Post some pictures of your city! II

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by someone123

... it's hard to infer what the original patterns were like in many areas.

...

It is somewhat like a north-south artery in Toronto.

I think Quinpool is one of the most substantial neighbourhood arteries outside of the largest Canadian cities. It is not glamourous and there isn't much reason for tourists to go there. But it has things like an urban format full-sized grocery store and Canadian Tire, and is getting 4 towers over 25 floors or so.

Beautifully said.

[SignalHillHiker]

Didn't realize I was starting a new page - oops. Bumping this.

Originally Posted by zoomer

Some people are into bird watching, but I think just as many are into ship watching in Victoria with ships from all over the world passing by Victoria on their way to Vancouver and Seattle ports. And of course the US and Canadian navies.

Now here’s an unusual one, pictured here currently anchored off Victoria:

810_8628 by Mile Zero Photography, on Flickr

According to this article the “super-massive semi-submersible cargo ship which is on its way through to the coast of mainland BC. This unique ship, the Hua Rui Long, flies the Chinese flag and has been in operation since 2022. It is used to carry huge loads of oblong equipment and salvage on the 252-metre-long vessel.

It belongs to the Guangzhou Salvage fleet who are currently trying to expand their fleet of similar heavy load carriers.”

252 metres is insanely big. I would assume the Canadian government is well aware of these types of ships and keeps an eye on them, I mean it’s literally anchored right beside the west coast Canadian naval fleet. What’s to stop them from dropping a tiny submersible and mapping the sea floor in great detail? I mean we have a few submarines at that base, how operational they are at any time is another question, but I’m sure they have sensitive listening equipment as well.

The article goes on to say that the harbour authority does not know the specifics of its cargo or final destination.

That article has some good photos (linked to Instagram so I can’t share them here) of it submerged off of Victoria, but here’s another picture of what that looks like:



Source

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Quinpool was the main street for Halifax? I may not have been alive for most of the city's existence but I'm pretty sure I'd have heard something about that. Sure you're not thinking of Gottingen? It was kind of the main drag for awhile.

I have heard the Gottingen thing a lot and it used to be busy and had a lot of major retailers of which little to no evidence survives. But I think it was always lower end. Halifax didn't really have a traditional North American main street, but the prime retail area shifted from Hollis (1750) to Granville (1850) to Barrington (1890) to Spring Garden Road (circa 1980's). SGR now has the highest rents.

[whatnext]

Vancouver.

[IMG]IMG_6252 by bcborn, on Flickr[/IMG]

Isn't there something in the Bible about not being able to serve God and Mammon?

[IMG]IMG_6256 by bcborn, on Flickr[/IMG]

my photos

[MolsonExport]

[zoomer]

/\ yah, good one! Funny how we worry about close calls with Chinese jets off Asia in international airspace but here we have this behemoth sitting within spitting distance of CFB Esquimalt. Not saying they’re actually doing anything wrong though..

Ok, last of the Victoria summer photos with the beginning of Autumn. Let’s get this thread rolling again people!



Ogden Point - September 8, 2023. 11:00 a.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Oswego Video - Friday, September 8, 2023. 11:44 a.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



1835 Fernwood Road, Victoria BC. Sunday, September 10, 2023. 2:40 p.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Knowledge Totem - Victoria BC. Friday September 8, 2023 - 11:58 a.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

You’ll have to look closely but there is also a baby deer in this pic..



Willows Beach, Victoria. Blue Heron and Baby Deer, Sept 8, 2023. 10:05 a.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Willows Beach - September 13, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Wharf and Johnson Street, Victoria BC. October 3, 2023, 2:37 p.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

Canucks Training Camp in Victoria



Vancouver Canucks Training Camp - September 21, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



September 24, 2023 - Rockland Neighbourhood, Victoria BC by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Government St - September 30, 2023. 6:10 p.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Langley and Broughton Street, September 30, 2023, 5:53 p.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Douglas Street - September 30, 2023. 6:15 p.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Strathcona Hotel, September 30, 2023. 6:19 p.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Yellow Cab #40 - September 30, 2023 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Custom House - September 30, 2023. 5:51 p.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Victoria BC, October 3, 2023. 2:22 p.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Victoria BC, October 3, 2023. 2:34 p.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Lower Johnson Street, Victoria BC, October 3, 2023. 2:37 p.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Johnson Street, Victoria BC. October 3, 2023. 2:38 p.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Ross Bay, Victoria. October 5, 2023. 3:38 p.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Little Ross Bay Beach - Victoria, October 11, 2023 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Cactus House - Victoria BC by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Dallas Road Beach, October 13, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



