Old Halifax

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

I remember that applique on the windows. I think it went away when Tim Horton's went in there.

It's quite possible that I just didn't pay attention to it when it was there, but now it's conspicuous by its absence.

I find it interesting that the Vogue Optical Building across the street apparently also had a much more interesting window treatment than it does now:

It must have been added sometime in the sixties as it's not present in the earlier photos.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by someone123

You can see a lot of detailing on the Tramway Building that isn't present anymore. There was also some kind of addition or separate building next door that looked interesting.

The Tramway Building is, architecturally, pretty unique in Halifax. I hope it gets restored. Theoretically that's what should happen since it's more than a century old and is in the middle of a heritage district..

Yes, it's startling how much detail has been lost over the years - I'm guessing it was removed due to crumbling/deterioration of the facing? Adding the brickwork at the bottom didn't really do it any favours either, as it doesn't match the rest of the building and tends to minimize its significance as an early concrete structure.




I agree that it would be a good candidate for restoration. Hopefully it happens.

[ILoveHalifax]

I do remember the decoration on the Canada Trust building - I also remember the lot on the corner of Argyle with the bill boards and the old fence around the lot - My grandfather used to work at the Herald so would have visited in the area when I was young - Amazing how things change without anybody noticing. Interesting to see the old Rosedale Flower Shop - I was told by an owner years ago how on New Years Eve there would be a line out their door and around the corner for men picking up corsage - Again how things change - Most shops don't sell many corsages for New Years these days

[Ziobrop]

Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax

I do remember the decoration on the Canada Trust building - I also remember the lot on the corner of Argyle with the bill boards and the old fence around the lot - My grandfather used to work at the Herald so would have visited in the area when I was young - Amazing how things change without anybody noticing. Interesting to see the old Rosedale Flower Shop - I was told by an owner years ago how on New Years Eve there would be a line out their door and around the corner for men picking up corsage - Again how things change - Most shops don't sell many corsages for New Years these days

this building has a restoration coming - i dont know all the details, but they got some heritage funding from the city to restore it to its original apperance and i was contacted by an architect wondering what my source of the original drawings was.

[eastcoastal]

Originally Posted by Ziobrop

this building has a restoration coming - i dont know all the details, but they got some heritage funding from the city to restore it to its original apperance and i was contacted by an architect wondering what my source of the original drawings was.

I'm happy to hear this - A significant example of early curtainwall construction in Atlantic Canada. Steven Malnell, who used to be Director (?) or Dean (?) of Dalhousie University School of Architecture wrote a book called "Atlantic Modern" that I seem to recall includes this building. He's with Dal's College of Sustainability now, I believe, and is one of the leaders of the DOCOMOMO (DOcumentation and COnservation of the MOdern MOvement) in Atlantic Canada. No doubt he'd be a valuable resource.

[Keith P.]

Here's a picture I had not seen before, of the Dominion Public Building (the old Post Office) on Bedford Row under construction, with the Customs House in the background and the present Art Gallery of NS building of the left. The Provincial Building is also under construction on the near left.

Photo posted by Jeannie Langley on Facebook.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Wow! Fascinating shot, Keith. A window of time not easily found in old photographs.

You can still see the remnants of the Military Fuel Yard that the Dominion Public Building was built on (see map below).



https://novascotia.ca/archives/maps/archives.asp?ID=32

Just in front of the Customs House you can see the Commissariat Office still standing:


https://novascotia.ca/archives/Royal...ives.asp?ID=40

Additionally, it looks like the whole block of buildings (to the right in the photo below) has been torn down.



https://novascotia.ca/archives/Notma...ves.asp?ID=923

This would be the location of the second AGNS building (Provincial Building) at 1723 Hollis St. I haven't been able to find a build date for it, but presumably it was around the same time frame.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by someone123

If you look closely at Victorian houses around Halifax, masonry construction above the foundation is pretty common. I think there are a lot of houses that have wooden cladding on top of brick (I've read that the more colourful painted wood siding was in fashion back then, but I don't remember the source). There are also a lot of masonry buildings that were covered in siding in recent decades. There are also many rowhouses that are stucco on brick.

I like to point out buildings like this one: https://www.google.ca/maps/@44.63565...2!8i6656?hl=en

Note the brick around the doorway. I'm guessing this one is mostly or entirely masonry construction.

You are right! I stumbled upon some photos from the sixties on the Municipal Archives site that show parts of that building and it does appear that it was of masonry construction.

I believe it is on the right in this photo apparently taken from Victoria looking towards Inglis:


And a little bit of it on the right in this shot - can't tell for sure but it almost looks like it has been stuccoed over the brick. You can see the entrance to 5429 Inglis just ahead:


Source - search for "[5429] Inglis St."

[JET]

That's a very neat map, there's a spot on Sackville between Argyle and Barrington called "stone yard'; what a neat name for a restaurant or bar.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Here's a picture I had not seen before, of the Dominion Public Building (the old Post Office) on Bedford Row under construction, with the Customs House in the background and the present Art Gallery of NS building of the left. The Provincial Building is also under construction on the near left.

