Canadian ramshackle chic?

[hipster duck]

Ever noticed how a lot of high rent commercial strips in Canada are basically old residential areas where standard city homes were converted into stores, clubs and restaurants over time by tacking on an assortment of window boxes, patios, hastily built extensions and verandas? Some of our most celebrated neighbourhoods are basically this: Montreal's Quartier Latin and Toronto's Yorkville (Kensington Market is the edgier, lower rent version of the same idea). But you can find the same aesthetic in cities big and small, young and old: Hamilton's Hess Village, Calgary's Kensington, parts of Kitsilano in Vancouver, I can probably think of others.

I think this is a very Canadian form of urbanism. It doesn't exist in Europe because they already have solid mid-rise areas built out of stone to work with. It doesn't really exist in the US, either, for a variety of reasons. I think commercial and residential uses were kept strictly separate in a lot of American cities, and American cities that regentrified had a lot of old, solid stock to work with so they didn't feel the need to take old working class frame homes and shove nightclubs into them.

Anyway, does your city have any examples of these kinds of places? And expanding on these thoughts, what does it say about Canadians or how we view our urban spaces?

Examples:







etc.

[Ramako]

Mirvish Village is another example.

[esquire]

Winnipeg is rife this with this sort of thing... Corydon, the North End and West Broadway have several examples of it. I honestly thought it was just classic Winnipeg tight-fistedness... I didn't realize it was a full-on Canadian idiosyncrasy.

I never thought much of it... it always seemed like it was suited to areas in transition, and to see a converted home still functioning as a commercial space 50 years after the conversion (without being replaced by something more appropriate) struck me as a bit disheartening.

[eemy]

You see this on a lot of streets adjacent to King Street in KW, and also along King itself between Kitchener and Waterloo.

[Stryker]

My rod is hard, I love it.

[rousseau]

Well-spotted. Canada doesn't have an Oxford Street or a Regent Street. Fits in with the general theme of a comfortable, complacent society that never chased after grand visions of itself.

By means of comparison:

• Video Link

Never mind the tank, which is the purpose of the video. Just look at what it's rolling through. It's unimpeachably magical, and even I, not a shopping person who would ever go there to buy anything, have to admit it possesses a commercial/mercantile majesty that surpasses the ecclesiastical monuments of previous centuries (i.e. no eager crowds at St. Paul's these days).

But we don't have that kind of thing here. The Canadian manifestation of the shopping street is kinda cute, really. You could argue that the lack of grandeur is representative of less socioeconomic stratification. The grandest it gets is in Montreal, but even there, St. Catherine or Crescent aren't going to fill anyone with awe.

Canada makes do with "hey, this is actually really cool." Or "funky," which Toronto totally is (an amusing irony considering the city's previous reputation).

[Beedok]

Hamilton gets a bit awkward with lots of residential turned into shops in some richer areas and then shops turned into residential in the poorer bits.

[Architype]

Here's a perfect example of this on Denman Street in Vancouver.



https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.28845...7i13312!8i6656

[1overcosc]

An example of this in downtown Kingston: https://www.google.ca/maps/@44.23247...8i6656!6m1!1e1

[SignalHillHiker]

There's nothing like Winnipeg's Corydon here. The closest, really, is George Street. But most of these buildings were back lane warehouses until the early 1980s, not homes.

Beyond that I think our closest equivalent is the local. Every neighbourhood has its own bar. They're sometimes in former houses - but often in purpose-built buildings.



(Peter Easton in Rabbittown)



(Boncloddy Bar in Pennywell)



(The Pub in Georgestown)

They're still often cool, though, not just afternoon drunk bars.

This is the one from the very first Streetview:

• Video Link

[niwell]

Toronto outside of the main highrise districts is pretty much the definition of ramshackle chic. I love it.

[matthew6]

I suppose another example of this from a Montreal perspective would be St Denis. But it's not so ramshackle.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Well-spotted. Canada doesn't have an Oxford Street or a Regent Street. Fits in with the general theme of a comfortable, complacent society that never chased after grand visions of itself.


