Hollis and Salter, 1915

[someone123]

From the McCord museum, http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/. On the left is currently a parking garage and then the empty United Gulf site. On the right are the Ralston Building and Bank of Canada Building, with small parking structures on either side. The two larger buildings in the photo on the right side are the Queen Hotel and Halifax Hotel, which I believe dated to 1830 or so and the establishment of the first steamship lines.



I also had an interesting photo of North Street before the construction of the MacDonald bridge but I can't seem to find it. If I do I'll post it.

Another photo I'm looking for is one of Sackville Street below Hollis. I think there used to be 5-6 storey Victorians there and they may have been demolished as recently as the late 1980s, although I have no idea what shape they were in back then. Bedford Row would look a lot nicer if those buildings and the Custom House were still around.

A photograph of the original Cunard offices would be interesting as well. I think they were a 3-4 storey stone building constructed around 1830.

Liverpool still has its Cunard Building:

(from http://www.webbaviation.co.uk/).

[skyscraper_1]

It is a shame Halifax lost so much. That being said. What is gone is gone and hight restrictions + short red brick buildings cannot replace it.

[someone123]

Here are a couple of other old photos I like.

First is Brunswick Street near Cornwallis in the 1890s.. I didn't realise the Alexandra School was this nice:


Second is the view from St. Mary's. The large house I believe was called Bellevue or something similar, was built in the 1790s.. it must have been the nicest in town until Government House went up:


Both are from the NS Archives' Notman collection: http://www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/notman/

I find it strange looking at these 19th century photos compared to those taken in the 1920s-50s. Halifax was a little smaller but it looked much, much more prosperous, especially in the 1860s. I am used to thinking that cities grow and improve over time. Halifax really stagnated up until WWII or arguably the 1930s (it still was not growing much then but was doing better than many other places).

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by someone123

The two larger buildings in the photo on the right side are the Queen Hotel and Halifax Hotel, which I believe dated to 1830 or so and the establishment of the first steamship lines.

The hotel was destroyed in a devastating fire in 1939 which was Halifax's worst fire disaster ever (28 dead, 18 injured).



From NSARM:

The Halifax Daily Star ran this photograph on 3 March 1939 with the caption:

The above picture presents a general view of what is left of the Queen Hotel on Hollis Street, which was levelled by fire yesterday morning.... Note where the hotel wall has collapsed, barely missing one of two automobiles that never will be claimed. Their owners are among the missing. Great difficulty was met by firemen attempting to raise the giant aerial tower and ladder in the foreground.

A judicial inquiry concluded:

"There was a scarcity of ladders of sufficient length to reach to the upper floors of the building.... [The] aerial ladder is twenty years old, and from the evidence of the firemen and the Chief of the Department, it is apparent that the ladder is unsafe. It cannot be utilized to complete extent. Men using this ladder are warned by the Chief of the Fire Department that they do so at their own risk.... The presence of overhead live wires, combined with the failure to provide the Fire Department with more efficient, up-to-date and speedy wire cutting apparatus, greatly hampered the fire fighters during this fire, and interfered with the work of rescue of occupants of the hotel."

In some ways it is interesting because that same general attitude of "oh, it's good enough for Halifax, because we can't afford to do it the right way" still prevails in many civic activities.