Worst urban parks in Canada (past present and future)

[MolsonExport]

A spin-off the Ugly Canada Thread. The thread title here explains the purpose of this thread. Showcase your nominations for shittiest/grottiest and/or worst-conceived/realized urban parks in Canada.

I will start off with the most egregious example I can think of: The home of the SqueeGee Punk-->Viger Square in Montreal (apparently soon to get a makeover); specifically "the Agora".


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montrealinpictures

Squeegee punks frequently in the vicinity



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[MolsonExport]

Interesting article on Montreal's Squeegee punks: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/5...egee-punks-843

[SignalHillHiker]

Most of the little ones are pretty awful, except Texting Girl Park lol.

This one, I forgot the name. Ilhavo maybe? It's a dedication to our close relationship with Portugal.



This one at the intersection of Temperance, Battery, Signal Hill, Duckworth, Plymouth, and Quidi Vidi.



This one is dedicated to preventing violence against women, I believe. Lovely idea but awful execution.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

This one at the intersection of Temperance, Battery, Signal Hill, Duckworth, Plymouth, and Quidi Vidi.

This is called a park.....?

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by lio45

This is called a park.....?

Yeah. There is an anchor and a few benches and some grass on top of that wall. It has a lovely view of power lines.

[WhipperSnapper]

At least half of the new parks Toronto has built in the last 5 years. Most suffer in functionality. Many are ugly as shite too. On the bright side, Renos to existing parks are turning out pretty good.

[geotag277]

Not technically a park, but rather a 'plaza':



Meant to be an investment to improve the city in relation to the scale of the bow, plans have never materialised for this block, and it was recently turned into a glorified backyard deck.

[niwell]

I'll nominate June Callwood park in Toronto, which is a fairly new (2014) park in the condo area south of Fort York. It seems like a victim of design by committee with a laudable vision but pretty awful execution. We ended up with something that looked kind of ok for a bit but still pretty unusable. Now it's a messy, overgrown concrete plaza with gravel strewn about and dog shit everywhere because too many condo dwellers can't seem to pick up after their dogs.

Instead of linking directly here's an urbantoronto thread with pictures from this past summer:

https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...2#post-1239222

And streetview: https://goo.gl/maps/NTGpevPXqz82


It may have been a bit better in an area that wasn't predominantly residential and had more foot traffic / suitable for programming. As it is I see this being redesigned and rebuilt relatively soon given its age.

[WhipperSnapper]

Yeah, June Callwood is the perfect summary of everything wrong with so many new Toronto parks nowadays.

They are built on leftovers strips from developments. June Callwood is a narrow triangular block between to vehicular streets. They need to be hip, multi-functional and whimsical but, also low maintenance because the parks department doesn't have the time to drop by and tidy things up. So, we end up very little open space, too much hard landscaping and, pea gravel for soft landscaping.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Regina:

Pocket Park, 8th Avenue and Broad Street

I have to admit. The choice of plants gives lots of visual interest, but the location. There aren't any pedestrians on this corner. I would gauge foot traffic to be in the < 100 people per day. So cost to chance of use is insane. The art commemorates the great Regina Cyclone. Actually not a bad piece of art really, but again. Usage and cost of building this here instead of somewhere with foot traffic.

City Square Plaza

Okay, it's a great meeting space for the Farmer's Market, but take a stroll. It's limited-use for cars, but they can still be there meaning that unless it is blocked off for a special event it is really limited use for pedestrians most days. Other great features, because it was designed for car use as well, the stage in the middle is pretty much useless for more than two people to use. I kind of like the bigger than they need to be like a monumnet to our great social/commun/ist founders, but they are way out of scale. I also hate the fact that they cut out part of Victoria Park to make the seating areas. They removed stately old trees to boot in order to do this. Sacriliege for what a beautiful park Victoria Park is. The trees along the North side were all removed in order to place the fake tree-like wavy structures. This could have been a great idea if the city had been bold and just said, it will be car free. They could have preserved Victoria Park's footprint and made some great space. Enough commentary from me, stroll through it on your own and see it switch between market and non market days for an idea as to what vehicle traffic does.

[WhipperSnapper]

You're telling me that pocket park is an actual city park? LOL I take everything I said about Toronto parks back.

[megadude]

Now that you bring up the urban park thing, I've been curious about why some patches of grass are called parks out in the suburbs. Oakville has a few. Here is one:

https://goo.gl/maps/SCCw1h4eAqx


It's a strip of land between a house and the QEW.

Does any piece of land not privately owned but in a residential neighbourhood have to have a name? Is it for identification purposes for city maintenance staff?

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

Yeah, June Callwood is the perfect summary of everything wrong with so many new Toronto parks nowadays.

They are built on leftovers strips from developments. June Callwood is a narrow triangular block between to vehicular streets. They need to be hip, multi-functional and whimsical but, also low maintenance because the parks department doesn't have the time to drop by and tidy things up. So, we end up very little open space, too much hard landscaping and, pea gravel for soft landscaping.

June Callwood Park isn't on a leftover strip of land at all. It's just the opposite - at a high visibility location at the centre of the Fort York neighbourhood, connecting the Bentway and Fort York to Lakeshore Blvd and the waterfront. It's more of a rectangle than a triangle and it's exactly where the city planned to put a park when the neighbourhood was first being planned. The problem isn't the location, the problem is when landscape architects get too artsy fartsy and forget about what makes parks great. It's supposed to be the physical manifestation of sound waves or some such BS and it turned into a hostile, unusable mess. It's one of the worst parks I've ever seen. Well....actually some of the ones posed here give it a run for its money...

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Regina:

Pocket Park, 8th Avenue and Broad Street

I have to admit. The choice of plants gives lots of visual interest, but the location. There aren't any pedestrians on this corner. I would gauge foot traffic to be in the < 100 people per day. So cost to chance of use is insane. The art commemorates the great Regina Cyclone. Actually not a bad piece of art really, but again. Usage and cost of building this here instead of somewhere with foot traffic.

City Square Plaza

... and we have our winner. That is the saddest thing I have ever seen.

[geotag277]

I almost didn't believe it, but it's true.

[Pavlov]

One really needs to do a 360 degree spin around the streetview to appreciate it though.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Its even famous. It made the Arts section of the Ottawa Citizen:
Warehouse District Pocket Park unveiled the Tornado Legacy artwork “Redline” by Artist Lionel Peyachew at the northeast corner of Broad St. and 8th Avenu in Regina on October 18, 2012..

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by Reesonov

One really needs to do a 360 degree spin around the streetview to appreciate it though.

Indeed, the true ambience is from the unparalleled view of the Auto Value store, the Insurance Brokers, and of course, the SaskTel retail dealership.

And who can forget the six lane highway with tiny sidewalks, the perfect compliment to losing yourself in that novel while facing away from those tall pesky green landscaping features which luckily enough, thanks to those forward thinking park planners, do not block or distract from any of the above ambience.

[Martin Mtl]

Thank God Viger square will be completely redone; Montreal is doing great with its new parks and squares and it should be even better now with Projet Montréal at City Hall and Luc Ferrandez in charge of the public realms; this guy has vision and ambition to spare and he hates compromising.

That corner "pocket park" in Regina wins the thread so far. It will be hard to compete with that!

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Reesonov

... and we have our winner. That is the saddest thing I have ever seen.

Originally Posted by geotag277

I almost didn't believe it, but it's true.

I'm hoping it can legally be removed on the day someone wants to build a building on the corner...?