Was Don Mills the turning point in terms of suburbanization in Canada?

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Docere

I was incorrect about Park Royal being the first shopping mall. It was Norgate in Ville St. Laurent.

Were either of these malls like malls we know today, i.e. enclosed?

I’ve always known Wellington Square in London as the first (enclosed) mall in Canada.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Docere

I was incorrect about Park Royal being the first shopping mall. It was Norgate in Ville St. Laurent.

That's debatable, they were both opened the same year; Park Royal's opening date was September 1, 1950, Norgate Galleries was inaugurated on December 5, 1950, "Park Royal was Canada's first covered shopping mall" (Wikipedia).

[ScreamingViking]

I always thought there was one in Winnipeg that was the first indoor shopping mall. But I guess not.

Wiki says Norgate was the first (1949) but Park Royal the first enclosed one (1950).

And even further back, the old Lister Block in Hamilton was the very first indoor "mall" (1852) but I don't think it was focused mainly on stores and shopping, but rather a variety of businesses.

There was a mall in Hamilton that opened in 1955 (the Greater Hamilton Shopping Centre) but it began as an outdoor one before being enclosed sometime later and being renamed The Centre Mall. It was demolished in the early 2000s and replaced with a "power centre"... while I do a lot of my shopping there, as with all the other examples of this kind of Fortress of Retail-itude, pedestrian-oriented it is not.

[someone123]

There are a lot of local stories of firsts that are replicated across different cities. Often they will be qualified (first mall with air conditioning that opened on a Tuesday, etc.). I think they mostly popped up around the same time for the same reasons, with a huge number being built shortly after WW2. But the weren't necessarily patterned after one another even if one came after another.

Hampstead in London was built starting in the 1900's. I'm sure you can find the Australopithecus of indoor shopping malls from 1900-1930, something like an old shopping arcade but with surface parking around it. I think the cutting edge modern development played out around 1890-1910.

This looks anachronistic with a plan that could be from the 70's and cars from the 20's. You don't really get this from the various 50's malls or 40's subdivisions.

https://ggwash.org/view/33743/in-193...ington-shopped

[Architype]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

I always thought there was one in Winnipeg that was the first indoor shopping mall. But I guess not.

Wiki says Norgate was the first (1949) but Park Royal the first enclosed one (1950).

And even further back, the old Lister Block in Hamilton was the very first indoor "mall" (1852) but I don't think it was focused mainly on stores and shopping, but rather a variety of businesses.

There was a mall in Hamilton that opened in 1955 (the Greater Hamilton Shopping Centre) but it began as an outdoor one before being enclosed sometime later and being renamed The Centre Mall. It was demolished in the early 2000s and replaced with a "power centre"... while I do a lot of my shopping there, as with all the other examples of this kind of Fortress of Retail-itude, pedestrian-oriented it is not.

It's not clear from the Wikipedia article that Norgate was a covered mall, so that's a a strip mall.

This mall has an "L" plan, surrounding a large parking lot from which you can access the shops.

That's not how we define a mall these days. No true mall is a strip mall.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

CDN is interesting because I would argue that it actually was a suburban neighbourhood, because the way it was built broke quite significantly with the traditional ways Montreal developed. Instead of piecemeal plexes built by individual property owners or small-time developers, you had larger developers that built huge blocks of freestanding apartment buildings and/or attached duplexes, all of which was more car-oriented than any older part of Montreal. Most of those apartment buildings have garages or parking areas which was unusual at the time. It just happened to be on a grid which is why it feels more urban today, and the density reflects a relative lack of zoning restrictions compared to other Canadian cities.

In a way it's similar to how many cities in Spain (or many other countries for that matter) are still developing today: you have mass-produced blocks of apartments right up to the edge of the city, on the other side of which are farm fields and old villages. CDN in the 1940s would have been similar.

A previous post related to this:

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...7&postcount=30

[Architype]

Apparently BC's Park Royal even predates the oldest mall in the US, although more qualifiers may have been added.

Southdale Center is a shopping mall located in Edina, Minnesota, a suburb of the Twin Cities. It opened in 1956 and is both the first and the oldest fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping mall in the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southdale_Center

[ScreamingViking]

Reminded me somewhat of this, in Beamsville, ON, just because I recently drove past it. But there are plenty of modern-day examples.

Great find.

Originally Posted by someone123

This looks anachronistic with a plan that could be from the 70's and cars from the 20's. You don't really get this from the various 50's malls or 40's subdivisions.

https://ggwash.org/view/33743/in-193...ington-shopped

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by Architype

It's not clear from the Wikipedia article that Norgate was a covered mall, so that's a a strip mall.

That's not how we define a mall these days. No true mall is a strip mall.

I didn't follow through to the specific links to read the details. But yeah.

