Posted Sep 12, 2018, 10:45 PM
|
 |
Hammer'd
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Hamilton, ON
Posts: 4,756
|
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRitsman
So I have a question. I was exploring the rood of Jackson Square, and my biggest question up there, was, what was this supposed to be used for? It's a nice area, and if it was busier it would be cool, but what exactly would bring people up there, what was the original plan?
|
It was intended to be a civic square that people could use to get away from the hustle and bustle of the streets below it. The original plan included all sorts of water features and gardens. Yale basically took over control of it and simplified the shit out of it as a cost saving measure.
(from wikipedia)
"Finally in 1964, the housing act was altered to include civic improvement and Hamilton was the first city to apply for funding. In April 1965, city planner Murray Jones unveiled his plans for a new downtown civic square. Under his plan, axial pools would form the centre of the complex with a planetarium in the middle. There would be a sculpture court, a large remodelled suburban-style Eaton's department store, an auditorium, a hotel with a garden courtyard, and a library adjacent to the art gallery, with King Street West running one way through the middle. Amongst parcels of open green space, new smaller streets would cut across the public vistas. Roughly 17 hectares (43 acres) of familiar downtown space would be eliminated, and many open spaces would be incorporated into the new square, under the assumption that the old slum-like core required plenty of fresh air circulation – ironically, a public health theory born during the height of the cholera epidemic in Victorian London. Although many Hamiltonians held fond memories of the buildings that were to be torn down, the garden-like Civic Square plan that was published in The Hamilton Spectator grabbed the public's attention and fuelled their enthusiasm for change. In addition, the Greater Hamilton Shopping Centre (now known as The Centre on Barton), which had opened ten years earlier east of the city on the old Jockey Club race track, and which had been successful since its opening, had made the core's downtown buildings look antiquated.
Despite the wide approval of the original garden-like scheme, by July 1968 the plan had been scrapped in favour of a scheme by Montreal developers Yale Properties that would provide more revenue. As the municipal government hashed out the overall construction cost to build the original plan, controversy stirred amongst officials of CMHC who were under pressure by the federal minister to stop providing money. By October 1968, CMHC had given out approximately $168 million to various Canadian municipalities to upgrade their built infrastructure, but after multiple complaints from watchdog groups and government officials over the casual administrative process and its inability to control the expenditure of private contractors, federal Urban Affairs Minister Robert Andres was forced to halt activities. Ultimately CMHC reverted to its pre-1964 role, which was solely to provide capital resources to create or redevelop residential addresses. Hamilton, therefore, lost its ability to apply or even negotiate for further grants and, as greater pressure was placed on the municipality to pick up the tab,[3] city planners disregarded the gardens and pools of the original plan and looked towards a scheme that would require a minimum amount of funding and produce a maximum amount of revenue for their investment. Yale Properties quickly swooped in and consolidated the originally dispersed commercial and civic components and locked them into two large super-blocks (figures 3 and 4), connected by an indoor mall with no outdoor frontage. High barren walls of brown concrete would line most of the expanded King Street West and all civic components were pushed onto a public square located above the mall and away from the street. The city and developer faced heavy opposition from the citizens who were promised open space, gardens, and long pools of fresh water, but all complaints either went unheeded or were quickly deflected by promises of civic festivals and facilities above the mall complex on the piazza roof or enclosed indoors.
__________________
"Above all, Hamilton must learn to think like a city, not a suburban hybrid where residents drive everywhere. What makes Hamilton interesting is the fact it's a city. The sprawl that surrounds it, which can be found all over North America, is running out of time."
|
Prev
Linear Mode
