Downtown Canada

[lio45]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Not at all. Water Street bills itself as the oldest street in North America, which is surprisingly a slightly more credible claim than our general oldest city in North America one.

It used to be known as Lower Path, and Duckworth Street as Upper Path. The eastern sections of both were straightened at some point, I believe after the Great Fire of 1892. But otherwise it's pretty much as it's been.

If there was a La Défense style cluster of newer glass towers somewhere beyond Empire Ave, you guys would still call downtown St. John's downtown St. John's, right? I think I know what the point of this thread is but I would have asked the question somewhat differently

[GernB]

Lethbridge's downtown started out near the crest of the coulees, gradually moving eastward through the 20th century as the original downtown decayed. This movement was arrested and reversed somewhat with the opening of Lethbridge Centre and the provincial courthouse in the mid 70s, but was slowed by the coming of Park Place in the mid 80s. This older section of the downtown has only recently fully recovered from that godawful mistake, and the downtown now covers an area from the coulee crest to Stafford Drive, and from 1st Avenue S. to 6th Avenue S.

[KnoxfordGuy]

Fredericton has been the same since 1784 lol. But that's to be expected in a small city.

[matt602]

Hamilton's core has pretty much always been centered on King and James (the Gore district) and remains that way today. Toronto's I feel has kinda shifted Northwest from it's original location. Toronto, being a gigantic city, also has tons of uptowns and mini-downtowns so it can be a lot harder to define.

[someone123]

Halifax's downtown has always been drifting uphill and south, and changed suddenly in the 1960's and 70's due to urban renewal projects. As a result of this, different parts of downtown have architecture from distinct historical periods.

In the 1700's, commercial activity was concentrated around Lower Water Street. This was "downtown Halifax" circa 1750-1840:


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By the 1850's, the nicest retail area was along Granville Street, two blocks farther up. These buildings are from that era:


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Then from around 1870-1900, the biggest retailers moved to Barrington Street, which ended up as a mix of mostly Victorian and early 20th century buildings:


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In 1960, Barrington was the busiest street and Gottingen was perhaps the second busiest area. By the 1990's, Spring Garden Road was the busiest retail area and Barrington was quite run down. Spring Garden Road evolved from a neighbourhood with a small main street in the 1970's into a state where it is just as built up as the older parts of downtown, but with a much higher population density. What happened to Barrington is similar to what happened to Yonge Street in Toronto, while the worst part of Gottingen reminds me of Hastings in Vancouver.

These days every part of inner city Halifax is gentrifying, and boundaries of the downtown area are getting fuzzier. I expect that some of the biggest developments will end up in outer areas of the urban core in the future because of height limits and limited available land in more central areas.

[itom 987]

The Ice District is making Edmonton's downtown move north.

[Andy6]

Nice picture of an “Information Canada” bookstore in that last Halifax shot. That’s a real 1970s Trudeau-era throwback!

[speedog]

Originally Posted by Boris2k7

Calgary's downtown moved about 2 km northwest from Inglewood (then East Calgary), which was our de facto downtown from roughly 1875 to 1886, when a fire ravaged the community. This fire was the same one that made the city introduce ordinances which forced the use of our naturally abundant sandstone in big buildings. Settlement started east of the Elbow River because the land on the opposite site (including, of course, Fort Calgary), was originally reserved for the government. The coming of the railway changed all that.

The 1886 fires actually occurred where the current downtown is - Calgary was never incorporated until 1884 and at that time it's downtown was already where it currently is. Yes, the settlement of Calgary was originally east of the Elbow River in what is now called Inglewood but when Calgary officially became a place it was situated where downtown now is.

[1ajs]

Originally Posted by esquire

I always thought of Winnipeg as having two downtowns... there is the old original downtown consisting of Portage and Main at the south end, the CP station at the north and the stretch of north Main (around City Hall) being at the core of it.

Then over the years the old Hudson's Bay Reserve SW of P&M really became the heart of downtown. That was especially the case once Eaton's and then later The Bay and a bunch of other retailers set up shop around there.

Here's a map of downtown... the red circle is a rough estimation of 'old downtown' while the green circle represents the new.