Photo posted by Jeannie Langley on Facebook.

Very interesting. It is interesting seeing the 1930's era trucks working away.

If only they could have kept the Customs House, which was torn down about 25 years after this picture would have been taken.

[OldDartmouthMark]

A couple of weeks ago I posted on The Maple thread some pics of the building that used to occupy the corner of Sackville and Hollis Streets before it became the location of a parking lot for many years prior to construction of The Maple. The pics are from the Municipal Archives site and appear to have been taken in the late 1970s/early 1980s time frame. Anecdotally the building was torn down in the late 1980s/early 1990s - I don't remember for certain.









Source

Next to it was the Bank of Canada Building, which was built in the 1950s and torn down in 2013 to facilitate construction of The Maple.

http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/bus...tart-with-bang



https://www.google.ca/maps/@44.64645...7i13312!8i6656

In rereading some of The Maple thread I was reminded of the Queen Hotel, which was previously located at the Bank Of Canada site until it burned down on March 2, 1939, during which 28 people died and many more were injured.

There's info posted about it on the Halifax Municipal Archives site:
https://www.halifax.ca/archives/QueenHotelFire.php.

It was a horrible tragedy which brought to light unacceptable lapses in building codes and inspections, and eventually led to changes in an attempt to avoid such senseless loss of life due to fire in the future. It also brings to light how susceptible these old buildings were to fire - one of the points that strikes me as I peruse the archives sites is how many buildings (and lives) were lost to fire back in the day and how much better our fire codes are now.

A little further research led me to the Report of the Royal Commission on the Queen Hotel Fire. It's a fairly interesting read (though sad, considering the lives lost) and gives a good idea of the situations with buildings at the time. I get the impression that the Queen Hotel (and Halifax Hotel a few doors down) were nice hotels in the 1800s and early 1900s but had become somewhat neglected and run down by the 1930s.

Report of Royal Commission on Queen Hotel Fire

Also, both the Municipal archives and the NS archives have photos online of before and after the disaster:

From 1887:

https://novascotia.ca/archives/Notma...ves.asp?ID=493

Also from 1887, looking northeast from the Halifax Hotel with the Queen Hotel in the background:

https://novascotia.ca/archives/Notma...ves.asp?ID=495

Interior shots of the Queen Hotel from the late 1800s:

https://novascotia.ca/archives/Notma...ves.asp?ID=330


https://novascotia.ca/archives/Notma...ves.asp?ID=331


https://novascotia.ca/archives/Notma...ves.asp?ID=332


https://novascotia.ca/archives/Notma...ves.asp?ID=333

A photo from a 1924 postcard set from the Municipal Archives which shows the newer section of the Queen Hotel (built around 1908, I believe).

http://gencat1.eloquent-systems.com/webcat/request/DoMenuRequest?SystemName=Halifax+Regional+Municipality+Archives&UserName=WA+Public&Password=&TemplateProcessID=6000_20185_20185&CMD_(SearchRequest)[11]=&PromptID=&ParamID=&RequesterType=SearchTemplate&browseData=1&Keyword=0&SearchLogic=%26Logic%3D%26S1%3DPOI1_1225%261POI1_1225%3D827

Post-fire photos from the Municipal Archives:










And from the NS archives:

https://novascotia.ca/archives/EastC...ives.asp?ID=37


https://novascotia.ca/archives/EastC...ives.asp?ID=38


https://novascotia.ca/archives/EastC...ives.asp?ID=39


https://novascotia.ca/archives/EastC...ives.asp?ID=40

Additionally, I found this stock footage of the post-fire conditions:
http://footage.framepool.com/en/shot...rescuing-human

http://footage.framepool.com/en/shot...rescuing-human

...and a blog about the pumper that was used to fight the fire:
http://truckfax.blogspot.ca/2014/06/...station-2.html

There are other bits of historical information online about the fire, including information on a couple of the victims:

Cuthbert and Henrietta Willis, twins, born on Nov. 29, 1866, Petitcodiac, New Brunswick. Henrietta Willis and her husband Adolphus Naftel, a retired law clerk, died on March 2, 1939 in Halifax’s Queen Hotel fire. Their death certificates said they were “caught in the burning building”.

http://queenscountytimes.ca/A-Z/html/j__w__willis.html

A paper in Stanford California:

Halifax Fire Takes High Death Toll

HALIFAX. N.S., March 2 (UP).— Fire fanned by a 26-mile wind destroyed the Queen Hotel and two olher buildings today, aamaged a fourth and left scores of persons dead or injured. After the flames had burned themselves out, leaving the old wooden hotel a smoldering skeleton, authorities said that 21 persons were believed dead, 25 injured and 45 missing. At least 26 were rescued.

http://stanforddailyarchive.com/cgi-...390303-01.2.10

There was even mention in an Australian newspaper:

DEATH FÏRE ARREST
Halifax (Nova Scotia), March 4.
An hotel employee has been ar-
rested for questioning in connection
with the fire which destroyed the
Queen's Hotel, with tne loss of 21
lives.
Forty-eight people who are
thought to have been staying at the
hotel are missing.
All the occupants of the third and
fourth floor of the building were
burnt alive.
The fire 'spread into the .business
quarter of the city and did £200,000
worth of damage.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/49453951

These days, I can't help but think of this tragedy whenever I look at The Maple - it brings to mind how many stories are contained within the history of our city, and how many times I've walked or driven by the site without even knowing what happened there.

