HomeDiagramsDatabaseMapsForum About
     

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Regional Sections > Canada > Ontario > Hamilton > General Discussion


Reply

 
Thread Tools Display Modes
     
     
  #1  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2008, 8:45 PM
LikeHamilton's Avatar
LikeHamilton LikeHamilton is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Hamilton, Ontario
Posts: 2,701
Shades of Pompeii in Steeltown

Shades of Pompeii in Steeltown

Stone temples hold promise amid inaction

Peter Kuitenbrouwer, National Post
Published: Saturday, March 08, 2008


The GO express bus pulls into Hamilton and cruises down Main Street, the driver calling out "City Hall!" as he passes architect Stan Roscoe's 1960 International Style edifice. The only problem is, City Hall is vacant, desolate, with snow unshovelled around it, and a wire construction fence blocking it.

"We've moved!" reads a sign. "City Hall services will be temporarily relocated to the Hamilton City Centre (formerly Eaton's Centre) at 77 James Street North. Please monitor local news reports."

Hamilton's City Hall suffers from the same woe that afflicts First Canadian Place in Toronto: porous marble cladding falling off its sides. But in Hamilton, the empty city hall (with no approved plan to restore it) serves as an emblem for a city centre so decrepit and bereft it is hard to see how it could fall any further.

The two most important buildings in town -- the Lister Block on James Street and the Connaught Hotel on King Street -- sit abandoned. Farther up, grand stone buildings line Gore Park, with its fountain and statue of Sir John A. Macdonald. It's a lovely spot, but the shops don't belong: Hi & Buy Dollar Discount, The Jump Off (We Pay the Tax Hip Hop Clothing), Christopher's Fast Food, Widemart Shoes and Unicash. Countless others are boarded up.

About 10 centimetres of fresh snow coats the city, and as I stroll, the long stretches of sidewalks no one has shovelled remind me of the vacant stores they front.

Developer Harry Stinson has a plan to revive the Royal Connaught Hotel as a hotel and condo building, and more power to him, but he may have trouble attracting buyers, since their view will be Klassy T-Shirt, an adult entertainment shop and the failed Buttinsky's Bar &Wing Joint.

Coming to downtown Hamilton is like stumbling on Pompeii: Everywhere are preserved stone temples, and nothing is going on.

City council now meets at the convention centre. Outside Albion Room A, a sign in huge letters reads, "COW," which stands for "Committee of the Whole." The COW, i.e., all members of council, are in a full-day strategic planning meeting. McMaster business professor Chris Bart is waving his arms at the front of the dim room. He has come up with 12 strategic issues, including "to always act as a team" and "to be honest in everything we do."

Council breaks for a catered hot lunch on site. I corner Mayor Fred Eisenberger, and ask him about City Hall. A few years ago, he explains, council voted to restore it.

Then in November, 2006, "I got elected. I thought we needed to revisit [the decision]. The architect was told, 'We're rethinking this process.' The architects had people needing work who got engaged elsewhere. Dubai, I understand. Now we're going through the process of finalizing expressions of interest," for a new architect to restore City Hall.

"Late 2010 is the return date. Some might speculate it will take longer."

The Mayor is excited about Mr. Stinson, saying, "I'm delighted that we have an inner-city developer inspiring the idea that our city is worthy of investment. Whether he can pull it off is another thing."

A few others have already invested in downtown. One is John Mokrycke, a Hamilton architect, who took me to lunch at Acclamation Bar & Grill, a lovely Portuguese restaurant he designed on James Street North. Mr. Mokrycke has purchased and restored two buildings in downtown Hamilton; he now lives atop one and has his office at the other. Hamilton's art walk, on the second and last Fridays of each month, "is opening up the eyes of a lot of people to the quality of street life," he adds.

As gas price hikes and a search for culture and community draw people back to downtowns across North America, Hamilton, with all its gorgeous period architecture, is in a unique position to blossom. The GO bus and train station, an art deco masterpiece, is already expertly restored. Just one strange detail: The GO ticket office here is outside in a portable, while wire fence and plastic tarps block the unfinished GO ticket counter inside. No one is working on the ticket counter repair, and no one can explain the situation.

My last stop in Hamilton: Sunrise Restaurant on King Street West, a greasy spoon serving coffee in cups and saucers. This kind of patina is strangely hard to find. The waitress, Marie Upthegrove, a Mohawk born and raised in Hamilton, has a plea.

"We would have more life in downtown Hamilton if we had more business instead of all these buildings that are boarded up," she says. "When I was a kid, we had all kinds of stores. It was just fantastic." It can be that way again. Maybe the councillors should get out of their COW and shovel the sidewalks.

pkuitenbrouwer@nationalpost.com
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2008, 11:44 PM
raisethehammer raisethehammer is offline
Closed account
 
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 6,054
haha...funny piece.
sunrise restaurant is awesome...glad he popped in there.
And HEY, don't be dissing Klassy t-shirt!! that place rules! along with Cheapies, Christophers, Out of the Past and Rock N Tees. Hamilton institutions all along King St....I'm all for gentrification as long as we don't lose these great cultural icons.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #3  
Old Posted Mar 15, 2008, 3:49 AM
the dude the dude is offline
Closed account
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 1,812
i'm so used to people crapping on my town that this piece almost comes across as flattering. somewhere in the article there was a veiled compliment, i'm sure of it.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #4  
Old Posted Mar 15, 2008, 3:41 PM
HAMRetrofit's Avatar
HAMRetrofit HAMRetrofit is offline
Pro Urban Degenerate
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Toronto-Hamilton Mega Region
Posts: 839
Pompeii is a tourism mecca so guess it is a compliment or just bad journalism.
Reply With Quote
     
     
End
 
 
Reply

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Regional Sections > Canada > Ontario > Hamilton > General Discussion
Forum Jump


Thread Tools
Display Modes

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 12:31 PM.

     
SkyscraperPage.com - Archive - Privacy Statement - Top

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.