St. Charles Street Halloween Decorations - Victoria, October 14, 2023 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Red VW Van in Victoria BC, October 14, 2023 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Rockland Home - Saturday October 14, 2023. 1:57 p.m. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

Here’s the nearly completed The Pearl condo building, only four stories at the Store Street level but it slopes down as it reaches the harbour as you can see in the following back side photo from the Johnson Street bridge. The other side also has units flaring out to give them harbour views/glimpses, lol. It’s looking a bit sterile now but one people move in and fill up the balconies it’ll be good.



The Janion and nearly completed Pearl building - October 15, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



L-R: Mermaid Wharf, The Pearl and The Janion. Sunday, October 15, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Victoria BC Chinatown, October 15, 2023 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Chinatown, Victoria. Sunday, October 15, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Victoria BC Chinatown, October 15, 2023 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Victoria BC, Chinatown, Sunday October 15, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Victoria BC, Chinatown, Sunday October 15, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Victoria Chinatown, Sunday October 15, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Entrance To Fan Tan Alley, Victoria BC. Sunday, October 15, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



Detail - Parliament Buildings, Victoria BC. October 15, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

[Echoes]

Your Victoria sets are unrivaled!

[giallo]

Such solid vibes in Victoria. It's an unbelievably cozy city.

This right here is so identifiable to me. These 1940s houses that contain a grocery store or, in this case, a video shop are ubiquitous to Vancouver and Victoria. I don't why, but I love them.

[zoomer]

Thank you Echoes and Giallo!

I love those house/corner stores too - although it seems here in Victoria that a lot of them are now mini vintage furniture or high end household good stores. Come to think of it, I’ve seen that in Vancouver as well.

Check out this Flickr account, it has a lot of original 1970’s photos of retail, strip malls, grocery stores, corner stores and retail in Vancouver. Unfortunately his photos can’t be embedded but worth checking out the link to see these beauties:

https://flic.kr/p/f8A5jW

https://flic.kr/p/2mXCgzn

[whatnext]

Science World and False Creek, seen from Olympic Village:

[IMG]IMG_6763 by bcborn, on Flickr[/IMG]
my photo

[hipster duck]

Victoria is a gem. It came of age at the same time as San Francisco, and might be one of the best preserved examples of that gilded Victorian, west coast, timber baron era of architecture - and one that never partially burned down as a result of an earthquake.

But as great as downtown Victoria's commercial buildings are, why are the residential buildings from that same era so mundane?

As far as I remember, there's no residential neighbourhood in Victoria that has homes that look like this:



or even this:

[kool maudit]

On the second one at least, you might be on the wrong coast, because Halifax can more or less put that together.

[phone]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

On the second one at least, you might be on the wrong coast, because Halifax can more or less put that together.

Two of those links are to the same house Looks not far off from older parts of southern Ontario and Quebec.

[someone123]

There are hundreds of houses like that in Halifax although they're scattered around. There are probably a lot more that used to look more like this but have been stripped down. They are mostly from 1870-1900 or so. Houses from before 1870 tend to be more or less Georgian looking with simpler styling, and there are different "branches" of architecture with one being a Scottish style (five-sided dormer) that looks pretty different. The simplest style is a basic working class housing that just looks like a box, sometimes with a little ornamentation. Some of the circa 1900 versions of these houses are nice, but they dropped the ornate Victorian ornamentation.

I don't find they look much like Ontario and Quebec housing. It depends on how detailed you want to get; they all have walls and roofs. If you were to create a taxonomy of pre-WW2 North American housing though they'd be fairly distinct while a huge amount of early 1900's detached housing around the continent would be virtually identical (often the same plans or kits).

[zoomer]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Victoria is a gem. It came of age at the same time as San Francisco, and might be one of the best preserved examples of that gilded Victorian, west coast, timber baron era of architecture - and one that never partially burned down as a result of an earthquake.

But as great as downtown Victoria's commercial buildings are, why are the residential buildings from that same era so mundane?