Never mind the tank, which is the purpose of the video. Just look at what it's rolling through. It's unimpeachably magical, and even I, not a shopping person who would ever go there to buy anything, have to admit it possesses a commercial/mercantile majesty that surpasses the ecclesiastical monuments of previous centuries (i.e. no eager crowds at St. Paul's these days).

But we don't have that kind of thing here. The Canadian manifestation of the shopping street is kinda cute, really. You could argue that the lack of grandeur is representative of less socioeconomic stratification. The grandest it gets is in Montreal, but even there, St. Catherine or Crescent aren't going to fill anyone with awe.

Canada makes do with "hey, this is actually really cool." Or "funky," which Toronto totally is (an amusing irony considering the city's previous reputation).

Yes I know, and it drives me nuts. For me, of the most important factors in a large, vibrant city is the awe factor. Having a lack of grandeur just feels underwhelming.

Not to say that I'd want all parts of a city to be like that, because iit would be too formal and manicured. I want the funky areas we do have, I just happen to also want the imposing opulence that we don't have.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Not to say that I'd want all parts of a city to be like that, because iit would be too formal and manicured. I want the funky areas we do have, I just happen to also want the imposing opulence that we don't have.

You do get glimpses along streets like Ste-Catherine but they're not consistently built up like that London example. There are grander buildings interspersed with nondescript buildings.

Halifax has two interesting exceptions to this. One is Granville Street and the other is the Hydrostone Market. Both were deliberate urban development projects that were large scale for their time (1850's and 1910's). Granville might be one of the earliest such projects in Canada.


Source

Purpose-built retail in North End Halifax, circa 1920. Reminds me of what you find in many US cities (it's often described as an "English Garden Suburb" style).


Source

South Barrington and Hollis are prime conversion territory.

Originally Posted by Empire

[Nouvellecosse]

What it seems like is that our oldest and grandest areas tend to be right in the prime part of downtown which are now normally used as office space and have both a coldness due to the shadowing caused by skyscrapers and also the high rents caused by the corporate demand. As a result, the important retail areas are pushed more to the periphery of downtown. But as the cities grow, they don't want to redevelop too aggressively because of the urge to preserve history. In the case of Halifax, the Granville Mall is right in the most prime office district of downtown. It would be like say, York or Adelaide st. in Toronto being made into a pedestrian shopping street.

In Europe, these areas seem to have been redeveloped toward their current state either before historic preservation became an issue, or the redevelopment was forced (or enabled) due to the destruction from war or fires. The oldest area of London referred to as "The City" is also the primary financial district and filled with office space and incidentally a similar distance from Oxford St. as Yorkville is from the financial district. Apparently Oxford st changed from mainly residential to retail toward the end of the 19th century. Who knows how it would look today without the extensive bombing suffered in WWII.

[kool maudit]

our cities outgrew their buildings just at the point where the wholesale destruction of old buildings became unfashionable.

[MonctonRad]

I'm surprised the Haligonians that have posted here have not included Spring Garden Road (SGR) as a prime example.

[Nouvellecosse]

SGR just doesn't have as many converted houses as it once did. Only a couple in hold outs so its conversion is mostly complete.

Agricola is a good example though. Almost all the shops are at the base of houses.

[logan5]

The only Mt. Pleasant example I can think of is at 8th near Main.


http://www.shermansfoodadventures.com/2010/11/eight-12-restaurant-lounge.html

Victoria Dr. (in Vancouver between 3rd and Georgia St) has a few of these, along with what appear to be purpose built retail and what looks like a small industrial space at William and Victoria. This street would be a perfect candidate for expansion of these types of spaces. Commercial Dr is only 2 blocks away so there is already a strong customer base to draw from.

It would be cool to see these conversions more often because these spaces attract the types of businesses you need to make a neighbourhood interesting enough that you actually want to walk through it.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

SGR just doesn't have as many converted houses as it once did. Only a couple in hold outs so its conversion is mostly complete.

Yep. I thought it might be a good example but then looked on streetview and there really aren't that many conversions. Even farther out, Quinpool Road has a lot fewer than I would have figured too. You do find a lot of residential conversions on sidestreets like Dresden Row though, or farther out in areas like Dutch Village Road and Portland Street.