HAMILTON | The North End

[flar]

HAMILTON NEIGHBOURHOODS:
Corktown • Durand • Central • Dundas • Locke St. South • Burlington • Stinson • Westdale • St. Clair • Keith • Landsdale
The Delta • Gibson • Jamesville • Concession Street • Durand North • Durand South • Old Dundas Houses • Hess Village • Barton Street
Ancaster • North Kirkendall • South Kirkendall • McMaster University • Downtown • The Bayfront • The North End • Kenilworth
Mountain Brow • Textile District • Strathcona • North Stipley • Flamborough • Beasley • Chedoke • Stoney Creek • The Beach Strip

HAMILTON FEATURES:
C I T Y _ L I G H T S • Stone Hamilton • Twilight of the Industrial Age • Twilight of the Industrial Age II
Stone in Dundas and Ancaster • Goodbye, Hamilton (from 43 floors up) • Dirty Brick • Day for Night
This broken down old city still manages to wake up every morning... • Everywhere, Ontario • < R - E - T - R - O >
HAMILTON | Scenes from the cutting room floor • S U B U R B I A ! • Everywhere, Ontario • Hamilton Rowhouses
< H E A V Y <> I N D U S T R Y > • Old Man Winter vs. Hamilton

The North End, one of Hamilton's oldest and most colourful neighbourhoods.

[NYC4Life]

Is this Hamilton, Ontario?

Thread doesn't specifically specify a city.

[the dude]

it's a real mixed bag down there. a lot of renos happening which is really changing the face of the hood. thanks for the tour.

[Kingofthehill]

Could pass for some American cities, especially around the whole Ohio/Penn corridor, IMO.

Flar, does Hamilton really have alot of Caribbean Islanders?

[tdawg]

I expected to see Boston but still a nice tour.

[flar]

Originally Posted by NYC4Life

Is this Hamilton, Ontario?

Thread doesn't specifically specify a city.

Whoops, yes it's Hamilton.

Originally Posted by Kingofthehill

Could pass for some American cities, especially around the whole Ohio/Penn corridor, IMO.

Flar, does Hamilton really have alot of Caribbean Islanders?

I don't know if there are a lot, but there are enough to have a Caribbean parade and festival each August.

[flar]

[DC83]

AWESOME! Is this your 1st North End tour? I love the turnaround. The bayfront revamp has def been a great thing for the this great neighbourhood.

I like this:


I remember during one American election, there was a big Bob Dole sign at the top of this one very visible mountain access route called The Jolley Cut. Hamiltonians love American elections, apparently!? haha

Originally Posted by Kingofthehill

Could pass for some American cities, especially around the whole Ohio/Penn corridor, IMO.

Flar, does Hamilton really have alot of Caribbean Islanders?

There is a large population of (Caribean)Islanders in Central Hamilton, around the Main & Wentworth north to Barton & Wentworth area. I went to High School around there and never had any problems. Some new Carribean restos & shops have been opening up there recently.

[jodelli]

My kind of neighborhood, close to the water too.

Thanks.

[Sekkle]

Looks like a great hood. Thanks for the pics.

[JivecitySTL]

these are terrific. Such an interesting city with authentic sense of place!

[10101000]

Nice

[TinChelseaNYC]

Very nice tour, as usual.

[Boris]

Great photos as usual.

I especially liked the view of the lake through the wooden doorway.

[Swinefeld]

Very refreshing.

[boden]

Awesome little tour!

[malmsteen]

Looks like a cool neighborhood.

Way more character than Toronto thats for sure. No wonder toronto always rags on Hamilton - Toronto sees its reflection only Hamilton has some turnaround - Toronto just appears to be going down.

[KevinFromTexas]

Beautiful neighborhood. Thanks.

I really like this picture.


This one too.

[xzmattzx]

Great pictures. I've been looking forward to seeing what the neighborhood looked like ever since I asked what about the area north of Downtown in your Downtown thread.

It looks like this neighborhood has a gritty past. Seeing steel mills and industrial shipping docks nearby in aerial picures seems to also indicate this. Is this true?

I noticed in the aerial pictures that there's a big chunk of land between Wellington Street and Victoria Avenue. Some railroad tracks go through this bare land. I would think that this is a big barrier between the next neighborhood. Is it? Is it a separate neighborhood, as well, or is it also the North End? I see a park called "North Central Community Park", is "North Central" the name of that neighborhood?

I think that you should start putting maps at the beginning of some or most of your threads, like you started doing in your "Neighborhoods of Hamilton" thread. They've been a help for me.

[flar]

^^The North End used to be very industrial and was the main port, but much of the industry has been removed and the waterfront around the North End has been completely redeveloped for recreation. You don't really notice the industry while walking around in this residential area but you can see the steel mills from Pier 8. The redevelopment of the bayfront has led to some gentrification. The North End used to have a bad reputation as one of the grittiest and wildest parts of Hamilton, and parts of it still are quite gritty. If you look on the map, there is a huge railyard and some industry just south of Bayfront Park; the city is working to have it moved somewhere else. A new stadium might be built in its place.

East of the tracks between Wellington and Victoria is indeed a separate neighbourhood called Keith. I've shown some pictures from Keith in these photothreads, it's a very gritty area:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=139601
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=128954


From a historical plaque in the North End:

For most of the nineteenth century, the North End was the hub of activity in the bustling frontier town of Hamilton. The port was a rough-and-tumble place, separated from the downtown by a garbage-filled marsh and accessible only by a single road, James Street. During the 1830s, the rivalry between Port Hamilton and the downtown core was so intense that the bayfront community sought its own bailiff and marketplace.

Workers flocked to the area during the building of the Burlington Canal in the 1820s. Many of these labourers were recent arrivals from the United States, Great Britain and Ireland. They were single young men who hoped to save enough money to buy their own farms. Once the jobs disappeared or they made enough money to finance their dreams, they moved on.

Together, the canal labourers, sailors, dockworkers, and proud craftsmen like the boatbuilders, formed a makeshift community of ramshackle houses, boardinghouses, shops, flea-ridden hotels, and the brothels and taverns where they relaxed after work.

The waterfront quickly gained an unsavoury reputation. It was a noisy place, full of drinking, brawling, and swearing. Even Sundays were raucous and included horse races, card-games, and cockfights. As a result, "respectable" citizens avoided the North End. Upon docking in Hamilton, well-heeled visitors hopped straight into a coach destined for the better establishments that lay in the shadow of the escarpment.

The vision of the North End as a lively and dangerous place lingered long into the twentieth century.