As far as I remember, there's no residential neighbourhood in Victoria that has homes that look like this:

If you're driving from the airport on the highway straight into downtown you won't see a lot of houses like that, but they are everywhere on the outskirts of downtown, along with the neighbourhoods surrounding downtown such as Fernwood, James Bay, Fairfield and Esquimalt.

Victoria and San Francisco have a deep connection through the gold rush, but one took off and became a massive global city of great importance and the other is just fine being a small duck in a small pond.

I'll post just a few examples instead of the hundreds I have. Hmm..actually I'll need to do a walking tour to update my photos from mainly cell phone to the proper camera I'm mostly using now. Best to wait until later in the fall when the leaves are gone so you can see the houses better. Most of the photos I've previously posted here are downtown as that's what most people here are interested in. My mission here to dispel myths, the first that downtown ends abruptly and is surrounded by boring single family homes (see final picture) and that that there isn't a large historical stock of homes or neighbourhoods that are primarily historical in nature.

Fort at Ormond Street - October 21, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

1 Cook Street. March 6, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

Mount St. Angela - Victoria BC, November 28, 2022 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

1124 Fort Street, Victoria BC. October 17, 2022 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

Stanley Ave - October 14, 2022 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

Craigdarroch by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

Historic Houses - Victoria BC by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

Apple Maps View Victoria BC - 2023 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

[someone123]

You can see the San Francisco influence in Victoria's architecture. There is a bit more there than in Vancouver, and Victoria existed a bit longer in that interim period when there was steamship travel to BC but no rail link in Canada.

I think a lot of this comes down to the era of construction, with the peak ornamentation being the 1880's (Vancouver has far more construction from 1900-1920). It also depends a lot on preservation, maintenance, and restoration, and San Francisco is a wealthy city with high land values and a lot of neighbourhoods where there isn't much construction. Victoria has a lot of postwar walkups in the inner city areas, like Vancouver. In that 1880's period there was already some standardization in architecture around the continent.

One difference is on the West Coast you see more clapboard style siding while in Atlantic Canada you tend to see shakes or shingles.

[someone123]

Not sure whether to file this under construction or photos but I saw a nice aerial view of an interesting development site in Halifax. One of the many parts of town that has potential but is compromised one way or another due to weird planning decisions and a lack of coordination:


Source

This is for the yellow wooden building fronting onto the park. It's not a big project but it's one of the more interesting ones to me:


Source

They demolished the rear portion of the building and are moving it out to the corner. Not sure how they will accomplish the move. Hopefully nothing goes wrong:


Source

Another house collapsed when the developer was trying to move it to make room for a highrise: https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/gover...lopment-plans/

That Carlton/Robie area is another part of the city with Victorian "painted ladies". There are a lot of nice ones around Dalhousie but there's a strong divide between expensive, well-maintained mostly privately-owned properties and largely dreary vinyl-clad student rentals. You could make a large thread out of historic vinyl-clad buildings in Halifax going back to the 1700's.

An old "filler" building demolished in the 90's (and link to post about the southern end of Barrington with photos from the 70's). Not Grand Central but this was repeated over and over around that area:


https://halifaxbloggers.ca/noticedin...-street-south/

I believe a portion of the allied naval command for the North Atlantic was run out of that building during WW2. The Henry House next door is still there and is an architectural gem.

What used to be on the site with the midrise building with salmon-coloured simulated brick panels next to the yellow apartment building?


https://halifaxbloggers.ca/noticedin...to-the-future/

[zoomer]

/\ nice summation of the difference between Victoria and Vancouver architectural history someone123.

What’s the large dark red brick building in your first picture? Looks like it’s had several additions over the years and the bottom is really trippy looking as it looks like a reflection on water, but it’s not.

Do you know why the yellow building will be repainted green? As for vinyl siding, unfortunately there are a number of historic brick buildings in Victoria buried under a layer of stucco.

[Rico Rommheim]

Something about Victoria that reminds me of Kingston Ontario. That type of quiet victorian anglo vibe.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by zoomer

What’s the large dark red brick building in your first picture? Looks like it’s had several additions over the years and the bottom is really trippy looking as it looks like a reflection on water, but it’s not.

I think you are referring to the Westin Nova Scotian, a railway hotel built by CN.

Do you know why the yellow building will be repainted green? As for vinyl siding, unfortunately there are a number of historic brick buildings in Victoria buried under a layer of stucco.

I don't know but often the choices like that are just illustrative and change.