station, but that's to be expected in any decent sized city.

The last pic is from an overpass at hwy 406. It gives a bad impression and looks gritty, but it's just the backs of some old buildings on St. Paul. Between downtown and the highway there is a low lying plateau that appears to be a former industrial area. All that remains is that nice looking Canada Hair Cloth building and a lot of empty land. Great potential there.

harls · #13 Posted **Sep 19, 2007, 11:23 PM**

Some of those pics make it look like it's a much larger city. Nice stuff!

Do you use filters or is that dark-blue effect post-processing?

Evergrey · #14 Posted **Sep 19, 2007, 11:48 PM**

brilliant job, flar! i've only been on the outskirts

mucciared · #15 Posted **Sep 20, 2007, 1:20 AM**

Thanks for presenting St. Catharines in a good light. So many people living here hate the city, and it's really sad. Hopefully Brian Macmullan can get some activity going downtown, with the performing arts centre and the Ice Dogs hitting the ice soon.

flar · #16 Posted **Sep 20, 2007, 1:44 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by harls

Some of those pics make it look like it's a much larger city. Nice stuff!

There are quite a few modern offices buildings, none of them are tall but they give that impression.

Quote:

Do you use filters or is that dark-blue effect post-processing?

The dark blue is from a polarizing filter. I tend to overdo it, but you can make the sky very blue, almost black. It makes the clouds stand out and saturates other colours. It can also be used to control reflections on glass, water and the leaves on plants.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mucciared

Thanks for presenting St. Catharines in a good light. So many people living here hate the city, and it's really sad.

I guess that's another thing shared with Kitchener and most other cities in southern Ontario. Everyone hates their downtown and have some exaggerated notion that it's rundown. Probably because someone asked them for change once.

Quote:

Hopefully Brian Macmullan can get some activity going downtown, with the performing arts centre and the Ice Dogs hitting the ice soon.

OHL team, I presume, former Mississauga Ice Dogs? Niagara Falls used to have a team didn't they?