When you go to the 'old downtown' there is very little new commercial development. Anything built in the last 75 years is mostly publicly funded with the exception of the Portage and Main skyscrapers, although there are a lot of commercial functions occupying those older buildings.

no it started by the fort. the cpr station did creat another buisnes distrcit to rise up from the pointdouglas area that was sorta there already and grew towards the fort
the are by the fort was where the more wealthy folks settled had more demolition and replacement wheres the north part was where the imigrints went and settled so theres an older building stock up there mixed in with industrial

[esquire]

^ Fair enough, I suppose I should have stretched the red oval a bit further down along Main Street toward Broadway.

[ue]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Edmonton is about the same give or take since 101st/Jasper was more or less always the centre of the modern city.

Wrong. The land that is now downtown Edmonton was originally apart of the Hudson's Bay Company reserve and the original townsite for Edmonton was at Jasper Ave east of 97th. The Quarters was the original heart, and as the reserve land was bought, the downtown shifted west to where it now rests, at 101st and Jasper.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by esquire

OT, but downtown Winnipeg has one of the most interesting street layouts in North America.

Strict grids are considered holy by people who misinterpret Jane Jacobs, but they're kind of boring, since they don't allow for view termini, or interesting wedge-shaped buildings, or triangular public squares.

They're also not that great for walkability. You have to make a bunch of zig zags to get to your destination and have to look for traffic from all 4 sides, as opposed to just 2 or 3.

[esquire]

^ I like our street layout, but the one big knock on it is that the blocks south of Portage Avenue are way too long. I don't know what they were thinking when they laid them out 125 or so years ago, but it would have been much better had they been 2/3 as long. The older parts north of Portage are at a much more human scale.

[manny_santos]

London's has moved further north over time, IMO. Historically downtown was Dundas Street, with the main intersection being at Richmond, back when that corner had Simpson's, and much other retail. Today it's more Richmond Street, but north of Dundas going to at least the CP tracks. That's where you have Victoria Park and Richmond Row.

A downtown that hasn't really moved at all is Kingston.

[riverviewer]

Moncton's downtown covers almost all of the original town from 1881. It has shifted south to the waterfront and has built over the original dockyards and rail yards.


from Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library. No restrictions.

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ I like our street layout, but the one big knock on it is that the blocks south of Portage Avenue are way too long. I don't know what they were thinking when they laid them out 125 or so years ago, but it would have been much better had they been 2/3 as long. The older parts north of Portage are at a much more human scale.

We have the same problem in the City of North Van, which is one of the older parts of Vancouver at also around 125 years old. I bought when I didn't own a car and before Google Maps and thought three blocks to the seabus sounded great, but it's actually a 20 minute walk because the blocks are three times the size of Vancouver blocks.

These days they're doing mega-wide condos that span the entire mega-blocks. This is one connected building made to look like several:

[megadude]

This is not historical, and it's not really shifting as it's being created from scratch, but Downtown Markham will be an official thing now.

Previously, you'd probably consider Old Markham along Markham Rd/Hwy 48 to be Downtown Markham as it most resembles what a small city's downtown would look like. Unionville has similar aspects but is smaller and seems too posh to be a downtown.


Sean Marhsall on Flikr.


http://blog.lokafy.com/visit-historical-unionville/



This is what Downtown Markham will be like. Right now maybe 1/3 of it at most is built.


http://www.downtownmarkham.ca/about

[megadude]

Just like Markham, nearby Vaughan was also an amalgamation of small towns and there never ended up being a Downtown Vaughan. By default you could say it was Old Woodbridge.


https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/562598178428959777/


This will be the new Downtown Vaughan aka Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (rendering obviously). New Subway extension just opened there.


City of Vaughan

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by megadude

This will be the new Downtown Vaughan aka Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (rendering obviously). New Subway extension just opened there.

That's a shame about the giant highway running right through the middle of it. I looked at that rendering and shuddered. Ugh, those are killers for downtowns.

[megadude]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

That's a shame about the giant highway running right through the middle of it. I looked at that rendering and shuddered. Ugh, those are killers for downtowns.

I'm also not a fan of that.

Modelled after Buenos Aires? Though these are shorter historic buildings.


Getty Images