Victoria Park

[DC83]

Victoria Park



Considering Victoria Park is one of the city's greatest urban parks, and the fact that it's going under a big reno, I thought it would be appropriate to start a thread re: it's progress.

We can share Updates, maybe post some pictures past & present, and discuss what makes this park so great.

If Gage can have it's own thread, so can Victoria!

[DC83]

from "Downtown Update"

Originally Posted by raisethehammer

hey, great news. Work has begun on Victoria Park today!! yahoo!!
Can't wait.

Here's the project page:

http://www.myhamilton.ca/myhamilton/...rkConcepts.htm

So it seems the only thing the park is losing is the Lawn Bowling lanes and a couple of the (somewhat) useless baseball diammonds.
The plan looks great and I'm very excited to see the (proposed) Crstal 'Palace' Picnic Pavillion!

[raisethehammer]

heck yea...this is a great park. It's the heart of our Strathcona neighbourhood.
There's still talk of a possible Greek cafe opening in the old firehall across from the park.
And I wish that someone would do a cafe/diner in the old bookstore on Locke North (now a yoga place, as if we need more of those) or in the old GP Grumpy's at King/Locke.
But in the meantime, the hundreds of new trees, and new outer pathway will be an absolute joy to young families like mine.
Anyone who lives in the area should try to hit Vic Park for a walk in the 8-8:30am time frame during the week. It's beautiful. The sun has peeked above the trees in the east, cyclists, pedestrians and transit users all scurry about on their way to work and school (I'm certain that you'll see more people using those modes of transportation than cars on the surrounding streets).
Birds chirp, squirrels run wild, kids all laugh heading into Strathcona School.
It feels like such a perfect neighbourhood.

Now, let's do something about our freeway canyons that surround us and we'll be off to the races!

[SteelTown]

Awesome, I noticed a huge pile of dirt at Victoria Park recently.

[raisethehammer]

actually, that's mulch. From all the trees they had to cut down.
Sadly, the past decades of city hall doing jack squat with our urban forest resulted in many of these trees being dangerous and dead.
Any moderate wind storm sees huge branches down all over Vic Park.
Thankfully they are replanting about 300 new trees over the next couple years.
Should look great in the future.

[raisethehammer]

the park is looking awesome! TONS of new trees planted and the pathway is taking shape.
I was playing tennis last night until 10:30 and the park was packed...baseball, tennis, folks walking dogs, couples out etc.....

[highwater]

Originally Posted by raisethehammer

the park is looking awesome! TONS of new trees planted and the pathway is taking shape.
I was playing tennis last night until 10:30 and the park was packed...baseball, tennis, folks walking dogs, couples out etc.....

Sigh. We can only dream of such things in Westdale.

[raisethehammer]

Phase 1 is almost complete and looking awesome.
The new pathway is so great and so needed here.
The park is jammed with people this summer and will probably get even busier once construction vehicles are out of there.

[thistleclub]

The archway is now up. Could use some landscaping around it to soften it and enhance the sense of "heritage," as if it had been there a while. Has a bit of an air of "instant antique" at the moment.

[DC1983]

Just thought I'd throw it out there.. I can't believe the Butterfly Garden actually 'works'!
Last time I was there in nice weather (late summer), there were a couple monarchs and tons of those lil white ones!

Am slightly disappointed i the size of the Gateway.. seems so small and doesn't really stand out much. Maybe some vines crawling up might help?

Either way, this park looks AMAZING!