Stories like these have really helped to expand my perception of the city I've lived in all these years.

[fenwick16]

Great research OldDartmouthmark; it makes me want to back to early 1900's Halifax to see the old city, if only time machines existed.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

Great research OldDartmouthmark; it makes me want to back to early 1900's Halifax to see the old city, if only time machines existed.

Yeah, too bad they didn't have Google maps back then.

Would be interesting to be able to see it, but from what I've learned I don't think I would have wanted to live in that time period. Oh well, there's always the archives - the next best thing to seeing it in person.

[OldDartmouthMark]

I was looking through some of my old downloaded images and found this:



It is the building posted above when it was new, before the Queen Hotel fire (the building next to it looks like one of the buildings that was destroyed in the fire). I don't know the year, but I'm assuming it was in the 1920s or 30s due to the style of the building, the policeman's uniform, and the steel framework (which started in the late 1800s but became more popular in the early 20th century) that is mentioned in the caption.

Unfortunately, I don't have a source for the photo as it is one that someone123 had posted in this thread on Sep. 8, 2013 from the Vintage Halifax Facebook page, but the link supplied in that post no longer works. Hopefully it's OK to keep the image here, but I will remove it if it's a problem.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/arch...43037-p-3.html

someone123
Sep 8, 2013, 8:07 PM
A bunch of new photos have gone up on the Vintage Halifax page on Facebook.

This is Sackville and Hollis. I think it was torn down in the 80's -- too bad:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.n...88907351_n.jpg

King Edward Hotel, built by the North End train station and destroyed in the explosion:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.n...71335424_n.jpg

Moirs factory on Argyle Street:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.n...39229239_n.jpg

Sugar refinery, possibly Northwest Arm? There were a couple in the city circa 1900:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.n...27904122_n.jpg

Old city market and police offices circa 1960s. Seems a lot more interesting than the boring apartment building that replaced it, and less aggressively ugly than the 1980's-era police HQ:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.n...54989247_n.jpg

[fenwick16]

^^^ Based on the description it was a well crafted building (i.e. the Canadian General Electric Building), as was the Queen Hotel based on the interior photos (not the fire safety failings). I tend to think of soloon's in old western movies when I think of the late 1800's, but the Queen Hotel interior images show that there were some fine looking buildings back then. The construction of the Queen Hotel would have been prior to adoption of interior washrooms; I wonder if there was running water in the Queen Hotel?

In one of the pictures that you posted previously, there was a picture of a fireman standing on top of the Canadian General Electric Building

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Post-fire photos from the Municipal Archives:

[OldDartmouthMark]

I found this pic of the old Dartmouth Memorial Arena fire on the Chronicle Herald's facebook archives page. The location was the site currently occupied by the Dartmouth Sportsplex.



Caption:

May 17, 1974. Cutline: Building up in flames.The North Wall of Dartmouth’s Memorial Rink collapses during a spectacular fire that destroyed the building. Besides the rink, about $150,000 worth of Western Furniture Store’s annual sale stock was lost. The furniture was adequately insured. The rink was not.

Source:
https://www.facebook.com/thechronicl...type=3&theater

The building is visible in the upper area of this aerial shot from what appears to be the 1960s:


https://novascotia.ca/archives/NSIS/...es.asp?ID=2451

P.S. I was actually at the Bill Lynch fair that was set up on Nantucket (where the McDonald's currently resides) the day of the fire and can vividly remember the smoke and flames shooting from the roof. It was a huge fire as I recall.

[IanWatson]

Interesting to see how much of the Dartmouth Common has been lost. Also, any idea what that structure is on the skate-park site?

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

Also, any idea what that structure is on the skate-park site?

That was Park School.

[OldDartmouthMark]

^^^

It was an elementary school at least in the 1970s, not sure which age group previous to that. I believe it was torn down in the 1980s.

There are not a lot of good photos of it online, but here are a couple:

Here it is partially obscured by the fog behind a parade float:


https://novascotia.ca/archives/Conno...ves.asp?ID=615

This shot is undated, but looks like the 1970s or 80s:


http://www.classmates.com/places/sch...chool/18919001

Additionally, here's a demolition photo of the rear side that I have in my files, but I'm not sure of its origin (I believe it came from the city archives but cannot find it now on that site. I will remove it if requested as I am unsure of its source).

[Keith P.]

What school would kids who lived in the area served by Paek School attend now, I wonder?