While malls and plazas and "power centres" tend to be most friendly to automobile-based trips, I'm not sure it's all that different for street-retail. Parking may be more of an adventure, but unless one lives within a short walk of a shopping street, I think many people still drive and I'd be very surprised if most businesses didn't rely on those patrons for a majority of their sales. The examples I know best are in the Hamilton-Burlington area, but when I lived in the west end of Toronto for a couple of years two decades ago it seemed to be the case as well (The Kingsway stretch of Bloor was closest, but it seemed evident in Bloor West Village as well)

[Docere]

Was Leaside the predecessor of Don Mills? It was kind of unusual. It was modelled on "garden city" principles. But the residential development was delayed for a generation and the Town of Leaside was mostly industrial. Residential development occurred in the 1940s, so kind of transitional from pre and post-war.

https://niche-canada.org/2014/05/06/...neighbourhood/

[ssiguy]

I don't know that London had Canada's first mall but the downtown Wellington Square was the very first downtown mall in NA. Richmond BC has Canada's first McDonald's opening in 1968 and London had the nation's second in 1970. First cable in Canada, first McChicken nuggets in NA, first ice coffee in Canada............probably more than any other city on the continent, London is a test market city and always has been including some of the first suburban developments.

Chances are that most of the food, services, products, and urban development you use have already been tested in London. There is almost no such thing as test marketing something to judge Canadian consumer taste without it already being tried in London. At least in English Canada, London is Canada 101 and if you can make it there then you can make it anywhere and if you can't make it there then you needn't bother trying anywhere else.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Proof Sheet

Behold the 'Tempo'.

Yikes, exactly what scared the shit out of me when I clicked.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Docere

Unlike Toronto, where the city proper (at the time) was fully built out by 1930, Montreal which had a bigger land area still had some unbuilt areas at the end of WWII. Cote-des-Nieges and Snowdon weren't built up until the 1940s and 1950s. I wonder if CDN is the last truly "urban" neighborhood developed in North America, it has a very high density and there's nothing "suburban" about it really.

Well, like the links posted demonstrated, there are many later examples of "urban" neighborhood developments, such as Montreal-Nord, and parts of Lasalle, Lachine, St. Leonard, etc.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Docere

I was incorrect about Park Royal being the first shopping mall. It was Norgate in Ville St. Laurent.

here it is today:
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5152...n-US&entry=ttu

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Docere

It would be interesting to see a map of the built-up area of Montreal Island in 1945.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Well, like the links posted demonstrated, there are many later examples of "urban" neighborhood developments, such as Montreal-Nord, and parts of Lasalle, Lachine, St. Leonard, etc.

Population density:

Cote des Nieges 8,462 per sq km (21,917 per sq mile)
Park Extension 21,000 per sq km (55,000 per sq mile)
Montreal Nord 7,623 per sq km (19,743 per sq mile)
St. Leonard 5,893 per sq km (15,260 per sq mile)

[Docere]

Population of selected municipalities, 1941:

Verdun 67,349
Outremont 30,751
Westmount 26,047
Lachine 20,051
Town of Mount Royal 4,888
Montreal Ouest 3,474
Hampstead 1,974

All had at least 25% of their current or peak population by this time - I used that as a cut-off for "pre-war" suburb.

Off-island, there's also Saint Lambert which had a population of 6,417 in 1941.

[Kilgore Trout]

At this point I'm astonished Norgate has not been redeveloped. It's directly across the street from a metro station and suburban bus terminus, it's located in what has become quite a dense neighbourhood, and yet... there it is. Today a very ordinary-looking strip mall known most of all for having a parking lot managed by scam artists who will tow your car and try to extort money from you.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I don't know that London had Canada's first mall but the downtown Wellington Square was the very first downtown mall in NA. Richmond BC has Canada's first McDonald's opening in 1968 and London had the nation's second in 1970. First cable in Canada, first McChicken nuggets in NA, first ice coffee in Canada............probably more than any other city on the continent, London is a test market city and always has been including some of the first suburban developments.

Chances are that most of the food, services, products, and urban development you use have already been tested in London. There is almost no such thing as test marketing something to judge Canadian consumer taste without it already being tried in London. At least in English Canada, London is Canada 101 and if you can make it there then you can make it anywhere and if you can't make it there then you needn't bother trying anywhere else.

London and Peterborough are often used as test markets for Ontario and sometimes for all of English-speaking Canada.

One big name, Tim Hortons does its test marketing across Canada. I've tried test products in a number of different cities, towns and provinces where some ended up becoming available chain-wide and others didn't. Northeastern ON locations tested the fruit quenchers and had them a year before they were available everywhere else.

[Loco101]

[/QUOTE] Reminded me somewhat of this, in Beamsville, ON, just because I recently drove past it. But there are plenty of modern-day examples. [/QUOTE]

Great find ScreamingViking.

PLEASE post this in the Ugly Canada thread!!!!

We have a tower to join the ranks of Clockzilla! Just look at that thing. TWO clocks staring at you!!

And what's located in that strip mall makes it even better:

-Right below the clock tower is a sushi restaurant sign in the shape of a pizza slice

-a Subway restaurant

-PC MPP Sam Oosterhoff's office. He's probably the furthest-right MPP in Ontario and he's 26 years old and was elected when he was 19. And this office was Tim Hudak's until he stepped down as PC leader. Proof is here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/HxkYzJRVxTCSYT229