| |
Posted Aug 23, 2016, 6:36 PM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 3,728
|
|
Every building tells a story, even the bad ones
(Hamilton Spectator, Paul Wilson, Aug 23 2016)
I walked past 193 King West the other day. It's on the dreary south side of the block between Bay and Caroline.
Most of that stretch is parking lot now, but somehow No. 193 still stands. It's a sad-sack structure and for some years has been the headquarters of Metro Financial Planning.
If that company sounds familiar, it's because of president Dinesh (Dennis) Khanna. He's been in the news recently after being charged with sexual assault and extortion.
His Metro sign is down now, and the door is locked. But for one more week, tenant Sylvia — no last name, please — lives upstairs. She got tired of having to hound Khanna for maintenance.
"You're about the fifth person to come knocking," Sylvia says.
People want to buy this place. Probably knock it down.
I stop by the library and check some city directories. Go back 125 years, and you see that George J. Walker, herbalist, did business at No. 193. At that time — we're talking 1891, before the car had us knocking down buildings for parking lots — that block was home to the following professions: druggist, doctor, cabinet maker, bookkeeper, engineer, plumber, cooper, gilder, pork curer.
One hundred years ago, Robert Corner, shoemaker, had a shop at No. 193 and lived on the premises. Seventy-five years ago, John Smith, upholsterer, was there with wife Rose. Fifty years ago, Hamilton Rent-A-Car. And sometime since then, Mr. Khanna moved in. His days there may now be numbered.
All this library research is getting me hungry. Time for one of those hefty $5 turkey sandwiches at Ola Bakery on James North. And I know the walk there will take me right past another of this city's finest eyesores.
So here we are, gazing at the derelict facade of 135 James North. In the early 1890s, tobacco baron George Tuckett put up a fine brick building here. But it was destroyed in a fire.
And in 1961 we got what stands today, an odd glass and metal box that's been looking for love a long time.
Maybe it shone when it was the M-K Furniture Company. The letters are still there, set in the walk at the front door. That was Kay Kynl, who lived with husband Michael in a fine home at Bay and Herkimer.
By the 1980s, the BiWay discount chain had moved into No. 135. It was still there in the '90s, but the doors to that building have been closed for years.
As I drink in the sight, a guy stops and says, "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy this building. It's got potential."
He is Sean Gratton, and his business card says Actor, Musician, Philosopher, Agent.
He declares there is beauty here.
"It's something about how much glass there is," he says. "The bars on the windows have to go. They say, 'Stay out.' But all that glass says there's nothing to hide."
There's a For Lease sign on the building and I call agent Manvir Deol. He's with Century 21's Mississauga office.
"But I am aware of what's going on down there."
Some renovations are contemplated, Deol says. He figures that if and when that work is done, this 7,000 square-foot building could command a rent of about $10,000 a month.
"But nothing's set in stone."
With all the good things happening on James North, this building is a conspicuous blight. Maybe the street would be better off if someone more motivated bought the place.
That won't be happening, agent Deol advises. He says his client is a "very wealthy" man named Steven Chang and that he's turned down offers of $3.5 million and more for the property.
"He's not interested in selling in our lifetime."
__________________
"Where architectural imagination is absent, the case is hopeless." - Louis Sullivan
|
|
|
Prev
Linear Mode
